Drake's Attack upon San Domingo
Date1883
Artist
Howard Pyle
(American illustrator, 1853–1911)
Illustration Citation"The Old English Seamen," by Thomas Wentworth Higginson, in Harper's New Monthly Magazine, January 1883.
MediumGouache and ink on illustration board
Dimensionssheet: 13 1/8 × 9 7/8 in. (33.3 × 25.1 cm)
Credit LineGift of Willard S. Morse, 1923
Object number1923-30
On View
Not on viewClassificationsDRAWING
Label TextIn 1585, the naval commander Francis Drake was directed by Queen Elizabeth I to break Spanish domination in the Caribbean. Drake and his fleet attacked the major city on the island of Hispaniola, capturing all property and burning the city to the ground. Pyle portrays the city's Spanish defenders and victims, as described by an English narrator of the period: “We still spent the early morning in firing the outmost houses; but they being built very magnificently of stone, with very high lofts, gave us no small travail to ruin them.”
