href="@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@36201@[email protected]#Footnote_21_21" class="fnanchor pginternal" tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}a">[21] they have not altered the facts establishing the plate's authenticity as shown by the investigations of such scholars as Allen Chickering,[22] Professor Herbert E. Bolton,[23] and Drs. Fink and Polushkin.[24] Consequently, the problem of Drake's anchorage is nearer solution. Although the plate is a portable object, it was probably not carried far. It could have been carried to Drake's Bay from Bodega Bay; but, on the other hand, it could always have been at Drake's Bay. In the absence of evidence that it was moved early in its history, it may not be claiming overmuch to assume that the post with the plate of brass was originally erected in Drake's Bay.

So much, then, for an abbreviated review of the opinions on the location of Francis Drake's California anchorage. Arguments have been advanced, by other students, that Drake anchored in Trinidad, Bodega, or Drake's Bay. It is my purpose here to analyze, as carefully as possible, the ethnographic data contained in Francis Fletcher's account in The World Encompassed, with the hope of determining in which of these bays Drake actually stayed in June, 1579. The Trinidad Bay landfall theory will first be investigated, in an attempt to determine whether the Indians mentioned in Fletcher's account are identifiable with the Yurok tribe which, in historic times, occupied this territory.

Henry R. Wagner is the chief proponent of the Trinidad Bay theory, and bases his conclusion upon two lines of evidence, (1) cartographical and (2) ethnographical.[25] The Jodocus Hondius map, with a small inset of the Portus Novae Albionis, does resemble Trinidad Harbor, but since all admit that the Hondius "Portus" is imperfectly drawn, and only generally impressionistic, it can hardly be maintained that it resembles less the outline of Bodega Bay or Drake's Bay. Wagner points out that there was a Yurok village near the spot indicated on the Hondius map as occupied by an Indian town.[26] But in Drake's Bay and Bodega Bay, the outlines of which also resemble that of the Portus Novae Albionis, there are also Indian shellmounds in about the same relative position as the village shown on the Hondius map.

Fletcher's reference to a "canow" has led Wagner to identify this with the Yurok dugout log canoe. If Fletcher's "canow" were described in any detail, it would settle the problem of whether it meant a Yurok dugout log canoe or a Coast Miwok tule balsa such as was used in Drake's or Bodega Bay. Kroeber has also commented upon this unenlightening word, saying, "Either custom changed after Drake's day, or his canoe is a loose term for the tule balsa which was often boat-shaped, with raised sides, especially when intended for navigation." Wagner says in answer, "To this it may be objected that ... tule balsas were in use in Drake's Bay in 1595 and were so recognized without difficulty." They were recognized indeed, but by a Spanish sailor already familiar with the type. Fletcher in his offhand manner dismissed the native boat with a word which he was familiar with. Perhaps the strongest argument in favor of identifying Fletcher's "canow" as a tule balsa lies in the fact that he states that a single person came out to the Golden Hinde. If it had been a Yurok dugout, and particularly in the open bay of Trinidad, one man could not have managed the canoe. For example, the Bruno de Hezeta account of Trinidad Bay in 1775 states: "Before they [the Spaniards] drew near the land to drop anchor four canoes carrying twenty-four men came out to receive them. They drew near the ships and were given food and beads, with which they went away without fear...."[27] It might also be worth noting that Fletcher states that the person in the canoe remained "at a reasonable distance staying himself," and would accept only a hat, "refusing vtterly to meddle with any other thing...." One other account may be cited to support the identification of the "canow" with the balsa. Sebastián Cermeño, in 1595 at Drake's Bay, wrote, "... many Indians appeared on the beach and soon one of them got into a small craft which they employ, like a çacate of the lake of Mexico."[28]

By inference, the native house described by Fletcher has been identified as a Yurok house. I do not think this claim will hold, since the house in Fletcher's account is described as semisubterranean, circular, conical-roofed, covered with earth, and with a roof entrance, whereas the Yurok dwelling (not the sweathouse), built wholly of planks, is rectangular, is a surface structure except for an interior rectangular pit, has a round door entering just above the ground and through the side wall, and bears a double-ridged roof with two slopes.[29] Thus, the house described by Fletcher cannot be a Yurok house of Trinidad Bay. On the other hand, as will be shown in detail later, the house described by Fletcher is the central California earth-covered dwelling, typical of the Coast Miwok of Drake's Bay and Bodega Bay.

Wagner, in his attempt to show that Drake landed at Trinidad Bay, makes a further point. He says: "An additional indication that Drake was in this bay [Trinidad] may be gleaned from the finding there of knives in 1775 by Bruno Heceta.... It seems probable, then, that the knives found at Trinidad by Heceta were relics of Drake's expedition."[30] It is scarcely credible that numbers of iron knives, sword blades, and such implements could have been preserved through two centuries of use. Since the wooden-sheathed knives were expressly stated to be ill-made, and in view of Fray Miguel de la Campa's statement in 1775 that "one of them [i.e., one of the Indians] made his [knife] from a nail which he had found in a piece of wreckage and had beaten out with a stone,"[31] it is more than likely that