Now Sir Francis Drake is getting canceled

Sir Francis Drake has been slated for cancellation. What the King of Spain and his various rivals at the court of Queen Elizabeth I were unable to do, the woke mob is now bent on carrying out, not so much to kill the man, since he has been dead over 400 years, but his legend, his very memory.

A story in SFGate tells the sad tale. After having removed a statue to the English explorer, pirate, and privateer in Marin County, the woke mob has caused the name of Sir Francis Drake High School to be changed and all symbols of his memory, including the name of the school’s sports team, the Pirates, are to be expunged. Discussions are ongoing to remove Drake’s name from various streets and geographic landmarks.

What was it about the daring mariner that has caused him to be the subject of the woke mob’s fury? Has the cultural zeitgeist suddenly turned against pirates, figures of romance on the small and large screen and in literature? The continued popularity of movies featuring one Captain Jack Sparrow would seem to argue against that, right?

What was it that has caused Drake to be lumped together with Confederate generals, the founding fathers, and his fellow explorer, Christopher Columbus?

It seems that Drake, before he changed to the more lucrative business of despoiling the King of Spain’s ships and colonies, participated in a number of slave-trading voyages.

Before we proceed, let us stipulate that the institution of slavery was and is horrible. It degrades human beings, depriving them of their freedom, forcing them to labor without compensation. The United States fought a Civil War that took over 600,000 lives to remove it from our shores.

Of course, it seems that slavery is not so horrible that companies like Nike are not prevented from using it as part of their business model. The fact that Nike produces overpriced shoes made with Uighur slave labor in China is something that, thus far, the woke mobs have not noticed. Colin Kaepernick, the famous football star who made a name for himself disrespecting the National Anthem, has taken money from Nike. Those people who admire him and the other athletes who emulate him should think on that.

Slavery and the slave trade were almost universal in the 16th century and were not just practiced by Europeans. Cervantes, the famous Spanish writer and Drake’s contemporary, was captured by Barbary pirates and enslaved for five years before being ransomed by his relatives. Ironically, a statue of Cervantes was recently vandalized. Slavery was just part of the landscape centuries ago, like other things we enlightened 21st century people disapprove of, like religious persecution and bad sanitation.

Besides practicing the sin of presentism, judging people of the past by the standards of today, the woke mob that is after Drake demonstrates a lack of proportion. The good that Drake did in his lifetime far outweighs the evil of being a participant in the slave trade.

Drake waged a one-man guerilla war against the Spanish Empire, at the time the mightiest on Earth. His pirate raids brought in much-needed revenue for England to build up its navy. The English Navy proved crucial in the defeat of the Spanish Armada, Spain’s attempt to conquer England and depose Queen Elizabeth.

Drake was also an epic explorer. His circumnavigation of the world is still a worthy feat that is well celebrated in modern times.

Religious persecution was the norm, as we have mentioned, in the 16th century. Catholics in England were definitely second-class citizens. However, people who were not Catholics in any land under the Spanish King’s rule were subject to being tortured and even burned alive. The Spanish Inquisition is not an object of fear and loathing even in modern times for nothing.

If any one man can be said to have prevented Spain from ruling the world and snuffing out human freedom, it was Sir Francis Drake. England survived to become a land where human rights and tolerance slowly but surely evolved. England gave birth to the United States, where freedom is enshrined in the Constitution. None of that would have happened had Sir Francis Drake not lived.

The woke mob that is bent on destroying Drake may want to consider that they have the sort of freedom that it takes to attack historical people who are gone and unable to defend themselves only because of the object of their ire. That freedom is the gift Drake gave them, which ironically, they are using to destroy the great English mariner.