Forged plaque allegedly placed by Francis Drake when landing in California in 1579
Drake's Plate of Brass
Drake's Plate of Brass is a forgery that purports to be the brass plaque that Francis Drake posted while anchored in Drake's Bay in Northern California in 1579. The hoax was successful for 40 years, despite early doubts. After the plate came to public attention in 1936, historians raised questions regarding the plate's wording, spelling, and manufacture. The hoax's perpetrators attempted to apprise the plate's finders as to its origins. Many presumed the plate to be authentic after an early metallurgical study concluded it was genuine. In the late 1970s, scientists determined that the plate was a modern creation after it failed a battery of physical and chemical tests. Much of the mystery surrounding the plate continued until 2003, when historians advanced a theory about who created the plate and why, showing the plate to be a practical joke by local historians gone awry. The plate was acquired by and is often on display at the Bancroft Library of the University of California, Berkeley.
Drake landed at Drake's Cove in Drakes Bay, California. According to a contemporary account by Francis Fletcher, a member of Drake's party, Drake left behind "a plate" as "a monument of our being there" that claimed "her maiesties, and successors right and title to that kingdome". The memoirs also say that the plate included the date of the landing, and under it Drake's name, and the queen's portrait on a sixpence coin.
Fletcher's detailed description of the plate became the recipe for the prank that became the Drake Plate hoax.
Hoax plate: description and text
The plate that came to light in the 1930s matched the description in the historical record in many ways. It was made of brass, with lettering that appeared to have been chiseled into its face. There was the hole for a sixpence coin, and the text contained all the content that Fletcher described:
BEE IT KNOWNE VNTO ALL MEN BY THESE PRESENTS.
IVNE.17.1579
BY THE GRACE OF GOD AND IN THE NAME OF HERR
MAIESTYQVEEN ELIZABETH OF ENGLAND AND HERR
SVCCESSORS FOREVER, I TAKE POSSESSION OF THIS
KINGDOME WHOSE KING AND PEOPLE FREELY RESIGNE
THEIR RIGHT AND TITLE IN THE WHOLE LAND VNTO HERR
MAIESTIEES KEEPEING. NOW NAMED BY ME AN TO BEE
KNOWNE V(N) TO ALL MEN AS NOVA ALBION.
G. FRANCIS DRAKE
(Hole for sixpence)
Origins
Working for ten years, a team of four researchers pieced together a complete narrative of the out-of-hand joke. The four—Edward Von der Porten, Raymond Aker, Robert W. Allen, and James M. Spitze—published their account in California History in 2002.[1]
Creation
According to the 2002 account, the plate was intended to be a joke among members of a playful fraternity of California history enthusiasts, the Ancient and Honorable Order of E Clampus Vitus ("ECV"). However, Bolton was in league with this group, and they were to take the blame if the plate was found to be a forgery. The ECV had originated during the 1849 California Gold Rush and was revived in the 1930s by Carl Wheat, George Ezra Dane, and Leon Whitsell as a fraternity of historians and Western lore enthusiasts.[2] ECV describes itself as "dedicated to the erection of historical plaques, the protection of widows and orphans, especially the widows, and having a grand time while accomplishing these purposes."[3] Pranks at fellow Clampers' expense were a regular part of the group's activities.
Bolton had George Ezra Dane, an ECV leader, as the fall guy, blamed for initiating the hoax as a joke intended for fellow "Clamper" Herbert Eugene Bolton to find.[1] The plate was likely made by George Clark in his workshop in 1917 working with Bolton's design.[2]
The alleged target of the hoax, Herbert Bolton, had a special interest in the plate. Bolton was a distinguished professor of California history and director of the Bancroft Library at the University of California. Over his career, he exhorted students to look for the plate—and to contact him if they ever heard of an artifact matching the historical description. However, he could not be caught because it would endanger his reputation and position.
Bolton initiated the plot. George Haviland Barron, a former curator of American history at the De Young Museum in San Francisco, designed the plate and bought the brass at a nearby shipyard, where a worker cut the plate from modern brass with a modern guillotine shear. George Clark, an inventor, art critic, and appraiser, hammered the letters into the plate with a simple cold chisel. Clark told his wife that the "C.G."—later taken to stand for "Captain General"—before Drake's name was essentially his own signature. As a final mark of the gag, Lorenz Noll (1891–1962) and Albert Dressler (1887–1960)[4] painted "ECV" on the back of the plate in paint visible under ultraviolet light.[1]
Discovery and loss
Von der Porten, Aker, and Allen surmise that the conspirators probably planted the plate in Marin in 1933, not far from the supposed location of Drake's landing. William Caldeira, a chauffeur, found the plate while his employer, Leon Bocqueraz, was hunting near the shores of Drakes Bay with a companion, Anson Stiles Blake. Bocqueraz was a banker, while Blake was a prominent and active Berkeley alumnus. Both were members of the California Historical Society.
Caldeira showed the dirt-covered plate to Bocqueraz, then stowed the plate in the car to investigate later and then forgot about it. Some weeks later, he found it while cleaning the car on the San Rafael Ferry and threw it away on the side of the road in San Rafael—several miles from its original location, but still in the Marin area. This was the first of a series of events that ultimately spun the joke out of the conspirators' control.[1]
Re-discovery and publicity
The plate was found again, three years later, in 1936, by Beryle Shinn, a shop clerk.[5] Shinn showed it to a friend, a Berkeley student, who suggested that he take the plate to Bolton. In February 1937, Shinn brought it to Bolton, which to Bolton was the fulfillment of a decades-old professional dream. Bolton compared it to Francis Pretty's[6] contemporaneous description of the plate. He alerted Robert Gordon Sproul, the University of California president, and Allen L. Chickering, the president of the California Historical Society, to the possibility of a major find. Chickering and Bolton negotiated to buy the plate, offering to pay $2,500 (equivalent to $53,000in 2023) and to assume all risk regarding the authenticity of the plate.[1]
Then another series of events took the hoax to the next level. One day after agreeing in principle to sell the plate, Shinn took it back from Bolton, saying he wanted to show it to his uncle and then return it. Bolton and Chickering did not hear from Shinn again for four days. Apparently frightened that they might lose this major opportunity, Chickering moved to quickly buy the plate for $3,500 (equivalent to $74,200in 2023). The plate was then given to the University's Bancroft Library.
Bolton soon announced at a California Historical Society meeting, on April 6, 1937, "One of the world's long-lost historical treasures apparently has been found!... The authenticity of the tablet seems to me beyond all reasonable doubt." Now, having only minimally investigated the plate, Bolton and Chickering had publicly committed themselves, personally and professionally, and their institutions to the authenticity of the plate.
Early doubts
Skeptics pointed out many suspicious elements of the plate. Reginald B. Haselden, a specialist in Elizabethan literature, published a critique of the plate in the September 1937 issue of California History, outlining a list of problems. The spelling seemed modern. The wording did not match normal Elizabethan forms. For example, the plate reads "Queen Elizabeth", not the standard style "Elizabeth, by the Grace of God, Queen of England, France and Ireland, Defender of the Faith". The plate contains the modern forms "the" and "this" instead of the 16th-century "ye" and "y(i)s". Physically, the plate seemed too uniform and the patina suspect. Yet none of these elements by themselves seemed to determine the matter, alternative interpretations of each being available. Haselden's points were immediately disputed. Chickering published a defense of the plate in the same issue of California Monthly.
Conspirators' warnings
The joke, originally intended as an internal Clamper affair, had quickly and suddenly broken out into the public eye. Rather than unveiling their prank at an ECV dinner among friends, revealing the hoax would now be a very public and painful proposition for all involved. As Von der Porten and others wrote, "Private confession could not be kept private, and public confession was fraught with great peril."
The conspirators found a number of ways of trying to tip off Bolton without coming forward. V. L. Vander Hoof, a fellow Clamper and Berkeley professor, made a spoof of the plate a few weeks after the announcement of the find, hoping to show Bolton that modern tools could make a plate that looked remarkably like the "real" plate. Clamper Edwin Grabhorn, a Western history publisher, published a spoof letter from the "Consolidated Brasse and Novelty Company" offering a "special line of brass plates" guaranteed to "make your home-town famous."
Finally, ECV produced a small press run of a book, Ye Preposterous Booke of Brasse, detailing problems with the metal content, wording and spelling. The book even instructed the reader to look for the "ECV" in fluorescent paint on the back and stated outright "we should now re-claim [the plate] as the rightful property of our ancient Order", meaning ECV.
Just before the Preposterous booklet was printed, fellow Clamper (and the person accused of the hoax) George Ezra Dane sent Bolton a promotional flyer soliciting preorders. Printed in the flyer was an interesting comment that may have alluded to the truth of the scheme: “As history thunders down the corridors of time, the name of E Clampus Vitus and the Francis Drake Plate will be forever joined.” [7]
"Confirmation"
While Bolton and Chickering continued to defend the plate, doubts and rumors continued to circulate. Sproul, the University president, had become concerned as well. Bolton played down concerns while challenges to the plate’s authenticity were numerous and authoritative, as were demands for analysis of the relic. Journalists at home and abroad, as well as historians and archaeologists, sent requests for at least a good photograph of the plate. Bolton demurred, put off analysis, and did not follow up with experts on specific questions they had about the plate that could help determine its authenticity. A good photograph was not available even by August of 1937 when the editor of Antiquity wrote to Bolton “surely in the case of an object which, if genuine, is of the highest historical importance, at least one really adequate photograph should be made available!” [8] Bolton chose Professor Colin Fink, chair of the Division of Electrochemistry of Columbia University, to authenticate the plate. While the California history community, and certainly Bolton, would have been aware of the Clampers' book of clues, Fink may not have been. In any case, in 1938 Fink and his colleague E. P. Polushkin confirmed the plate as genuine in no uncertain terms: "[I]t is our opinion that the brass plate examined by us is the genuine Drake Plate."[3]
For most observers, this was the definitive statement on the plate's origins. Photos of the plate appeared in textbooks. Copies were sold as souvenirs, and a copy was also displayed in the library of Sir Francis Drake High School in San Anselmo (the only high school named after the explorer). On several ceremonial occasions, copies of the plate were presented to Queen Elizabeth II. Yet rumors of E Clampus Vitus' involvement in the plate continued to circulate.[citation needed]
Scientific investigation
In the early 1970s, physics caught up to Haselden's original findings. Professor James D. Hart, director of the Bancroft Library, assembled a re-testing plan in preparation for the 400th anniversary of Drake's landing. He asked the Research Laboratory for Archaeology, the History of Art at Oxford University, and the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory for a detailed analysis. The tests included X-ray diffraction, stereo microscopy, and additional metallurgical analysis. X-ray diffraction and gamma-ray absorption tests revealed the plate to be too smooth, made by modern rolling equipment, not hammered flat by a sixteenth-century hammer. Dr. Frank Asaro, at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory of the University of California, Berkeley, working with colleague Helen Michels, used neutron activation analysis to study the plate and found that it contained far too much zinc and too few impurities to be Elizabethan English brass, while containing trace metals that corresponded to modern American brass.[9][10][11]Cyril Stanley Smith of MIT examined the plate under a stereo microscope and found the edges to be consistent with modern cutting equipment.
See also
His Majesty, McDuck – a 1989 Walt Disney story fashioned after the plate discovery
Oscar Hartzell – perpetrator of another hoax based on Sir Francis Drake
Related Research Articles
Sir Francis Drake was an English explorer and privateer best known for his circumnavigation of the world in a single expedition between 1577 and 1580. This was the first English circumnavigation, and second circumnavigation overall. He is also known for participating in the early English slaving voyages of his cousin, Sir John Hawkins, and John Lovell. Having started as a simple seaman, in 1588 he was part of the fight against the Spanish Armada as a vice-admiral.
Human history in California began when indigenous Americans first arrived some 13,000 years ago. Coastal exploration by the Spanish began in the 16th century, with further European settlement along the coast and in the inland valleys following in the 18th century. California was part of New Spain until that kingdom dissolved in 1821, becoming part of Mexico until the Mexican–American War (1846–1848), when it was ceded to the United States under the terms of the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. The same year, the California Gold Rush began, triggering intensified U.S. westward expansion. California joined the Union as a free state via the Compromise of 1850. By the end of the 19th century, California was still largely rural and agricultural, with a population of about 1.4 million.
Marin County is a county located in the northwestern part of the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 262,231. Its county seat and largest city is San Rafael. Marin County is across the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco, and is included in the San Francisco–Oakland–Berkeley, CA Metropolitan Statistical Area.
Golden Hind was a galleon captained by Francis Drake in his circumnavigation of the world between 1577 and 1580. She was originally known as Pelican, but Drake renamed her mid-voyage in 1578, in honour of his patron, Sir Christopher Hatton, whose crest was a golden hind. Hatton was one of the principal sponsors of Drake's world voyage. A full-sized, seaworthy reconstruction is in London, on the south bank of the Thames.
New Albion, also known as Nova Albion, was the name of the continental area north of Mexico claimed by Sir Francis Drake for England when he landed on the North American west coast in 1579. This claim became the justification for English charters across America to the Atlantic coast and soon influenced further national expansion projects on the continent. Drake's landing site has been identified as Drake's Cove, which is part of Point Reyes National Seashore.
Point Reyes is a prominent landform and popular Northern California tourist destination on the Pacific coast. Located in Marin County, it is approximately 30 miles (50 km) west-northwest of San Francisco. The term is often applied to the Point Reyes Peninsula, the region bounded by Tomales Bay on the northeast and Bolinas Lagoon on the southeast. The majority of the peninsula as well as the headlands are protected as part of Point Reyes National Seashore.
Archaeological forgery is the manufacture of supposedly ancient items that are sold to the antiquities market and may even end up in the collections of museums. It is related to art forgery.
The Ancient and Honorable Order of E Clampus Vitus (ECV) is a fraternal organization dedicated to the preservation of the heritage of the Western United States, especially the history of the Mother Lode and gold mining regions of the area. There are chapters in California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, Washington, Idaho, Oregon, Montana and Wyoming. Members call themselves "Clampers." The organization's name is in Dog Latin, and has no known meaning; even the spelling is disputed, sometimes appearing as "Clampus," "Clampsus," or "Clampsis." The motto of the Order, Credo quia absurdum, generally interpreted as meaning "I believe it because it is absurd;" is a Latin phrase popularly misattributed to Tertullian.
Herbert Eugene Bolton was an American historian who pioneered the study of the Spanish-American borderlands and was a prominent authority on Spanish American history. He originated what became known as the Bolton Theory of the history of the Americas which holds that it is impossible to study the history of the United States in isolation from the histories of other American nations, and wrote or co-authored ninety-four works. A student of Frederick Jackson Turner, Bolton disagreed with his mentor's Frontier theory and argued that the history of the Americas is best understood by taking a holistic view and trying to understand the ways that the different colonial and precolonial contexts have interacted to produce the modern United States. The height of his career was spent at the University of California, Berkeley where he served as chair of the history department for twenty-two years and is widely credited with making the renowned Bancroft Library the preeminent research center it is today.
In 1579, Francis Drake was halfway during his circumnavigation and sailed out in the Pacific, then turned east seeking the Strait of Anián , or for a place to repair his ships.
The Drake Navigators Guild is the historical research group which has used multi-disciplinary methods to research Francis Drake’s visit to the west coast of North America in 1579 and related maritime explorations. Founded in 1949, the Guild’s research supports the long-standing conclusion that Drake’s “Nova Albion” is at Drakes Bay, California. The Guild's efforts build on the research of Professor George Davidson (geographer) and others who have studied Drake's voyage. The Guild’s research has identified the specific careening site at Drake’s Cove within the Bay.
Early Polynesian explorers reached nearly all Pacific islands by 1200 CE, followed by Asian navigation in Southeast Asia and the West Pacific. During the Middle Ages, Muslim traders linked the Middle East and East Africa to the Asian Pacific coasts, reaching southern China and much of the Malay Archipelago. Direct European contact with the Pacific began in 1512, with the Portuguese encountering its western edges, soon followed by the Spanish arriving from the American coast.
From 1577 to 1580 Sir Francis Drake circumnavigated the world. In 1579 as part of this voyage he landed on the west coast of North America which consequently has drawn the attention of scores of historians, geographers, linguists, anthropologists and other professionals. In addition, many history buffs have sought to locate Drake's New Albion. The established site for Drake's 1579 landing at New Albion is at Drake's Cove in Drakes Bay in Marin County, California. More than a score of ideas for an alternative to Drake's New Albion claim have been put forth which cover the coast from Alaska to Baja California Sur, Mexico. These ideas span the eighteenth through the early twenty-first centuries.
The Dare Stones are a series of stones inscribed with messages supposedly written by members of the lost Roanoke Colony, allegedly discovered in various places across the Southeastern United States in the late 1930s. The colonists were last seen on Roanoke Island, off the coast of what is now North Carolina, in August 1587, and the mystery of their disappearance has since become a part of American folklore. The stones created a media circus in the United States, as the public became fascinated with the possible resolution of the Lost Colony's fate.
George Peter Hammond was an American professor of Latin American studies. He published works related to the founding of New Mexico and other Spanish settlements in the United States. He was the director of the Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley for 17 years.
Henry Raup Wagner was an American book collector, bibliographer, cartographer, historian, and business executive. He was the author of over 170 publications, including books and scholarly essays, mainly about the histories of the American frontier and the Spanish exploration and colonization of Mexico. He also assembled tens of thousands of books and manuscripts and formed several collections from them.
Edward Paul Von der Porten was an American scholar noted for his work in history, archaeology, and museum practices. His areas of expertise included Sir Francis Drake, Drake's New Albion claim, Chinese porcelain, the Kriegsmarine, and Manila galleon history, and he was also the director of the Treasure Island Museum.
Francis Drake's circumnavigation, also known as Drake's Raiding Expedition, was an important historical maritime event that took place between 15 December 1577 and 26 September 1580. The expedition was authorised by Queen Elizabeth I and consisted of five ships led by Francis Drake. Termed a 'voyage of discovery', it was in effect an ambitious covert raiding voyage and the start of England's challenge to the global domination of Spain and Portugal.
Steven Maxwell Johnson is an American cartoonist, futurist, and inventor.
References
1 2 3 4 5 Edward Von der Porten, Raymond Aker, Robert W. Allen, James M. Spitze. "Who Made Drake's Plate of Brass? Hint: It Wasn't Francis Drake" California History, Vol. 81, No. 2 (2002), pp. 116–133 JSTOR25177677
1 2 Von der Porten, Edward; Spitze, James (2020). The Mystery of the Plate of Brass: California's Greatest Hoax and The Search for its Perpetrators. Michael P. Von der Porten. p.49. ISBN979-8673403112.
↑ Von der Porten, Spitze, Aker, and Allen state that "the low membership and limited activity of E Clampus Vitus at that time (1933) makes this scenario (the finding of the Caldeira plate) so unlikely that the present authors do not consider it credible." Von der Porten, Edward; Spitze, James (2020). The Mystery of the Plate of Brass: California's Greatest Hoax and The Search for its Perpetrators. Michael P. Von der Porten. p.84. ISBN979-8673403112. They conclude that Caldeira had not found the Clampers' hoax plate.
↑ The attribution of the World Encompassed to Pretty comes from an early French printing which erroneously assigned Pretty's name. The actual significant source is Chaplain Francis Fletcher.
↑ George Ezra Dane, The Hew-Gag Brays, undated announcement on the upcoming publication of The Preposterous Booke of Brasse, Bolton paper's correspondence, Box 28, Folder 17.
↑ O. Crawford to Bolton, 5 August 1937, Herbert Eugene Bolton Papers, box 132, 1, Bancroft Library.
Fletcher's account of Drake's landing and the real plate (While this is often misattributed to Pretty, the Hakluyt Society has studied this and determined that the Pretty attribution came much later. The original was published by Drake's nephew, also "Sir Francis Drake," using records from voyage chaplain Francis Fletcher.)
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
