New Albion & Drake's Plate of Brasse

Seeking safe harbor to recondition his ship, English explorer Francis Drake landed in a sheltered cove in what is now Marin County, Northern California, on June 17, 1579. While ashore, he claimed the area for his queen, naming it New Albion, an archaic name for Great Britain. On July 23rd he sailed away, across the Pacific Ocean and around Africa’s Cape of Good Hope. In 1580 he arrived back home, the first Englishman to circumvent the globe; and in 1581, he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth.

He left no colony behind at New Albion, but according to his nephew, he did leave something. The nephew, also named Francis Drake, wrote and published The World Encompassed by Sir Francis Drake in 1628, reciting material that may or may not be strictly accurate. Be that as it may, over the centuries a certain section created endless excitement among New World historians, namely: Drake left a plate of brass, firmly nailed to a post, engraved with his name, the date of his arrival, the queen’s name “and herr successors forever,” to the “whole land,” henceforth to be known to all as Nova Albion.

Francis Drake was 39 when he laid claim to New Albion, 190 years before Spain sent its padres to occupy Alta California. Born c. 1540, and raised by wealthy relatives, Drake began his seafaring career around age 18, soon gaining a reputation as an outstanding navigator. From the early 1560s on, he was involved in the slave trade in the Spanish-held Caribbean colonies and the West Indies. Then, calamity: in 1568, an attack by Spanish squadrons on the Mexican coast sank several English ships.

Swearing revenge, Captain Drake bought his own ship and set sail for the Caribbean. He became the most feared marauder on the seas, capturing and plundering Spanish settlements and vessels for treasure, and making a fortune. To the Spanish, a pirate; to the English, a hero, and such spectacular success came to the attention of the English crown. In 1572, Queen Elizabeth granted him a privateering commission. No longer a mere pirate (an outlaw highwayman who used the sea for thievery) now he was a privateer—a pirate with official papers—authorized by the government to carry out quasi-military activities against a rival country.

Determined to launch an expedition against the Spanish along the Pacific coast of the Americas, Drake sailed from England in December 1577 with a fleet of six ships. However, due to storms and other troubles, only his flagship Pelican entered the Pacific Ocean through the Straits of Magellan, renamed Golden Hind as it sailed up the coast of South America. In May, Drake continued north past the Baja peninsula; but now, he was seeking a safe site at which the crew could prepare for the journey back to England.  

So where was New Albion? Numerous speculative sites were investigated over the years, then definitive evidence was gathered in the 20th and 21st centuries that identified it with certainty: Indeed, Drake had landed in a cove in Drakes Estero (Spanish for a marshy estuary or inlet), off Drakes Bay near Point Reyes, now part of Point Reyes National Seashore. It was designated a National Historic Site in 2012, and a California Historical Landmark in 2021. 

And the brass plate? In April, 1937, Drake’s long-ago sojourn received new attention when the California Historical Society announced that a shop clerk had chanced to find a corroded metal plate, with unusual engravings and square holes for nails, like that described in 16th century narratives as the one Drake had nailed to a post at New Albion. Cleaned, inspected, and scientifically tested, some highly reputable historians, and venerable institutions, declared it was authentic. But others, equally knowledgeable and respected, remained skeptical.  

Years passed. New metallurgical tests ordered by skeptics, and other fresh-eyed scrutiny in the 1970s, proved that the metal was no older than the late 19th or early 20th centuries; further, the plate, though disfigured, was found to be suspiciously uniform in thickness. More investigations followed.

In fact, it was a hoax, but one that, due to unanticipated complications, had spun far out of control too quickly. A sequence of wholly unplanned events forced the participants behind a wall of secrecy, not only because admitting the plate was fraudulent would cause embarrassment to those who had once confirmed its authenticity, but from fear of potential financial liability, and irrevocable damages to illustrious careers, should their involvement be made public.

Finally, in 2003—when the major principals were no longer alive—it was publicly revealed that the bogus plate had been an elaborate practical joke perpetrated by high-ranking members of a fun-loving fraternal order against one of its own pompous (but eminent) members. Drake’s genuine 1579 Plate of Brasse, if it still exists, has yet to be found.