Sir John Hawkins

Sir John Hawkins (born 1532, Plymouth, Devon, Eng.—died Nov. 12, 1595, at sea off Puerto Rico) was an English naval administrator and commander, one of the foremost seamen of 16th-century England and the chief architect of the Elizabethan navy. A kinsman of Sir Francis Drake, Hawkins began his career as a merchant in the African trade and soon became the first English slave trader. By carrying slaves from Guinea, in West Africa, to the Spanish...