Nova Albion Revealed: Drake’s claim of California celebrated by Hakluyt and Hondius, Martha Doerr Toppin

In this essay I will examine two accounts of Sir Francis Drake’s acquisition of Nova Albion for England. I will compare and contrast a text, ‘The famous voyage of Sir Francis Drake’ from Richard Hakluyt’s Principall navigations,voiages and discoveries of the English nation (1589) and a map, Jodocus Hondius’s Vera Totius Expeditionis Navticae (c. 1590-1595). I will explore the role of Nova Albion itself, the two depictions, the motivating impulses of Hakluyt and Hondius, and the place of all of this in the political, commercial, and religious ambitions and wars of the late sixteenth century.