A video of the recent public online learning session about Sir Francis Drake Boulevard is now available in both English and Spanish on the Library’s Drake History Resources webpage. Our Anne T. Kent California Room librarians were essential in gathering information to support the ongoing public dialogue and opportunity for community learning. Check out the Anne T. Kent California Room Community Newsletter for additional features and highlights about local history and available archival resources.
Listening Session: June 26 recording
Resource Page: Marin County Library Drake Resources
My questions: Where might I find an actual ship’s manifest for Drake’s voyage to California? did he sell slaves, or is that a populist notion? Do you have a modern transcript of Drake’s voyage diaries, I struggled through a faximile and was slaughtered by the Elizabethan English, undone by all those long eSses. I am also concerned by how the Tamalpais School District removed the name from the high school, violating the Brown Act, and circumnavigating any community input. Any unbiased information would be gratefully accepted. It’s a landmine out there....opinion passing for history. My notes from the Rodoni roundtable are transcribed below. I began to shape it into an article but grew weary, and depressed. Too tired to fight, as it were. So this blog is a bank to fund me in case I garner up the stamina to write something coherent. The screenshots are not in any particular order.
Notes on June 26 community Zoom meeting with Supervisor Rodoni: Was Drake a slaver? Or a product of his time? Did he even sell slaves? Slavery was legal during the 16th and 18th centuries, and it wasn’t until the 13th amendment passed in 1865, that slavery was considered illegal. The round table began to take on a heated racial agenda.
Drake was said to have landed in California some 430 years ago, where he landed, no one knows. He certainly didn’t stay long. So his legacy as a white supremacist segregationist and slave owner is a modern spin foisted upon a historical figure who did not represent the very crimes he is supposed to have done.
Most of the callers were all for changing the name. One thread of thought seemed to be based upon the idea of restitution based upon a hangover of white guilt, not a genuine desire to support the black lives matter movement.
Someone said, no one is talking about the elephant in the room. Will the name change actually address constitutional racism rather systemic racism? Will it change white privilege? air is it a self-serving feel good motion?
The consensus seems to be there is deep-seated racism in Marin that needs to go. The accusations were almost punitive in nature. I kept thinking of Shirley Jackson’s story, The Lottery.
UC Berkeley Professor Susan Holloway said, words matter. There is this perception that Drake sold slaves, then she asked the harder question: are we erasing history.
A man name Rob S who wrote a book on Drake said that Drake was not a a slave trader, nor a murderer. He took it a step further. Should we also throw out the constitution because the signature the signatories were slaveowners? Should we change the name of San Rafael because the mission was built by slaves?
Far too many callers shored up their weak argument with alternative, invented history. Certainly European colonialism was on trial. Most people are convinced that Columbus was a slaver. Drake too, by extension. Drake sold humans and worked them to death, said another. I had to laugh out loud at that point as they were just absolutely glorified soundbites uttered by folks, who at best, had a tentative grasp on history. But the debate is not analogous to removing statues in the south.
Missionaries and slave narratives were brought up as well. I learned odd facts: Chief Marin was baptized in 1801.
Does Drake even have a checkered history? Or are we posthumously reinventing and reconfiguring history to fit our current needs? What little we do know of Drake is that he claimed America, a foreign country, for England, and ergo, he was guilty of all the crimes against the native peoples ever committed. But the fact is that he didn’t stay here for any of length of time and his hold on California was absolutely minimal.
Keith Marsh said outsiders were also offended by the street name, and that changing the name won’t change racism. He’s right, it’s a feel-good moment. A false dichotomy. One caller said it would be far better to repave Drake rather than to rename it. Hear, hear! Another self-identified scholar said, why don’t we spend the money on housing?
Again and again the callers were almost quoting each other verbatim, saying that Drake was a figure of controversy, of piracy and slavery, ergo he must be banished. Where will the name change frenzy stop? asked another caller.
Someone said that William Kent was racist against Asians. Which was not unusual for the time. Doesn’t make it right. She’s right. Should we change the name of Kentfield? Give back Muir Woods?
Self-identified person of Miwok descent, Lucinda Viduari, who is behind most of this name change movement, wants to rename the boulevard and the school.She says make change, not the name. Outsiders seem to be indulging in a self-mutilating shame fest. Overwhelmingly everyone wanted to let the Miwok Federation rename the Boulevard. Trouble is, there are no native speakers.
Dennis Patton was asked about his art and someone said it was disrespectful to have removed his work. I agree. There is a film to see called the world of Dennis Patton. Everyone should see it. Dennis is heartbroken, and feels betrayed by his community.
What alarms me most is that this alternate alternate view of history is being accepted as fact. This does not bode well. So let me put this into perspective, George Washington was a slave owner, as was Jefferson. When does this name changing stop. Was Drake a symbol of white supremacy, or was he merely a man of his time? Where does our need lie to change the past to fit the needs of the present? What is the inherent danger of scapegoating?
Another said Drake named this area Nova Albion which means white land, but it does not mean white land, it means New Britain, Albion being another name for Britain. Historic illiteracy strikes again.
Again, white supremacy has become a center stage dialogue. Someone said that of the people who are up against the name change, that only white men who were super upset by it all. Huh?
Someone else claimed that Drake owned 1300 slaves and killed as many more and then killed Irish and Scottish people as well. I had never heard this. Where are they getting these alternate histories from?
Richard White, an author who wrote about Drake said he was a white supremacist. I guess what concerns me is how this thread of thought is based on George Floyd’s death, but it doesn’t really address what actually happened. How does this help the legacy of George Floyd? It doesn’t. We are one raw cesspit of seething emotion with no direction home.
Wendy Todd said Drake was a colonizer, a slaver, a murderer, and he made his fortune off of slavery. Again, this is a blatantly false narrative, information I have never heard before, it requires some looking into to see if there is any basis in fact.
I had to laugh, all the outsiders who called in were offended by being called outsiders by the locals. And some became more vociferous toward the very few, who were by and large, locals, who spoke up against the name change. Calling them out. Which I felt was unfortunate. It was like a modern-day Spanish Inquisition on some level. One guy said it’s a bad look for Marin and I thought oh how superficial does it get? It looks bad, so therefore we have to change the name? What? God forbid that it was named after someone who may or may not have had a checkered past.
When somebody started talking about Dennis Patton’s sculpture, they called it a statue, not knowing the difference between the two. They said that the statue was ugly, completely unaware that’s not a statue but a sculpture. They said it needs to come down, citing that he wasn’t even wearing any pants—and that supposed fact apparently was reason enough to take the quixotic sculpture down, that Drake was a uglyfied racist.
Marnie Glickman who led the debacle against Dixie school district, said Dixie is a symbol of the confederacy, and she was very proud of her contribution in the renaming of Miller Creek School. She said we are a better community for it. I wanted to bop her one. She said, along with the name change, also change the name of the high school and change the name of the road.
Someone asked what’s in a name? quoting Shakespeare, and that the idea of a name means everything, nomenclature, who we are. The mayor of the city of Larkspur said that the jurisdiction of the sculpture falls under his Bailywick and they would be dealing with it later. Under cover of nightfall it was pulled it down. Out of sight, out of mind, and to hell with historical facts, seems the be the political model of the day.
Wendy Todd said Drake was a colonizer, a slaver, a murderer, and he made his fortune off of slavery. Again, this is a blatantly false narrative, information I have never heard before, it requires some looking into to see if there is any basis in fact.
I had to laugh, all the outsiders who called in were offended by being called outsiders by the locals. And some became more vociferous toward the very few, who were by and large, locals, who spoke up against the name change. Calling them out. Which I felt was unfortunate. It was like a modern-day Spanish Inquisition on some level. One guy said it’s a bad look for Marin and I thought oh how superficial does it get? It looks bad, so therefore we have to change the name? What? God forbid that it was named after someone who may or may not have had a checkered past.
When somebody started talking about Dennis Patton’s sculpture, they called it a statue, not knowing the difference between the two. They said that the statue was ugly, completely unaware that’s not a statue but a sculpture. They said it needs to come down, citing that he wasn’t even wearing any pants—and that supposed fact apparently was reason enough to take the quixotic sculpture down, that Drake was a uglyfied racist.
Marnie Glickman who led the debacle against Dixie school district, said Dixie is a symbol of the confederacy, and she was very proud of her contribution in the renaming of Miller Creek School. She said we are a better community for it. I wanted to bop her one. She said, along with the name change, also change the name of the high school and change the name of the road.
Someone asked what’s in a name? quoting Shakespeare, and that the idea of a name means everything, nomenclature, who we are. The mayor of the city of Larkspur said that the jurisdiction of the sculpture falls under his Bailywick and they would be dealing with it later. Under cover of nightfall it was pulled it down. Out of sight, out of mind, and to hell with historical facts, seems the be the political model of the day.
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