The Trinidad Bay Landfall Theory
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 the Trinidad Indians’ knives were pounded out of pieces of iron found imbedded in local sea-borne wreckage.32 Logic and probability lead inevitably to the conclusion that there is nothing in the fact that knives were found at Trinidad Bay in 1775 from which to suspect or to postulate Drake’s presence in that place two centuries earlier.
Now for a brief comparison of some specific Indian culture elements and examples of the language, as reported in The World Encompassed and in Richard Madox’s narrative, with those of Yurok Indian culture. Madox was chaplain on Edward Fenton’s expedition of 1582, and in his diary are some notes on California which he jotted down after conversation with some members of the crew which had sailed with Drake two years earlier.
The flat shell disk beads of the account are not an element of Yurok material culture. The standard Yurok shell bead is the hollow tusk shell (Dentalia indianorum), which is long, cylindrical, and of small diameter. The feathered net caps may possibly find cognates in the flicker headbands of the Yurok, though these bands were known over the whole of interior and coastal California (cf. pl. 18, a). The feathered baskets, however, cannot possibly be Yurok, since their manufacture and use is restricted to the Pomo-Miwok-Wappo tribes which lived far to the south of the Yurok. The “canow” of Fletcher, as had been pointed out, can hardly be equated with the heavy Yurok river- and ocean-going dugout canoe. This brief comparison should be convincing evidence that Drake’s chronicler did not describe the Trinidad Bay Yurok; but there is added evidence in the word forms of the Madox vocabulary. Madox gives “bread” as Cheepe, which the Yurok render pop-sho. “Sing” is given as Gnaah in The World Encompassed, the Yurok word being wer-o-rur. “Chief” is given by Fletcher and Madox as Hioh or Hioghe, the Yurok word being si-at-lau.
The decision of whether or not Drake entered Trinidad Bay, which is not convenient as a port, and is, moreover, rock-studded,33 must rest in part upon a study of the Hondius Portus Novae Albionis, of which, Wagner says, “... perhaps a very close approximation to the actual configuration of the bay [in which Drake anchored] cannot be expected.” Certainly the native customs, houses, and language do not offer the slightest support to the theory that Drake observed the Yurok Indians.34