Sea Dogs

The Sea Dogs were English pirates at the time of Elizabeth I of England. They were active from 1560 to 1605.

In the 1560s, John Hawkins was the leader of the Sea Dogs and mainly engaged in attacks on Spanish shipping in the Caribbean. The Sea Dogs would also engage in slave trade from Africa.

Sir Francis Drake was also a member of the Sea Dogs and engaged in the raiding of Spanish shipping as far as modern day San Francisco on the Pacific coast. On his most famous voyage he sailed into the Pacific Ocean to raid unguarded Spanish shipping on the Pacific coast. On his return to England completed the second circumnavigation of the globe.

Other Sea Dogs were Walter Raleigh, Thomas Cavendish, Humphrey Gilbert and Martin Frobisher.

After 1604, when peace was made with Spain, many Sea Dogs continued their piratical activities by finding employment in the Barbary States, giving rise to Anglo-Turkish piracy, to the embarrassment of the English Crown.