John Hawkins (naval commander), Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death

    

John Hawkins (naval commander)

English navigator, admiral, privateer and slave trader

Date of Birth: 01-Jan-1532

Place of Birth: Plymouth, England, United Kingdom

Date of Death: 12-Nov-1595

Profession: businessperson, politician, privateer

Zodiac Sign: Capricorn


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About John Hawkins (naval commander)

  • Admiral Sir John Hawkins (also spelled as Hawkyns) (1532 – 12 November 1595) was an English slave trader, naval commander and administrator, merchant, navigator, shipbuilder and privateer.
  • His elder brother and trading partner was William (b.
  • c.
  • 1519).
  • He was considered the first English trader to profit from the Triangle Trade, based on selling supplies to colonies ill-supplied by their home countries, and their demand for African slaves in the Spanish colonies of Santo Domingo and Venezuela in the late 16th century.
  • He styled himself "Captain General" as the General of both his own flotilla of ships and those of the English Royal Navy and to distinguish himself from those Admirals that served only in the administrative sense and were not military in nature.
  • His death and that of his second cousin and mentoree, Sir Francis Drake, heralded the decline of the Royal Navy for decades before its recovery and eventual dominance again helped by the propaganda of the Navy's glory days under his leadership.As Treasurer of the Navy (1577-1595) and comptroller (1589) of the Royal Navy, Hawkins rebuilt older ships and helped design the faster ships that withstood the Spanish Armada in 1588.
  • One of the foremost seamen of 16th-century England, Hawkins was the chief architect of the Elizabethan navy.
  • In the battle in which the Spanish Armada was defeated in 1588, Hawkins served as a vice admiral.
  • He was knighted for gallantry.
  • He later devised the naval blockade to intercept Spanish treasure ships leaving Mexico and South America.

Read more at Wikipedia

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