Havasupai

The Havasupai, whose name means “People of the Blue-Green Water,” lived at the bottom of a side branch of the Grand Canyon.

In summer the Havasupai irrigated the canyon floor to raise crops; in winter they hunted and gathered in the plateau region. In precontact times the Havasupai raised corn, beans, and squash in their fields. They gathered wild foodstuffs to supplement their farming, and they dried their foods so they would last all winter. In the fall the Havasupai returned to semipermanent camps on the plateau. They spent the winter hunting animals and gathering wild plants on the plateau. After the arrival of the Spanish, they incorporated new foods, including peaches and apricots, into their diets.

Until the 19th and 20th centuries the Havasupai had no central government. The most important social unit was the nuclear family, and the Havasupai lived in bands of a few families. They had no clans, and kinship reckoning beyond the patrilocal extended family was limited. Religious beliefs seem to have occupied only a minor place in the lives of the Havasupai, who performed few rituals or rites of passage. Sixteenth-century Spanish observers noted Indian people in the region, but the first reference to the Havasupai by name was in 1665.

Further reading: Bertha P. Dutton, American Indians of the Southwest (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1983); Douglas W. Schwartz, “Havasupai,” in Handbook of North American Indians, William C. Sturtevant, gen. ed., vol. 10, Southwest, vol. ed. Alfonso Ortiz (Washington, D. C.: Smithsonian Institution, 1983), 13-24.

—Martha Robinson

Hawkins, Sir John (1532-1595) mariner, slave trader An English merchant adventurer, John Hawkins participated in and promoted the growing 16th-century SLAVE TRADE between the coasts of West Africa and the West Indies.

Born to William Hawkins, Plymouth’s leading merchant during the first half of the 16th century, John was raised amid the backdrop of trade and its connection to the Atlantic Ocean. At an early age he made “divers voyages to the isles of the Canaries,” learning “that negroes were very good merchandise in Hispaniola, and that they might easily be had upon the coast of Guiana.” Sometime in or around 1559, he married Katherine, the daughter of William Gonson, treasurer of the navy. With the backing of his father-in-law and other influential investors, Hawkins assembled three ships, sailing from England in October 1562 on the first of his slaving voyages. Although Spanish officials confiscated two of his three ships upon a return stop at Seville, Hawkins profited handsomely from the venture.

A second successful slaving voyage, undertaken in 156465, earned Hawkins further riches as praise poured in from influential quarters. With little hesitation, investors commissioned Hawkins for a third voyage. Queen Elizabeth I became personally involved, lending Hawkins the use of the ship the Jesus. Accompanied by kinsman Sir Francis Drake, who commanded the Judith, Hawkins’s fleet sailed out of Plymouth on October 2, 1567. After taking part in the Native wars at Sierra Leone, the English crew captured more than 500 slaves and departed for Dominica. An initial round of successful trading in the early summer of 1568 was followed by the hurricane season. Already reeling from the elements, Hawkins’s crew received a further setback at San Juan de Ulua when the Spanish further battered their ships. Only two vessels escaped, making their way to the North American mainland where Hawkins and Drake allowed their crew a choice: Those who desired could try their fortunes on a return voyage to England; others could test their luck on the land.

David Ingram was among the 105 men who decided to stay as Hawkins and Drake led the rest of the crew back to England. By 1569 Ingram arrived back in England, offering a tall tale of his adventures. Richard Hakluyt the Younger published his account in the 1589 edition of Principal Navigation. Perhaps questioning the authenticity of the story, he dropped it from the edition he later published in three volumes (London, 1598-1600). Hawkins’s arrival back in England also met with mixed fortunes. His defeat at the hands of the Spaniards led some, including Lord Cecil, to question both his dealings in the slave trade and his semipiratical activities.

In 1572 Hawkins entered politics as a member of Parliament representing Plymouth. Shortly after, he was appointed to the office of treasurer of the navy, a post previously held by his father-in-law. The duties of comptroller of the navy were soon added to his responsibilities. Making use of his seafaring knowledge, Hawkins directed many improvements within the ships of the English navy, many of which saw service against the Spanish Armada, a campaign in which Hawkins served as both a ship captain and as a member of the queen’s council of war. Scholars have credited Hawkins, along with Drake, with instigating the fund known as the Chest of Chatham, a charity relief for disabled sailors. It was perhaps fitting that the two aged mariners both perished on an ill-fated venture that left Plymouth in the late summer of 1595 to capture and conquer Panama.

Further reading: J. W. Blake, European Beginnings in West Africa 1454-1578 (London: Longmans, Green, 1937); Rayner Unwin, The Defeat of John Hawkins: A Biography of H is Third Slaving Voyage (New York Macmillan, 1960); James A. Williamson, Hawkins of Plymouth (London:

Black, 1969);-, Sir John Hawkins: The Time and the

Man (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1927).

—Matthew Lindaman