JUNE 17:

 June 17, 1654: Today in a meeting between the Swedes and the Delawares in Tinicum (New Sweden, Pennsylvania). Delaware Chief Naaman praises the Swedes for their righteous treatment of the native inhabitants.

June 17, 1579: Sir Francis Drake will land, today, north of San Francisco, probably, at what is called today, Drake's Bay, in California. He will report the Indians to be "people of a tractable, free and loving nature, without guile or treachery."

BACKGROUND:
 

From http://www.legends.dm.net/pirates/drake.html
 

Sir Francis Drake, navigator and privateer, is one of the greatest English sea-captains of all time. Revered as a hero in the fight against the Armada and despised as an upstart by the old nobility, Drake epitomizes the self-made Elizabethan privateer, rapacious in the hunt for treasure (especially Spanish treasure) but daring and visionary in exploration. Drake and his crew are remembered as the first Englishmen to circumnavigate the globe, claiming a portion of California for Elizabeth along the way. His attack on Cadiz and his devastating raids on the Spanish Main earned him the fear and the grudging respect of the Spaniards, who call him El Draque, "The Dragon".

Drake's exploits are the distant inspiration for the adventures of Captain Geoffrey Thorpe (Errol Flynn) in Michael Curtiz's film The Sea-Hawk, which has nothing but the title in common with the Rafael Sabatini novel of the same name.

Nova Albion June 17, 1579 In 38 deg.30 min. We fell in with a fit and convenient harbor and June 17, came to anchor there, where we stayed till the 23 July. During all which time, not withstanding it was the height of summer, we were continually visited with nipping cold, neither could we at any time within a fourteen day period find the air so clear as to be able to take height the sun or stars. [from The World Encompassed]

"Nova Albion" was the name Drake gave to the land he claimed for Elizabeth I on the western coast of North America. In some parts of north-central California, the argument over where exactly Drake landed dwarfs the argument over who wrote Shakespeare's plays.

Much of the evidence is based on an inset on Jodocus Hondius's map of Drake's circumnavigation (c. 1596), showing a bay or inlet labeled "Portus Novae Albionis" - Drake's harbor.
 

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From http://www.marinestates.com/welcomemarin.html
 

In early times, Marin was occupied by the Miwok Indians. In June 1579, Sir Francis Drake's ship, the Golden Hinde, sailed into either San Francisco Bay, or Drakes's Bay off Point Reyes.
 

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From http://www.californiahistory.net/3_PAGES/drake_miwok.htm
 

Drake's Encounter with the Coast Miwok
 

The first recorded encounter between English-speaking people and the Indians of California occurred during the visit of Francis Drake in 1579. Accounts of Drake's visit contain detailed descriptions of the houses, feathered baskets, ceremonies and language of the local Indians. Based on these accounts, anthropologists have identified them as Coast Miwok, a people whose homeland included the Point Reyes Peninsula in present-day Marin County.

The English visitors misinterpreted the actions of the Coast Miwok.

The English mistakenly believed that the Miwok were turning over sovereignty to their country by placing a feathered crown on Drake's head. The Miwok also wailed and scratched their cheeks. The English misinterpreted this response as an act of worship and concluded that the Indians believed them to be gods. We now know that that these were the mourning customs of the Coast Miwok. Most likely the Indians regarded the English visitors as relatives who had returned from the dead.
 

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From http://www.xroyvision.com.au/drake/admiral/admiral12.html

Drake The Man and the Mystery by Laura Lee Newman

Reprinted with permission from the Bodega Bay Navigator

Decades before the Pilgrims reached Plymouth Rock, Sir Francis Drake harbored his foundering, treasure-laden ship Golden Hind on the California coast. Historians concur on that much, but there unanimity ceases. ...

... Only Portugal's Ferdinand Magellan had circumnavigated the globe before Sir Francis Drake set out from Plymouth, England in December of 1577. He commanded a five-ship fleet from the deck of the 100-ton Pelican (later rechristened the Golden Hind), sailing south toward Africa. Four years earlier Drake had earned his Iberian name "El Draque" after plundering the Spanish Caribbean. A year later, Queen Elizabeth had uneasily allied with King Philip of Spain, but rumors ricocheted throughout Europe. Would agents of the King assassinate Elizabeth? Would the Spanish sail across the English Channel and attack England? Would El Draque ravage the Caribbean once more? Off the coast of Morocco, Sir Francis Drake provided a hint of his future role in the international drama by seizing a half-dozen vessels that flew the flags of Spain and Portugal. His fleet turned west and crossed the Atlantic, then set a course for the coasts of Brazil and Argentina. Storms had scattered the ships, which rendezvoused off the Cape of Good Hope. Before Drake departed Argentina, he encountered Patagonian giants, lost close friends and abandoned several damaged vessels. Though most of the sailors yearned to turn back, their commander rallied his men, consolidated his forces onto three ships and proceeded up the "backside of Spanish America." Weeks of violent weather left the Golden Hind alone in the Pacific. Undeterred, Drake followed the coast of Chile northward, unburdening Spaniards of their gold and silver in the process. In March of 1579, Drake bested the treasure galleon Caca Fuego, loading booty onto the Golden Hind that included 1300 silver bars and 14 chests of sil-ver coin. He continued north, preying on richly loaded vessels bound from Manila to the port of Lima, Peru. The mariner added a small merchant vessel to his retinue, as well as three Africans yielded by the ship of a wealthy Spaniard, including its owner's ravishing young mistress, a woman named Maria.

Burdened with Spanish plunder, Drake navigated onward into the uncharted waters of the Pacific Northwest, hoping to discover the fabled passage linking the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. Tormented by fog, storms, frigid temperatures and uncooperative winds, the Golden Hind finally turned southward, limping near the shore until it reached the northern coast of California. Weary and demoralized, with the Golden Hind taking on water, riding lower and lower in the water, the voyagers sought a safe harbor. On the morning of June 17, 1579, Drake finally sighted what appeared to be a secure, approachable bay lying beneath a headland, with the south side shrouded in mist but its narrow channel revealing adequate depth. When he stepped onto the sands of that harbor, he became the first European to set foot in Northern California ...

... When, according to Brian Kelleher, Drake sighted Campbell Cove and realized the Golden Hind could be saved, nightfall- and fog- was approaching. The mariner called his crew together for evening prayer: "By God's Will we hath been sent into this fair and good bay. Let us all, with one consent, both high and low, magnify and praise our most gracious and merciful God for his infinite and unspeakable goodness toward us. By God's faith hath we endured such great storms and such hardships as we have seen in these uncharted seas. To be delivered here of His safekeeping, I protest we are not worthy of such mercy."

In the morning, as the the wind and, consequently, the fog began to rise, a sailor stationed in the crow's nest alerted Sir Francis Drake that a small band of Indians had gathered on the shore. Kelleher's research shows that these people, who eventually welcomed Drake and lamented his departure, came from a nearby village on the shore of Bodega Bay. Their culture combined characteristics associated by historians with both Miwok and Pomo peoples: another indicator that the anchorage was located outside of Marin County. The Pomo peoples of the northern Sonoma Coast had refined the weaving of exquisite baskets to such an art that they are often considered the premiere

practitioners of this tradition. Evidence of this skill, combined with attitudes and diet associated with Miwok culture, helped Kelleher define ethnographic parameters that support his Campbell Cove theory. The journals of Sir Francis Drake and Francis Fletcher, chaplain of the Golden Hind and its official chronicler, also reveal countless specifics about the landing site that Drake christened Nova Albion: "New England"....

... Sir Francis Drake claimed Nova Albion for Queen Elizabeth of England. After a 36 day stay, Drake and the Golden Hind sailed westward across the Pacific for more than two months before visiting islands in the Caroline Archipelago, the Philippines, and the Moluccas. After further repairs on uninhabited Crab Island, the Golden Hind departed, leaving the pregnant Maria and the other Africans behind. Later Drake sailed from Java around the Cape of Good Hope without any navigational charts to aid him, and finally slipped back into Plymouth harbor on September 26, 1580, hailing fishermen with the words: "How goes the Queen?"