Author Nikki Marmery tells Historia about how researching her recently-published novel about the African woman known as Maria showed her the extent of Francis Drake’s involvement in the slave trade. When I started writing On Wilder Seas eight years ago, I wanted to counter the hero narrative surrounding Francis Drake, which persists despite his background […]
On Wilder Seas by Nikki Marmery
April 1579. When two ships meet off the Pacific coast of New Spain, an enslaved woman seizes the chance to escape. But Maria has unwittingly joined Francis Drake’s circumnavigation voyage as he sets sail on a secret detour into the far north. Sailing into the unknown on the Golden Hind, a lone woman among 80 […]
Maria: the African woman who sailed with Drake on the Golden Hind
Nikki Marmery, the author of On Wilder Seas, was inspired by a throwaway line in a 16th-century manuscript to resurrect the hidden life of an African woman taken on board the Golden Hind as spoils of – if not war, then piracy. She tells Historia how she reconstructed Maria’s life. On Wilder Seas is the […]