Talk:Francis Drake/Archive 5

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Drake in historical memory

For discussion of material on the historical memory of Drake's life and activities Ynizcw (talk) 18:40, 11 February 2023 (UTC)

Ynizcw Is that a title for this talk page section or the article? I don't think the article section needs retitling, it just needs that rewriting you discussed. Jenhawk777 (talk) 03:43, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

Just for this talk page. Ynizcw (talk) 03:58, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

I'm caught up on discussion above, and still don't follow on a few things. @Jenhawk777, what is the third alternative, as you mentioned it?

@Ynizcw to suggest that White's historical analysis can not be considered mainstream unless and until there are other references that specifically link Drake to Anglo-Saxonism This is actually a core principle of Wikipedia. It's right in the policy on WP:WEIGHT: "If a viewpoint is in the majority, then it should be easy to substantiate it with references to commonly accepted reference texts."

You claim White's finding is a mainstream view, but you've as of yet failed to provide enough sources to support that. You bring up Wathen, but your previous references to him have not attributed this link to Anglo-saxonism to anything he's said. If you can find 1 historian, preferably more, that explicitly endorse the link between naming the memorials and Anglo-saxonism, then we can have a discussion. But you need to back up claims of mainstream ideas with sources. PhotogenicScientist (talk) 16:51, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

I'm aware of the policy. Again, here is what I wrote: White has presented a mainstream idea—that commemorative practices and historical narratives reflect the ideology of those doing the commemorating and narrating—using Drake as a specific example. How you apply the WP:WEIGHT policy that you quote depends on what you mean by viewpoint. The mainstream idea is that commemorative practices in 19th-century California (and elsewhere) were shaped by Anglo-Saxonist ideology. As the policy suggests, this viewpoint in easy to substantiate with reliable sources, and I include a few below. The application to Drake is less common, since it is just one of many examples that one can choose, so I would suggest that it should be enough to demonstrate that Drake commemoration is an example of the broader pattern, which is what White did. Nonetheless, I also include a discussion from another historian. I sincerely hope that we can move on after this.

The critical date on any monument is not the date of the event or person it commemorates but its construction date, which tells you why it is significant and to whom. This is true of Confederate monuments put up in the Jim Crow era, and it is true of Drake. Enthusiasm for Sir Francis Drake was a phenomenon of the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It is deeply entwined with Anglo-Saxonism, but Drake enthusiasts have always sought to tie the monuments to actual sixteenth-century events.

— Richard White, California Exposures (2020)

The search for Drake had never really been about history; it was about myth. The Drake story was meant to encapsulate the ideological meaning of the United States and California’s foundational status. It explained how the United States came to be not just white but Anglo-Saxon; how the land was not taken but given.

— Richard White, California Exposures

As part of his evidence, he quotes from Zelia Nuttall, who @Hu_Nhu recommended as a source for other editors so that the article may accurately reflect Drake:

It thus appears as though the present occupation of the North American continent by the Anglo-Saxon race, is after all, but a realization of what may be called Drake’s dream.

— Zelia Nuttall, New Light on Drake (1914)

White includes other evidence, but I would propose the above quote for inclusion in the article. I really don't see what more you need, if you just read White's work and evaluate the evidence he presents.

But since you insist, here is another example:

The first western pioneer monuments were erected in the years immediately following the 1890 Wounded Knee massacre. While historians now recognize that deadly event as an anticlimax to decades of U. S. military efforts to force Native peoples onto reservations, in the 1890s, western settlers worried about possible future Indian attacks and feared a loss of economic opportunity as the frontier's promise of free land ended. Yet they also sought to demonstrate the sophistication as a newly settled postfrontier society and their cultural superiority to the indigenous peoples they had displaced. Portraying an inevitable progression from Indian savagery to white civilization justified white settlers' displacement of Native peoples and absolved white guilt. Just as southern elites mourned the passing of the Old South through memorialization, from the late 1880s to World War I, western settlers expressed their diverse anxieties and yearnings through public monuments that celebrated the arrival of white American civilization in the Old West

— Cynthia Culver Prescott, Pioneer Mother Monuments: Constructing Cultural Memory (2019); section entitled The March of White Civilization

Later in the section, Dr. Prescott discusses Drake specifically, when discussing the Lick memorial monument by the San Francisco-based artist Frank Happersberger.

San Francisco's Lick monument features a massive stone column and bronze sculptural elements that commemorate prominent men who had helped establish Anglo-American California. Together, those bronze sculptures and reliefs construct a whitewashed narrative of California history typical of that era.... The granite pillar is encircled by portrait medallions of white men—each identified by name—that Happersberger credited with collectively founding California. The individuals thus honored represent two common forms of what Lorenzo Veracini calls settler colonial "screen memory": marking initial colonial exploration and nostalgic narratives of settler pasts. Happersberger's selection and ordering of the famous men in his honor roll reveal a great deal about how he and many Anglo-Californians of his generation conceived California history. Happersberger began his narrative with Sir Francis Drake claiming the region for England in 1579, and Franciscan missionary Father Junípero Serra establishing the Spanish missionary system that brought Christianity and white settlement to California in 1769.

— Cynthia Culver Prescott, Pioneer Mother Monuments: Constructing Cultural Memory (2019)

If you question my references to Wathen, I invite you to read his book yourself, but here is one of many relevant passages.

The colonial gains made in the final decades of the century were accompanied by a new self-awareness of Britain as an imperial power. As the list of overseas possessions grew, so did the mythology of empire. Explaining and justifying Britain’s position as the world’s foremost colonial power became a major cultural project. A familiar strategy was to construct the imperial past so as to make the colonial present seem inevitable – the natural culmination of a process set in motion centuries before. The high seas of the sixteenth century were as rich in material for the imperial myth-makers as they had been in gold for Drake. In the third quarter of the nineteenth century Froude and Kingsley had, of course, popularized the notion of the Elizabethan privateers as directly responsible for Britain’s contemporary hegemony. As we have seen, Drake was identified as the most significant of these pioneering figures. He had, in Froude’s words, ‘laid the foundation of the naval empire of England’.The defeat of the Armada, with which Drake was intimately connected, had cleared the way for Britain’s naval dominance. By the 1880s many other historical works were promoting similar ideas.

— Bruce Wathen, Sir Francis Drake: The Construction of a Hero (2009)

Ynizcw (talk) 03:27, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

You need to keep in mind that 'Anglo-Saxonism' is not just the belief in the cultural supremacy of Anglo-saxon societies, but in their racial supremacy as well. These are different motivations. Belief in one's own cultural superiority is present among almost all peoples to some degree, and can manifest in less malicious ways (like patriotism or civic nationalism); though, it's not completely altruistic, since there's still the component that "others" are inferior, in a cultural sense. Belief in one's racial superiority is, in my opinion, a much more malicious thing - believing that one is superior simply because of their birth, not because of anything they have accomplished, and that others are inferior by that same criteria.

Wathen, Prescott, and Nuttall attest to the "cultural supremacy" belief of those commemorating Drake.

• Wathen writes that the British sought to justify their colonial position, and explains that Drake is a figurehead in their justification. But he does not touch on race as a motivating factor - he mentions "naval dominance" and colonialism as a "natural culmination" of the force of British society.
• Prescott puts forth a similar idea about Western settlers - that they sought to justify their living on Native American lands. Prescott is more explicit with her analysis that their justification came from their belief in "the sophistication as a newly settled postfrontier society and their cultural superiority to the indigenous peoples they had displaced."
• Nuttall (who you quoted quite closely with little context) delves into a similar feeling of cultural dominance. From page n42 of her book:

"It was Drake's dream that in the 'New England' of which he had thus laid the foundations... the natives might, by kindly treatment and 'the preaching of the Gospell be brought to the right knowledge and obedience of the true and everlasting God.'"

Or, that Drake's dream was of a new county built on the cultural foundation of England, and spread to the native inhabitants. Again, no mention from Nuttall about racial superiority belief.

White is the only scholar among these who attributes Drake's monuments' naming specifically to a racially-loaded belief like Anglo-Saxonism.

As an aside, I'm only able to work with what you provide in this discussion. Telling me to read various history texts myself in order to further substantiate your position is not constructive. Nobody has the time for that. The onus is on you to provide sufficient sourcing and justification for whatever is being proposed, so that it can be verified. If a source backs up your position, please provide a quotation or otherwise direct link to the part you think is relevant, as you did above. I shall do the same, so neither of us has to do an inordinate amount of extracurricular reading to understand each other. PhotogenicScientist (talk) 18:34, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

PhotogenicScientist What I got from Ynizcw's response that I liked and saw as a third alternative were a couple of points that seemed critically important. First, they said: it is more accurate to say that 19th-century cultural references to Drake are more a legacy of Anglo-Saxonism than Anglo-Saxonism is a legacy of Drake, so as I move forward with this section I will try to make this distinction more clearly. I hope they will simply make that statement using White as the source: "Nineteenth-century cultural references to Drake are more a legacy of Anglo-Saxonism than Anglo-Saxonism is a legacy of Drake". It would make a great first sentence for a paragraph which would then also include the following:

This is an article about Drake, and Drake's racial dealings did not end in his 20's. Therefore, if there is to be discussion of how he was used by racists after his death, then how he behaved concerning race during his life must, and I do mean must, also be included. Otherwise it implies a consistency, a connection, between Drake and Anglo-Saxonism that is not and cannot be established. The multiple sources Hu Nhu suggested would be valid for this. (It might need to come out of the legacy section into a section of its own.)

In a quick look I found this: the top paragraph of page 7 speaks of a multiracial community and egalitarianism as recorded by Drake's chaplain on his circumnavigation. Google has no page numbers on this one but if those could be found it gives praise to Drake for practicing equity. This one says several of Drake's proteges who became pirate Captains in their own right were blacks, page 93, . This one says Drake entered into alliances with black refugees and that there was "little evidence of white prejudice then" around the center of page 16 . This took about ten minutes and with more time, I have the feeling it could go on and on. This is the majority view. There is no majority view connecting Drake to racism. There is a majority view connecting those monuments to it. That differentiation must be made clear.

Second they wrote that Drake's role in white supremacy is entirely symbolic. But the text reads as if Anglo-Saxonism is representative of Drake and/or Drake's views on race simply because they used him as a symbol. It implies connection, when in reality There is definitely a consensus/majority view about whether Drake personally supported the idea of white supremacy: he did not, and it is nonsensical to suggest that he could have. Drake died in the 16th century and white supremacy developed in the 17th century. A discussion of this needs to be, must be, included if white supremacy is discussed, anywhere, at all, ever, imo. WS is a powerfully emotionally loaded topic and extreme care must be taken. Right now the text talks more about white supremacy than Drake.

So, if all of this is done, it creates that third option where A-S is mentioned, but in balance with these other points about Drake himself so that no false implications are made.

References

Jenhawk777 (talk) 20:32, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

That all seems a bit too... in the weeds for what's being discussed. It's just one paragraph in the legacy section. But, to try and address some of your concerns, I made an edit to that section. Hopefully it's an improvement in part. If you see any other ways that paragraph can be improved, by all means be WP:BOLD and make a change. PhotogenicScientist (talk) 23:07, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

There are several paragraphs in this section that probably relate to the story of Anglo-Saxonist celebration that White describes, although it would take me some time to find reliable sources to support this. The second paragraph discusses place names in British Columbia, such as Mount Sir Francis Drake, which were all assigned in the 1930s. The third paragraph discusses commemorations in California, as you know. The confidence scheme described in the fourth paragraph is also discussed by White as one of “two parallel streams of stories [that] carried Sir Francis Drake and the Golden Hind forward into twentieth-century California.... The first stream stressed what Drake had already bestowed on the United States.... The second stream of stories stressed what Americans, as Drake’s actual descendants, could inherit from his supposed estate.” White compares the fraud of Hartzell to the fraud of Drake's plate. It's interesting to note that the plate is mentioned in the article, but its purported discovery in 1936 is not. The discovery was ultimately proven fraudulent in 1977, but its existence played an important role in establishing Drake's Bay as the site of Drake's Pacific landing. All of it was part of a collective enthusiasm for Drake that was driven by Anglo-Saxonist ideology. Ynizcw (talk) 08:07, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

Yes, everyone here is already acutely aware of how White feels about commemorations to Drake. You've made that clear, and continue to lean quite heavily on him as the single source of support for an Anglo-Saxonism origin for commemorations. Do you have any other sources to bring into the discussion at present? Or would you like to respond to my comment above regarding the last 3 sources you cited? PhotogenicScientist (talk) 14:11, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I did not see your earlier comment—if Wikipedia notified me, I missed it, and I did not review the whole thread before suggesting that several paragraphs in the Legacy section could be understood under the same historical umbrella.

But your response to my three earlier sources, @PhotogenicScientist, together with your derisive comments just above, leaves me to wonder whether you even accept the role of white supremacy in 19th-century Anglo-American culture as a widely accepted historical fact. If you do not accept that, then I think we need to shift the discussion away from narrow questions of individual quotes from individual sources and deal with the larger issue.

To illustrate my point, consider your response to one of the quotes that I included above. Prescott writes, Portraying an inevitable progression from Indian savagery to white civilization justified white settlers' displacement of Native peoples and absolved white guilt. Just as southern elites mourned the passing of the Old South through memorialization, from the late 1880s to World War I, western settlers expressed their divers anxieties and yearnings through public monuments that celebrated the arrival of white American civilization in the Old West. Your response to this was to emphasize that the sources refer to cultural supremacy not racial supremacy, and to demand sources that explicitly refer to the latter because belief in one's racial superiority is, in my opinion, a much more malicious thing. My response to this is to question whether we are reading the same text. When Prescott contrasts the settler portrayals of "Indian savagery" with "white civilization", and compares these to Lost Cause monuments in the Old South, and you respond by saying White is the only scholar among these who attributes Drake's monuments' naming specifically to a racially-loaded belief like Anglo-Saxonism, do you really believe that the Prescott quote does not attribute these portrayals to racism?

Assuming you don't, then let me add another quotation from Prescott (p. 21), which is more explicit.

Contemporaneous western monuments to early white settlers consistently labeled those settlers as "pioneers," indicating that they had carved a path for others to follow. Monument erectors believed those pioneers to be the vanguard of white civilization in the West. As Gail Bederman argued, Americans at the turn of the twentieth century used the term civilization in various ways to legitimize different claims to power. But in the context of frontier memory, the term was consistently used to evoke the imagined cultural superiority of the Western world (meaning Europe and European settler societies such as the United States). Adapting Charles Darwin's theory of evolution to human societies, late nineteenth-century Euro-Americans identified civilization as a specific stage in human racial evolution that followed the more primitive stages of barbarism and savagery.

— Cynthia Culver Prescott, Pioneer Mother Monuments: Constructing Cultural Memory (2019)

Note that this passage represents entirely mainstream ideas about 19th-century racial ideology—White is far from an outlier, as you seem to suggest. In this context, your insistence on distinguishing cultural supremacy from racial supremacy is misplaced, at best. Ynizcw (talk) 20:25, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

I agree. The monuments are clearly connected to later ideas of white supremacy. Are those connected to Drake? That's what really matters for this article. Jenhawk777 (talk) 21:32, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

I believe I have already answered the question of whether Drake commemoration in California is connected to contemporary ideas of white supremacy (I assume that by "later ideas" you mean later than Drake, not later than his commemoration, so if that's not the case please clarify). I've supported my response now with two reliable sources, one from White and another from Prescott (See here for my earlier references to Prescott, which explicitly discuss Drake). @PhotogenicScientist did not accept those as valid, much less sufficient, for demonstrating the connection. Do you, @Jenhawk777? Until we have some agreement on this, I fear we are going to continue going around in circles regarding the article content. Ynizcw (talk) 22:34, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

I do accept that the monuments put up in the nineteenth century were connected to white supremacy.

I do not accept this as valid historically or what is claimed by the sources: It thus appears as though the present occupation of the North American continent by the Anglo-Saxon race, is after all, but a realization of what may be called Drake’s dream.

It seems to contradict what you said previously: There is definitely a consensus/majority view about whether Drake personally supported the idea of white supremacy: he did not. So which is it? Jenhawk777 (talk) 04:43, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

I included the Nuttall quote, which is also quoted by White, as evidence that she and her contemporaries used Drake to justify "the present occupation of the North American continent by the Anglo-Saxon race" as predestined. I didn't quote her to indicate agreement—far from it—nor do I think that her speculation reflects any belief that we could plausibly attribute to Drake. Sorry if my presentation of it was confusing. Ynizcw (talk) 04:56, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

Your argument fails WP:OR, which is a core content policy. From WP:SYNTH: "Do not combine material from multiple sources to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any source. Similarly, do not combine different parts of one source to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by the source." If a conclusion is not explicitly stated by a source, then the source can not be used to support said conclusion.

Your conclusion is that belief in racial supremacy is what motivated many people, namely the settlers in California, to erect monuments to Drake. Prescott's juxtaposition of monuments to white civilization to monuments to the Old South is not an explicit statement of this conclusion. Nor is the second passage you cited, where they explicitly use the term "cultural superiority", and race only factors into the passage as an expression of the term "human race." If you are to continue to try and prove to me and to future readers of this article that the commemorations to Drake were inspired by a belief in racial superiority such as Anglo-Saxonism, you need to muster up better sources. PhotogenicScientist (talk) 23:26, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

I did not "combine material from multiple sources to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any source." I quoted passages from the same source by the same author, where one passage clarifies the meaning of another passage. You assert that race only factors into the passage as an expression of the term "human race," but what the passage actually says that late nineteenth-century Euro-Americans identified civilization as a specific stage in human racial evolution that followed the more primitive stages of barbarism and savagery, and that monument erectors believed those pioneers to be the vanguard of white civilization in the West. Your summary is a gross misrepresentation of the text that I provided.

This is obstructing progress on a valuable topic that belongs in the article. I have made a good-faith effort to address your concerns, but we are going around in circles. Ynizcw (talk) 02:33, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

Well, you're right that our discussion seems to have run its course. 1) You completely ignore the second sentence of the policy I quoted and instead zero in on the "multiple sources" part, an INCREDIBLY willful misreading on your part which borders on WP:NOTGETTINGIT. And 2) You're misinterpreting the phrase "human racial evolution" to focus on the word "racial", neglecting that it exists within the common noun phrase "human race", and that that interpretation is more consistent with the rest of the passage, which, again, discusses and even explicitly states the phrase "cultural superiority". PhotogenicScientist (talk) 03:49, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

I didn't ignore it, I tried to show that I did not "reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by the source" in any reasonable sense. You think I've misinterpreted the passage, and I think you're wrong. You accuse me of "INCREDIBLY willful misreading" that borders on the disruptive editing practice of Wikipedia:NOTGETTINGIT, but I think I've been trying my best to respond to what I perceive to be confusing, inconsistent, and shifting demands of proof from you. You cite WP:SYNTH as an ultimate authority, but there is also the WP:NOTSYNTH guideline that qualifies it, advising specifically that editors should "use some common sense about it, and particularly about asserting original research by synthesis." In particular, the SYNTH is not an advocacy tool section says specifically, "If someone doesn't like what was said, and they therefore cry SYNTH, others almost certainly will be right to cry foul. Virtually anything can be shoehorned into a broad reading of SYNTH, but the vast majority of it shouldn't be."

I'd be interested to know what @Jenhawk777 thinks about this. I am at a loss for how to proceed, other than to turn to a dispute resolution process. Ynizcw (talk) 04:45, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

On whether or not monuments were put up by people who believed in the validity of white supremacy, I don't think there is any real doubt of it. Both Scientific racism and Social Darwinism were "scientific beliefs" of all "forward thinkers" of the time. I'm afraid PhotogenicScientist is splitting hairs and throwing out anything he can think of to prevent inclusion of what is clearly accurate concerning the monuments and the motivations behind them. However, I don't think it matters because I don't think much of this deserves to be in the article at all. What does any of this have to do with Drake? Where is any connection between Drake and the myth other people created about him established?

That Charlemagne inspired myths gets one sentence, in one section on impact, in his article. In Theodosius I there is one sentence on myth that developed after his death. In Ambrose there is one sentence mentioning myth that developed about him after his death. There are myths connected to Walter Raleigh, but no mention of them at all in his article. The myth of Lady Godiva's nude ride gets a paragraph in her article since it is central to her fame. There are so many myths associated with George Washington that they also get a whole paragraph. That's consistent throughout Wikipedia. It seems obvious why - myths that follow after a person have little to do, directly, with the person the article is about.

Consistent with the standards of WP, it seems clear that the legacy of myth that followed concerning Drake is only worthy of a paragraph at most. Jenhawk777 (talk) 06:29, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for your input @Jenhawk777, that is very helpful. There seems to be a lot of variation in how Wikipedia treats this sort of thing, but the Charlemagne article that you referenced has a Cultural Impact section that could serve as a useful template. As I mentioned above, the Legacy sections in the articles for Junípero Serra and Christopher Columbus both have extended discussions of their associated mythologies and commemorations. However, as we've already discussed, it is probably better to change the title of this section from Legacy to Cultural Impact. I'll try to put together some text for this next week, but right now I need to turn to other priorities. Ynizcw (talk) 07:08, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

@Jenhawk777 it seems you and Ynizcw know something I don't regarding these commemorations. I am familiar with the history of white supremacy and scientific racism. I know the two ideas largely rose to prominence around the time of European colonialism, as the people of the time sought to justify their imperialism and colonial dominance of others. However, as far as I'm aware, these race-based views were not the ONLY motivating factor in furthering colonialism. In any history textbook I've read, the common justifications for colonialism include:

• Converting new peoples to religion
• Spreading the "civilized" European culture
• Belief in the subjugated's racial inferiority

Any one of these ideas could've been held by any of the white settlers in the Americas - sometimes all three. But without proof that it was one of these ideas in particular that motivated them or allowed them to justify themselves, we have to give these people of the past the benefit of the doubt, and not assume their intentions.

For example, with the monument of Drake's Cross, the primary motivation appears to be to celebrate the spread of religion, Christianity. When a local news source dug into the "hidden history" of the monument, their focus is on it being a religious monument on public land. Now, it is possible the people who erected the monument ALSO believed in the supremacy of the white race - as White seems to posit - but there aren't a lot of sources that discuss or support that particular motivation.

I'll also remind you, I'm not arguing against the inclusion of mentioning Anglo-saxonism as a possible motivator for the commemorations. I've already said that White is a credible source, and shouldn't be excluded. My position is that White's finding should be qualified with "asserts" or "posits" or similar language, until we have other reliable sources that back up his idea, enough to say that it may be considered a mainstream view of history (which is grounded in Wikipedia policy and guidelines, like WP:DUE and WP:INTEXT).PhotogenicScientist (talk) 14:27, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

WP:SYNTH is a policy. WP:NOTSYNTH is not even a guideline, but is merely an essay. It does not "qualify" SYNTH - it merely offers supporting advice of one or more wikipedians, and is NOT considered to have community consensus. We disagree on whether your conclusion is SYNTH, but NOTSYNTH is not solid ground to base an argument for inclusion on. PhotogenicScientist (talk) 14:23, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

Ynizcw The articles you reference seem to be exceptions to what is generally done on WP, with long discussions of the history of their legacies, largely because the legacy sections are actually about what the subject figures did themselves, who they were, as much as why perception of them changed. Columbus actually enslaved Indians, cut off their hands when they didn't produce, that kind of thing. Under Legacy, there is a whole section on "Brutality". Perception is connected to reality about the individual which is the actual topic. No one has to ask "what does this have to do with Columbus" when reading The Americanization of the figure of Columbus began in the latter decades of the 18th century, after the revolutionary period of the United States,[244] elevating the status of his reputation to a national myth, homo americanus and all that follows.

Following the approach of your suggested examples would require inclusion of a paragraph on how Drake actually behaved - which was sort of the opposite of Columbus - somewhere in the article.

It's an interesting contrast: Columbus was venerated and didn't deserve it, while Drake has been associated with white supremacy and doesn't deserve that either.

PhotogenicScientist Let me be sure I am understanding you correctly. What you are concerned about is establishing the connection between the monuments and those views, is that correct? I feel pretty confident that can easily be done, however, since this is not an article on either monuments or Anglo-Saxonism, my question remains, how is that relevant to Drake? That is the relevant connection.

Colonialism was political and economic. Religion followed after and became - equally - a part of it and a source of opposition to it. This isn't an article on colonialism either though, and what is being alleged is about Anglo-Saxonism and white supremacy which developed long after Drake was dead. Establishing that connection - between Drake and these views - even if it can be shown beyond a shadow of a doubt that those monuments were put up to honor white supremacy - would be impossible as it doesn't exist.

However, it could still be discussed, since it is part of the modern view. Take a look at the Christopher Columbus article. It might be a valid example for us. Jenhawk777 (talk) 17:59, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

@Jenhawk777 would you mind splitting this reply in 2, one for me and one for Ynizcw, and putting them under whichever comment you're directly replying to? PhotogenicScientist (talk) 18:47, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

It has been my experience that comments are better placed in the order in which they are posted. Every time one of us jumps back into the middle, it makes it harder to track and follow who said what when, which can add frustration to an already frustrating situation. A couple of times here I have directly replied to a comment only to have another one placed between my response and the original comment, making it look like I responded to the latter and not the former. I personally think it mucks everything up when things aren't in chronological order. I'll do it if you are sure this is genuinely better for you, but please do be sure. It is not better for me. Jenhawk777 (talk) 20:05, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

@Jenhawk777 referring back to your earlier question to me, my interest in this article has evolved with time, so let me clarify my current proposal. As I think everyone involved in this discussion recognizes, Drake and his exploits have been topics of cultural and historical interest for nearly half a millennium, which has had a cultural impact that extends beyond the direct historical consequences of his circumnavigation or other activities. Other than the paragraph on his commemoration in Northern California, the current Legacy section just lists a bunch of things that has his name on it, without any historical context about why people cared so much about Drake to name things in their community after him. Renaming this section as "Cultural impact" would demarcate space to discuss this more generally. It could also include material that is not currently in the article, such as Charles Kingsley's Westward Ho!, which played an important role in popularizing Drake in the 19th century and into the 20th. Kingsley was also a friend of James Anthony Froude, one of the more influential historians of Drake. Drake is also connected to Thomas Carlyle's Great Man Theory of history. In an earlier era, some historians cite Drake's influence on Shakespeare, notably The Tempest. So I think that there is a lot of interesting material to discuss that is relevant to how people today understand Drake, both as a person and as a symbol, which I think it is worth developing in a few paragraphs in the article. Ynizcw (talk) 20:23, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

I was just in the process of writing this when your comment appeared. I agree. I would be happy with the same kind of approach found in the Charlemagne/Cultural impact and Columbus/legacy sections. I would want to be a part of writing that. I like taking it chronologically, century by century, if you are agreeable to that. I will begin with his lifetime and the century immediately following it, if you want to begin with the nineteenth century into today which seems like you are most informed about. I am going out of town next week, but I will start on this as soon as I get back. I will work in my sandbox, then transfer in material, and I will try to be sure I don't mess with anything you have done - without coming here first of course. PhotogenicScientist can jump in at will wherever they please as can anyone else. How's that work for you? Jenhawk777 (talk) 20:27, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

Great! I hope this provides a productive avenue for development. I have already copied the Legacy section to my own sandbox (as a relatively inexperienced editor, I'm still learning these tricks), and will develop with my own material, with the expectation that we will try to merge our respective versions once we're ready.

Just by the way, I forgot to mention that Kingsley's portrayal of Drake in Westward Ho! was also important for popularizing his moral ideal of Muscular Christianity, which influenced Theodore Roosevelt and is related to the ideal of Rugged individualism in the United States. Ynizcw (talk) 21:05, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

@Jenhawk777 I think I get what you're saying... and it sounds like you're having issues reading threaded discussions. If you use the 'Reply' button, Wikipedia automatically indents your reply so it shows up one indent farther than the comment you replied to, and all replies at that level are organized chronologically. Your reply might get pushed down, if direct replies are made to an earlier reply. I myself find threaded discussions much easier to follow, and they're standard for Talk page discussion. PhotogenicScientist (talk) 21:10, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

@Jenhawk777 threading request aside... yes, I'm concerned with establishing the connection between the monuments and views of racial superiority by those who erected them. I believe I made salient points in my comment above (which I was hoping for a direct reply to). You are confident that this can be easily done, but I've yet to see sources besides White that support making this link, without requiring us to stray too far into a deep analysis of colonialism and/or imperialism, or synthesizing that conclusion using multiple sources or background knowledge. PhotogenicScientist (talk) 21:21, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

@PhotogenicScientist, in keeping with @Jenhawk777's request I am replying here to your comments above. Thank you for your clarification of what you are seeking in terms of verification. We may disagree on how to ensure verifiability in specific instances, but we agree on the general goal. It may actually be easier to do this by expanding the scope along the lines that @Jenhawk777 and I have been discussing, since it will then be possible to provide context that informs the work of sources such as White and Prescott and would help clarify their meaning. As to your specific concern for adhering to the no original research policy, I don't know what there is to say that I haven't already said. The basic issue appears to be that what you consider synthesis, I consider an accurate summary of reliable sources. When we can't even agree on the plain-sense meaning of the Prescott quote that I provided earlier ("Contemporaneous western monuments...,"), and when you point to an article from a newspaper with a circulation of 20,000 as evidence that the analysis of one of the most prominent scholars of the American West is questionable, I don't see an easy resolution. Perhaps you could just wait for @Jenhawk777 and I to revise the Legacy section, and see what happens? Ynizcw (talk) 02:24, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

Returning to your comments about white supremacy, @PhotogenicScientist, I just reread the introductory chapter of Tomás Almaguer's Racial Fault Lines: The Historical Origins of White Supremacy in California, 2nd ed. (University of California, Berkeley, 2009) and think it may help to address them. Like Reginald Horsman's Race and Manifest Destiny: The Origins of American Racial Anglo-Saxonism (which Almaguer cites), it doesn't speak specifically to the historical origins of Drake commemorations in California, but it is a highly cited mainstream work that provides important context for understanding the ideology of the commemorators. Below are a couple of salient quotations, where I have italicized sections that describe how religious and cultural chauvinism was subsumed under a more primary hierarchy centered on race.

The answer to these questions [about group relations] can be found in the way that race and the racialization process in California became the central organizing principle of group life during the state's formative period of development. Although California's ethnic populations were racialized in different ways, and the specific manifestations of racial and ethnic conflict were unique to California, at its most basic level it represented the extension of "white supremacy" into the new American Southwest. Historian George Fredrickson defines white supremacy as "the attitudes, ideologies, and politics associated with blatant forms of white or European dominance over 'non-white' populations." The attempt to make race or color a basis for group position within the United States was defined initially during the colonial period when notions of "civility" and "savagery," as well as clear distinctions between "Christians" and "heathens," were used to inscribe racial difference and divide humankind into distinct categories of people. These notions provided the basis upon which European immigrants differentiated themselves from the diverse populations they encountered during their expansion into the Far West.

— Almaguer 2009, p. 7, emphasis added

The imposition of a new racial order and attendant class structure in nineteenth-century California was greatly facilitated by popular ideologies that gave voice to the superordinate political and economic position of European Americans in the state. Two powerful ideas reflecting this white supremacist sentiment were fervently embraced by European-American men during the United States' westward expansion: "Manifest Destiny" and "free labor ideology."

The United States' usurpation of Mexican territory laid the basis for rapidly transforming what would become the American Southwest along new sociocultural, political, and economic lines. The mission became the "white man's burden"—to extend their dominion over all obstacles placed in their path and to bring civilization and Christianity to the uncivilized heathens they encountered. During this period white Americans widely accepted the idea of populating all of the North American continent with a homogeneous white population. They believed it was their providential destiny to expand to the Pacific coast, bringing with them their superior political institutions, notions of progress and democracy, and their own economic system of production. Public support for extending national boundaries found fertile ground in this tumultuous period of expansion and reached its most explicit political expression in the notion of Manifest Destiny.

— Almaguer 2009, p. 12, emphasis added

So while I take your point that it is important in principle to distinguish among competing motivations for commemorating Drake, in practice it is widely recognized that white supremacy found expression in this period as an amalgam of racial hierarchy with religious and cultural bigotry: "Anglo-Americans believed 'that the peoples of large parts of the world were incapable of creating efficient, democratic, and prosperous governments; and that American and world economic growth, the triumph of Western Christian civilization, and a stable world order could be achieved by American commercial penetration of supposedly backward areas.'" This "triumph of Western Christian civilization" is exactly what Zelia Nuttall means when she refers to "the present occupation of the North American continent by the Anglo-Saxon race" as "Drake's Dream" in the quote that I provided earlier. It is also why White presents this quote as example of how Drake imagery was used to support Anglo-Saxonism.

I think we agree that this is all far too much to get into in the article about Drake, but I am raising it here in the hope that we can establish a consensus about sourcing and WP:WEIGHT more easily if we have a common baseline of historical knowledge.

References

Ynizcw (talk) 12:00, 22 February 2023 (UTC)

@Ynizcw Thank you for finding another reliable source relevant to this discussion, and for providing it here. To your point, Almaguer explicitly states that race and racialization were a "central organizing principle of group life." From this and from the rest of the passage, we can reasonably assume that he would agree with White - that many white settlers, in commemorating their ancestors and justifying their colonial expansion, held beliefs of their racial supremacy. I fully agree with your assessment of this source, and I agree that it supports the work by White. As that relates to this article on Drake, I think this work could be cited alongside White in the current paragraph about California, and the text reworked to note the plurality of scholars being cited; something like "Scholars have traced the origins of these commemorations..."

I will say, since it seems like you've taken a great interest in the topic of white colonial history of the Americas, I would urge you to consider improving the articles on Colonialism, Imperialism, or Analysis of Western European colonialism and colonization. I found these articles to be severely lacking when I was informing myself during this discussion, as they had little to no information about the justifications of the practices sought by the colonizers; I believe Wathen put it best as he wrote that "Explaining and justifying Britain’s position as the world’s foremost colonial power became a major cultural project." These colonizers, both the leadership and the common people, seemed to know on a fundamental level that what they were doing was wrong; yet, the rewards they reaped from colonization were too great for them to stop. Their search for justifications seems all too human - to try to convince themselves to keep going, despite the horrifying human toll they were inflicting. That was interesting to me, and part of why I kept so engaged in this discussion. Yet, most of that, and most of what we discussed (as you said), is far too much to include in this particular article. PhotogenicScientist (talk) 14:53, 22 February 2023 (UTC)

Excellent, I'm glad we're in general agreement on the context. I especially appreciate the Wathen quote that you provided, since it makes the point succinctly. I'll return in a while with some draft text.

Are there recommended practices for revising an entire section? The talk page doesn't seem suited to this, and I hesitate to make large-scale changes to the article itself. I suppose I could just break the edits up into smaller pieces and make them in sequence, to make it easier to manage.

Thanks for the pointers to other articles in need of improvement. I might take you up on it! Ynizcw (talk) 18:29, 22 February 2023 (UTC)

In my experience, it's best to break up content edits into small-ish parts. One edit can be used for one "purpose" (copyediting, sourcing from a new text, improving current citations, etc) - that way, if you meet resistance, you know right off the bat which of your recent changes are opposed. As for making large-scale edits, be BOLD and go for it. If you believe in the validity of the content you're adding (and it's verifiable and sourced and all that), that's all the solid ground you need to make edits. Just bear in mind that any change you make may be reverted, forcing more discussion. It may be tedious when that happens, but that's what it's like here. PhotogenicScientist (talk) 19:10, 22 February 2023 (UTC)

Recent changes

@Herreshoffian please don't revert the article back to your preferred version, unless there is a policy-related reason to do so. The bold-revert-discuss cycle is encouraged for settling content disputes.

Regarding the "Personal Life" section that you renamed "Family and Heritage," one of the two large paragraphs in that section is about Buckland Abbey, Drake's manor, which is not a member of his family. So, "Personal Life" makes more sense in describing the section.

Regarding the image in the infobox, the portrait by Gheeraerts seems to me to be the better representative depiction of Drake. It's credentials are more impressive than the image you added - it's featured in the national portrait gallery of the UK. It's also in color. Why exactly are you opposed to this being the infobox picture? PhotogenicScientist (talk) 19:57, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

@PhotogenicScientist: Regarding the "Family and heritage" section, the heritage of Drake included Buckland Abbey and that's why I made the change. You are welcome to magnify your preferred image into a portrait and maybe then you can replace the title image for this biography. I dislike to repeat myself. Did you not read this edit summary? Please don't revert back to your preferred version without reading the edit summaries. Herreshoffian (talk) 20:06, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

I did in fact read that edit summary, and it makes no sense. A portrait is "a pictorial representation of a person usually showing the face," which the previous image is. Your disparagement of "the dutchman" was also unnecessary and irrelevant to the quality of the picture itself. Further, I'm not aware of any requirement that Wikipedia articles must feature closely-cropped pictures of article subject matter.

"Heritage" in modern times often refers to one's "cultural heritage", not strictly to possessions one passes down to kin - so it seemed an odd choice to have in the title of this section. While you're technically correct that Buckland Abbey is part of Drake's heritage, I still think "Personal Life" makes a better section title, as it's more natural, sufficiently precise, and concise. Your questioning of my "command of english" in that edit summary was also unncessary, and unwelcome. PhotogenicScientist (talk) 20:36, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

I'm dismayed that @PhotogenicScientist: failed to notify me that a) s/he made a reply to me; b) s/he was changing the text. (Personal attack removed) Since s/he attracted no support for the change s/he suggested, I have reverted it. "Heritage" includes possessions one passes to one's kin. To deny this is sophistry. A portrait is a close-up of a subject, as s/he will find on any official photograph of, say, a US civil servant. The colour image s/he suggests is not a portrait but a still-life with scenery. And it was likely donated because of its execrable quality. Herreshoffian (talk) 23:22, 8 March 2023 (UTC)

If a change you make to a Wikipedia article is opposed, the WP:ONUS is on YOU to generate consensus for the change. If consensus cannot be formed for the proposed change, the common result is to retain the version of the article as it was prior to the proposal.

I didn't even revert your change to the section title, since that didn't seem a change worth reverting, despite my personal preference.

Regarding the portrait, reliable sources call it a portrait, and we follow what the RS say. I'm not sure what else I can say on the matter. I've already said above why I feel the full-color portrait by Gheeraerts is a more representative picture of Drake than the one you're proposing for the infobox.

Lastly, please review in full the talk page guidelines before participating in discussion here. The purpose of Talk pages is to discuss article content - anything you write here should be primarily in service to that goal. If you're interested in editing an article, it's a good idea to watchlist that article and participate in the Talk page; you shouldn't expect to receive pings in every comment you might be interested in reading. PhotogenicScientist (talk) 15:18, 9 March 2023 (UTC)

Response to third opinion request (Disagreement on image to be in article infobox):

I am responding to a third opinion request for this page. I have made no previous edits on Francis Drake and have no known association with the editors involved in this discussion. The third opinion process is informal and I have no special powers or authority apart from being a fresh pair of eyes.

Gotta say, I take preference with the color image (for clarity, [1]) rather than the introduced black and white one. It being in color is far more visually appealing. I won't comment on it's credentials as I am by no means an expert in this topic area. I don't see why the distinction of it being a portrait is relevant given that this dispute is about image preference. No policy or guideline (that I'm aware of) demands one be used over the other. Herreshoffian, as an uninvolved editor, I would advise you to take what Photogenic has said seriously. Their explanations of the linked policies and guidelines are accurate. —Sirdog (talk) 11:54, 13 March 2023 (UTC)

@Freoh I appreciate the attempt to find a compromise for the infobox picture, but I think the fuller-body version of the portrait is still better than the cropped version. The cropped one is a little underwhelming, especially compared to the infobox portraits of some of Drake's contemporaries of the era - like John Hawkins, John Norris, and Elizabeth I. Would you oppose if I reverted the infobox picture? PhotogenicScientist (talk) 13:23, 13 March 2023 (UTC)

Feel free.      — Freoh 13:30, 13 March 2023 (UTC)

HMS Drake naval base

@Carlstak I tried to explain as much in my edit summary - the official name of the naval base appears to be "HMNB Devonport" (official site). However, the official name of the base WAS at one point "HMS Drake" (official site from 2007); in addition, there are recent sources that still refer to the base as "HMS Drake" (BBC article from last year). Moreover, I did some thorough searching, and was unable to find any source that backs up that the name of the base was officially changed. Based on all that, it's reasonable to believe the base is still bears the name "HMS Drake" in some capacity.

I realize that HMS Drake (shore establishment) is a redirect, but I thought it the best wikilink to use, in light of all of the above. I don't believe it's correct to say the base was "formerly" named after Drake, since it seems to still bear his name. PhotogenicScientist (talk) 21:51, 14 March 2023 (UTC)

I reverted your change. "Seems to still bear his name in some capacity" is pretty nebulous, and sounds a bit weaselly. As I said in my edit summary, no outside source supersedes the Royal Navy for what it calls it own naval bases. I know you spend a lot of time in exchanges, often contentious, on talk pages — you've made less than 1,000 edits, and 39% of the content you've added has been to talk pages. I appreciate that you're checking my edits, but rather than quibbling about a minor point, how about using some of your energy and time, which you seem to have an abundance of, to help me fact-check and clean up this article? It was full of blatant errors of fact and and lacked sources for many statements before I started, and more remains to be done. Carlstak (talk) 02:07, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

HMS Drake is the main naval barracks at HMNB Devonport. DuncanHill (talk) 08:56, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

As far as I've been able to tell, HMS Drake is no longer the name of the barracks themselves - they're now officially named the "Fleet Accommodation Centre." More info on that is in the HMNB Devonport article. PhotogenicScientist (talk) 14:31, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

As a point of note, Wikipedia does not necessarily use a subject's official name when referring to it. An example of this is Westminster Abbey, whose official name is "Collegiate Church of Saint Peter at Westminster". Both names appear in bold in the article lead, indicating that either is an accepted name for the place. The relevant policy here is WP:COMMONNAME. So, it's not that the BBC source is "superseding" the official naval site in this case - rather, the BBC source supports the idea that "HMS Drake" is still a common name for the entire base.

Please also refrain from making comments about my conduct on article talk pages. Try to focus on improving the encyclopedia yourself, rather than demanding more from other Wikipedians. Remember, editing Wikipedia is WP:NOTCOMPULSORY, and I'm free to edit as much or as little as I desire or have the time for. PhotogenicScientist (talk) 14:27, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

Let's be clear: I didn't "demand" anything—I made a suggestion. Carlstak (talk) 12:01, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

That you did - but only after you inexplicably brought up my own editing statistics, and called my editing to correct an apparent inaccuracy in an article "quibbling." If you'd truly like your suggestions to be taken to heart, it's better to not preface them with snark.

If you have no further objections regarding the naming of the naval base, I intend to change that back. PhotogenicScientist (talk) 13:48, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

You misrepresented what I said, so you should own up to it. I do object, since "HMS Drake" is not the official name of the naval base. We should just remove it altogether, because it's a minor point, and I dispute your attempts to call it by a now unofficial name. Carlstak (talk) 18:02, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

As I've said, Wikipedia does not have to use the official name for things, per policy. As "HMS Drake" is a common name for the base, it's fully accurate to refer to it as such, EVEN IF the base has another, official name. Since HMS Drake (shore establishment) is a valid redirect, I don't see the problem with using it in the article. It prevents having to include a long, messy explanation of "the base is officially named HMNB Devonport, but was at one point officially named HMS Drake, but is still sometimes referred to in current times as HMS Drake" in the article.

Including the base and a mention of it's naming for Drake is both relevant to the article (it's located in a paragraph about other places in England named for Drake) and sourced (provided in the article that's wiki-linked), and has been long-standing in the article. So, why do you think it should be removed? PhotogenicScientist (talk) 18:34, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

On second though, I'm fine with leaving it with an "also known as 'HMS Drake'" appending the link to the base, if that's acceptable to you. PhotogenicScientist (talk) 18:44, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

Yes, that will work. Better than arguing.;-) I did an Ngram Viewer search for "HMNB Devonport,HMS Drake", and it generated this graph, which definitely indicates that "HMS Drake" is more commonly used. The page has Google Books links to both terms too. Doesn't change my opinion, but your suggested change is a reasonable compromise. Carlstak (talk) 02:49, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

Glad we could settle that. PhotogenicScientist (talk) 13:14, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

Yes, that's a relief. Tomorrow I'll have time to do some more fact-checking on this article. I'm still floored that no one else has done it already. You'd think English persons would want this important article to present the best face possible; I have English ancestry, but I also have Welsh, Scottish, Irish, Native American, and French blood. One of my great grandmothers sure looked like a Spanish beauty.;-) Carlstak (talk) 20:02, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

Upnor vs Upchurch

Upnor and Upchurch are both small settlements on the river Medway. With their similar names and location some confusion has arisen over where Edmund Drake was vicar. Camden appears to have started the confusion by placing Drake at "Upnore" and this has been repeated many times since. Robjohns writing in 1877 realised that there were problems with this, but possibly being unaware of the existence of Upchurch wrote: ... he was presented to the vicarage of Upnore church on the Medway. A captious critic might properly object that there was no church at Upnore, but as the fact of the presentation is explicitly stated, the reasonable assumption is, ... and then to a chaplaincy at Upnore Castle ... the said chaplaincy being subject to the living of Frindsbury. By the time that the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica was published the error had been detected: and is said to have been afterwards vicar of Upnor Church (evidently a misprint or slip of the pen for Upchurch) on the Medway. hoever some sources keep repeating the earlier error which has found its way into Wikipedia. This article says He was ordained deacon and was made vicar of Upnor Church on the Medway and cites Whitfield yet the text says: Camden's 'Upnore' is a mistake for Upchurch, a village south of the Medway estuary where Edmund Drake became vicar in 1560 and: We do know that when Rdmund Drake, vicar of Upchurch, died in 1566. Writing in the "King's England" series, Arthur Mee says of Upchurch: Edmund Drake ... in 1560 they made him vicar of Upchurch. Here he laboured for six years; here he lies ... Wood gives an account of Edmund Drake's life and connects the Drakes with both Upchurch and the adjacent small port of Otterham Quay.

In view of all of the above I am going to be bold and remove reference to Drake from Upnor and correct it here. It's a pity this wasn't actioned following Janichblue's correction in Talk:Francis_Drake/Archive_3#Sir_Francis_Drake_incorrect_info ten years ago. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 10:41, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

Huh. Good find, there. I have no objection to the change to Upchurch, based on the sources you've provided.

Regarding the Upnor article, I think it would be worth keeping a mention of how "it is said that" Drake's father was the vicar there - both as a matter of preserving the history of that narrative, and to dissuade future editors of that article from adding in what might seem like an excluded "fact". PhotogenicScientist (talk) 13:40, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

References

• This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Drake, Sir Francis". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
• Robjohns, Sydney (1877), "Buckland Abbey and Sir Francis Drake", Transactions of the Royal Historical Society: 267–97, retrieved 22 May 2023 – via JSTOR {{citation}}: Unknown parameter |vol= ignored (|volume= suggested) (help)
• Whitfield, Peter (2004), Sir Francis Drake, NYU Press, ISBN 978-0814794036 at Internet Archive
• Wood, David (December 2003), The real Edmund Drake, Vicar of Upchurch, 1560-1567, retrieved 22 May 2023

Mee, Arthur (1969), Kent, The King's England, C. R. Councer (ed.) (New ed. revised and reset ed.), London: Hodder & Stoughton, ISBN 978-0-340-00086-1 at Internet Archive