Twelve score and six years ago...
In which we begin exploring what the United States was, is, and could become -- starting with a quiet cove on the Pacific.
Welcome to Fishwrap & Franklin.
This will be a newsletter connecting the dots from recent news to science, history, and politics. I hope to post at least weekly, but there is sufficient turmoil in personal, professional, and political spheres to prevent me promising too much too soon. There is much to say, and little time to say it; but today of all days, it is appropriate to break silence and stealth and be forthright. In the last weeks alone, scales have fallen from millions of eyes, and the sheep’s wool has been cast from the frames of innumerable wolves. As the document we celebrate today declared: “Let Facts be set before a candid world.”
About the name
I have written for decades online now under the nom de plume Catfish ‘n Cod or Catfish N. Cod. The symbolism reflects my origins: Catfish for the aquaculture farms of the South, Cod for the state fish of Massachusetts — the two places most formative to my identity, as seen from the piscean perspective. Since I will be frequently referencing news reports on current affairs, Fishwrap is the most appropriate moniker for the news synthesis/analysis I intend to share.
Franklin can refer to good ol’ Benjamin, of course; native of Boston, self-taught polymath; founder of the U.S. postal system, scientist and inventor, politician and diplomat, primary school dropout and university president; profilic author and publisher, sober pundit and vicious satirist; Founding Father and maverick, celebrity and anonymous pamphleteer, slaveowner and abolitionist, a person in whom “merged the virtues of Puritanism without its defects; the illumination of the Enlightenment without its heat” (Henry Steele Commager, 1944, in an introduction to Franklin’s Autobiography). When Thomas Jefferson, writing Notes on the State of Virginia, wanted to refute claims that America was incapable of producing world-class genius, Franklin was the first person he mentioned. I am, you might guess, something of a fan.
But I offer one more etmyology: Frank - Lin. I aspire to frankness in my philosophy, my political positions, in my sourcing, and in my doubts. And I intend to drop dollops of culture and society into the mix here as well— and I can give no better example of the point of view I hope will flourish someday in American popular history and public education than the meticulous yet enchanting masterwork of Lin-Manuel Miranda, Hamilton: A Musical. If you have the chance to see it live (there are four static running locations worldwide and three North American touring companies at the present writing), do so. If not, and you have access to the Disney+ streaming service — run, do not walk, and absorb the full original Broadway cast and production. (Again, I am quite the fan.)
Fishwrap & Franklin, then, is ready to begin. And we begin, oddly enough, on the Pacific coast.
June 17, 1579. The Golden Hind, Captain Francis Drake commanding, limps into a safe harbor near a spot someday to be known as Point Reyes, far into the northern reaches of what is already called California. Captain Drake is coming off a nasty break in what has otherwise been a fantastic run of good luck and skill, already the most successful privateer in the history of England. Striking further south than any British before then, Drake’s crew have made the passage around Cape Horn and become the first non-Spanish galleon ever to reach the west coast of the Americas. Taking full advantage of the element of surprise, Drake has explored, raided, and pillaged for nearly two years, from the tip of Chile all the way up to Mexico.
Laden with a full cargo of treasure, the Golden Hind has been searching for a passage home for months. The fabled Northwest Passage is nowhere to be found, and after turning around off Oregon, Drake is ready to make repairs and try heading west instead — another major gamble, and one that will pay off with fame, fortune, and a knighthood for the captain. But before he sails into the sunset, he will make a presumptous announcement.
July 23. The local Miwok people have established friendly and peaceful relations, honoring him with a large gathering and feast, a feather crown, and accessories the English interpret as a sceptre and chains of high office. Whether by design or ignorance, Captain Drake has decided the Miwok have elected him as their king. Because the white cliffs nearby have reminded him so strongly of home, he names their landing site Nova Albion, after an ancient name for Great Britain. In strict etymology, the name translates as “new white land.”
Drake is loyal to his Virgin Queen, for whom he has harried her ex-brother-in-law’s subjects literally to the far ends of the Earth. And so he declares that he will not accept a throne on his own behalf, but only in the name of his sovereign lady and the Crown she bears. Francis Drake goes further; to strike for England and give one more poke into the eyes of Spain, he lays claim to not only this small cove, but to the entire west coast of North America.
Introductory high school and college history textbooks in the United States often mention that the original charters of the British colonies that ultimately rose against their King in 1776 laid claims to the Pacific coast, and even that they did not know just how far away the Pacific coast was (accurate naval timekeeping being a British achievement more than a century after Drake’s voyage). But rarely do those textbooks note down why all those charters made the claims so expansive.
Drake’s one-month stay in the future Marin County was the reason. The dreams of expansion and exploration; the expectations of settlement beyond the east coast; Manifest Destiny and the concept of “sea to shining sea” that was born centuries before its reality — from this place, and this time, sprang all that was to come. No Englishman would reach New Albion again for centuries; only twentieth-century archaeology would be able to determine that the traditionally assumed locale was, in fact, the authentic Drake’s Cove (inspiring a major hoax along the way).
But the America we know today, arguably, began there: with the first notion that North America was the future of British culture.
This land is my land
This land is your land
From California to the New York highlands
From the redwood forests to the Gulf Stream waters
This land was made for you and me
Come, then. Let us reason together. And welcome, one and all.
—Catfish N. Cod
July 4, 2022