Qualla: The Bay That Two Empires Claimed

The Bay That Two Empires Claimed: Introduction

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Kognos, CC BY-SA 4.0. Somewhere beneath the sand and shallow water of Drakes Bay lie the remains of a Spanish galleon loaded with Chinese porcelain. The San Agustin went down in a November storm in 1595, scattering Ming Dynasty trade goods across the shore of a bay that the Coast Miwok people called Tamal-Huye. For centuries afterward, Miwok villagers collected the porcelain shards and reworked them - grinding, drilling, reshaping Chinese export ceramics into pendants and beads using the same techniques they applied to abalone shell and stone. It is one of the most quietly extraordinary acts of cultural adaptation in the Americas: a people taking the detritus of a failed colonial voyage and making it their own.

Image: Kognos | CC BY-SA 4.0

The Bay That Two Empires Claimed: Drake's Cove and New Albion

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Hu Nhu, CC0. Sixteen years before the San Agustin sank, another European vessel sheltered in this same bay. On June 17, 1579, Francis Drake brought the Golden Hind into the lee of Point Reyes during his circumnavigation of the globe. He was looking for a place to repair his ship and rest his ...

Image: Hu Nhu | CC0

The Bay That Two Empires Claimed: The Galleon and the Storm

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. The San Agustin was a Manila galleon, one of the great trading vessels that carried goods between the Philippines and Mexico along a route that tracked the North Pacific currents. Sebastian Rodriguez Cermeno and his eighty-member crew left the Philippines on July 5, 1595, carryin...

Image: Public domain

The Bay That Two Empires Claimed: Porcelain Repurposed

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Karenwongrn, CC BY-SA 4.0. Archaeologists have identified fifteen Miwok settlement sites around Drakes Bay where European trade goods have been found. The most telling artifacts are the pieces of Chinese export porcelain - nearly one hundred fragments recovered from sites in the vicinity of Drake's Cove al...

Image: Karenwongrn | CC BY-SA 4.0

The Bay That Two Empires Claimed: The Estuary and the Seashore

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Kognos, CC BY-SA 4.0. Drakes Bay stretches eight miles along the Point Reyes National Seashore, formed on the lee side of Point Reyes where the headland blocks the prevailing coastal current. Drake's Estero, an expansive tidal estuary, feeds the bay from the interior of the peninsula, its branching ch...

Image: Kognos | CC BY-SA 4.0

The Bay That Two Empires Claimed: Layers Beneath the Sand

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit LucynaPrz, CC BY-SA 4.0. In October 2021, the California State Parks Director designated the Site of New Albion as California Historical Landmark number 1061, a 215-acre location at Drake's Cove. The designation capped centuries of scholarly debate over where exactly Drake had landed. Competing theories ...

Image: LucynaPrz | CC BY-SA 4.0