Sir Francis Drake’s ‘Fair and Good Bay’ was long thought to be in California. Now some experts point to Oregon

English explorer Sir Francis Drake sailed the Pacific in 1579, sacking Spanish galleons and stealing treasure, at least until his boat sprang a leak.

That’s when he found what he called a “Fair and Good Bay” in which to make repairs.

For years, Californians have claimed he landed on their shores. But a scholar at Portland State University says documents in the British Museum show the bay might well have been somewhere along the Oregon coast instead.

Whale Cove near Depoe Bay is a natural harbor with a protected little beach where a ship could be careened — that is, emptied and tipped sideways to expose the hull so sailors can pack gaps in the wooden planks with cotton and tar to stop leaks.

For decades there have been whispers that that’s exactly what Drake did in 1579.

“There are just these little pieces that seem like very tenuous threads,” said retired publisher Rick Beasley, who has heard all the tales.

“There’s a skiff or small boat that is buried in the sediment on the Salmon River,” he said. “There are ballast stones that are out there that divers have found.”

A boy is said to have found an old Spanish coin in his mum’s garden in Newport in 1948. But it was dated after Drake’s landing. Beeswax keeps washing up in the area too. But that’s from a Spanish galleon wrecked off Nehalem.

Exactly where Drake landed on the West Coast in 1579 has been hotly debated for decades. A Wikipedia page lists more than 40 possible locations, from Alaska to Mexico.

California has perhaps the biggest claim, based on findings of old pottery and other artifacts at Point Reyes. The National Park Service even named one area Drakes Bay.

But Melissa Darby, a research scholar in the anthropology department of Portland State University, says her reading of an old document in the British Museum indicates Drake likely landed in Oregon, not California.

The manuscript, from a collection known as the “Hakluyt manuscripts,” was written shortly after the voyage by Richard Hakluyt, one of the queen’s scribes.

“Scholars have been looking at it since the 1850s,” Darby said. “But they’ve been looking at a printed version that was published in 1855. And I went to England and looked at the manuscript itself.”

In her book “Thunder Go North,” Darby says the manuscript indicates Drake sailed as far as 48 degrees north latitude, then landed at 44 degrees for repairs. That puts him somewhere like Whale Cove, near Depoe Bay, instead of Point Reyes, California.

Marco Meniketti, a professor of archeology at San José State University, said people get quite animated about this issue.

“A lot of it has to do with bragging rights, ‘We were the first!’” Meniketti said.

Personally, Meniketti thinks Drake’s descriptions of local tribes match the coastal Miwok tribe in Point Reyes, but there’s room for debate.

“[The debate] is still alive because the evidence is not 100% bulletproof,” Meniketti said.

Drake Navigators Guild points out there are about 30 websites offering what it calls fringe and conspiracy theories on the location of the bay.

Claiming land around ‘Fair and Good Bay’

Back in 16th century England, one way to make a fortune was to gather a few friends together, build a ship and send it out to privateer — that is, steal from Spanish or French ships then divide the spoils with the English crown.

So it was in 1577 that a handful of the most powerful people in England sent Francis Drake out in the Golden Hind and four other ships to sail around South America into the Pacific Ocean.

The voyages proved unbelievably successful, mainly because the Spanish were not expecting English privateers in the Pacific.

“[The Spanish] were caught unawares and unguarded. They had no cannon pointing towards the ocean,” Darby explained. Drake “just went from treasure house to treasure house along the coast. And harried all the shipping.”

Drake’s biggest haul came from a ship called the Cacafuego.

“It took a day and a half just to download all the silver bars and chests of gold,” Darby said.

But Drake couldn’t simply head home with his spoils. In addition to being a privateer, he was a spy. Queen Elizabeth I had charged him with finding the Northwest Passage, a sea route explorers hoped would connect the Atlantic and the Pacific.

Drake headed north. But the Golden Hind was full of plunder and sprung a leak. He had to find a protected bay to careen the ship.

In the official record of voyage, Drake landed at a “Fair and Good Bay” where the crew remained for six to 10 weeks, trading with locals and claiming the land.

Europeans had four requirements for a land claim back then. A flag or plaque had to be placed; a religious ceremony held; the claim had to be published; and the explorer had to have an official discussion with the Indigenous leader explaining the claim.

Darby thinks Drake misread the traditional tribal offering to important visitors.

“They gave Drake this feathered headdress and he said: ‘Oh, well they’re giving me the crown of the country.’ Well, that was a total misconception,” Darby said.

When Drake returned to England, he proved to be both a hero and a problem. His haul provided enough money for Queen Elizabeth to build a fleet of warships. On the other hand, England wasn’t at war with Spain, so the queen had to distance herself.

“The queen said, ‘Oh no. I didn’t send Drake out. He’s a pirate and we’re going to return the treasure to you [Spain].’ That was a ruse,” Darby said.

“The treasure never got returned.”

Most importantly for this story, Drake gave the queen the logs of his voyage, including how far north he’d travelled. The official account places the Golden Hind at 42-43 degrees north latitude. But Darby and others think the real latitude was kept secret because the country that found a Northwest Passage would make millions on a cheaper trade route to Asia.

Darby also thinks England placed the official latitude lower because it was trying to grab land.

“The boundary of New Spain was right around San Francisco. So I’m sure they looked at a map and said, ‘This is unclaimed land.’ Drake didn’t see this land because he was looking for the Northwest Passage. ‘Well, we can’t leave this open so let’s just say he was down there.’”

Debate about where he landed may be heated, but some wonder whether it matters in the current era, when colonialism is largely condemned.

Many people think so, because Drake was the first British explorer to contact Native Americans on the West Coast. Also, crew member Diego was possibly among the first Black people to set foot in the West Coast.

Why people believe Drake landed in California

Darby also thinks history gives insight to the present. For example, one of the reasons the California bay has the momentum as Drake’s landing spot is that a brass plaque was found there in 1937. It was dated 1579 and said in part: “I [Drake] take possession of this Kingdom whose king and people freely resign their right and title.”

Herbert Bolton, a University of California, Berkeley, professor at the time, proclaimed it to be authentic. But a metallurgy test in the 1970s showed the plaque was probably a hoax.

Darby thinks racism was at work.

“[Californians] didn’t like the fact that Spain was claiming a lot of the history of California. And so they wanted to make the history of California a sparkling white history and so Drake was their hero,” she said.

Archeology professor Marco Meniketti also thinks Drake’s landing spot is important, because it spurred the Spanish to push their interest farther up the California coast.

“That created an impetus for Spain to start moving the Mission system further north,” Meniketti said.

The oral histories of some Native American tribes in Oregon do refer to visiting ships and wrecks. But not 400 years ago.

Robert Kentta with the Siletz Tribe said Drake’s sailors probably did trade during the weeks they were fixing their ship, and there are stories of swords and coins being found in Oregon — but nothing decisive. And, Kentta said, the descriptions of some Indigenous artifacts in voyage accounts give him cause for doubt.

“Drake’s journals even talked about the basketry being decorated with feathers, which is a very Central Californian coastal tradition, which has never been practiced here as far as I know,” he said.

The actual location of Drake’s “Fair and Good Bay” may never be decisively confirmed. There is a rumor that the original voyage logs still exist somewhere among the British crown’s private papers. But the truth is probably that they were incinerated in 1698, when Whitehall Palace in London burned to the ground.