The career of the English naval commander Sir John Hawkins (1532-1595) touched all aspects of the Elizabethan maritime world from the illegal and inglorious to the patriotic and profitable. His skills helped to ensure the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588.

The second son of William Hawkins, a wealthy West Country merchant trader, John Hawkins was born at Plymouth. As a youth, he made a number of voyages to the Spanish-held Canary Islands, where he first learned of the profits to be made from selling African slaves in Spain's American colonies. In 1559 he married Katharine Gonson, the daughter of the treasurer of Queen Elizabeth I's navy. Gonson and his friends helped supply Hawkins with three ships for his first slaving voyage, in 1562.

Ignoring Portugal's nominal control over Africa, Hawkins captured several hundred people into slavery. Sailing to Cuba, he exchanged his live cargo for enough "hides, ginger, sugar...