Oxenham, John (c. 1536-1580):; John Oxenham (Iohn Oxnam) was a sea captain and privateer of Elizabethan England, known for his courage, the respect in which he was held by his men, and his continual underestimation of his enemies. He accompanied Drake on his 1572 privateering expedition off the coast of Panama, and conducted his own raid in the same area in 1576. However, an unfortunate sequence of events resulted in Oxenham and his men losing their ships, goods, artillery, and camp to the Spanish, and becoming stranded with a group of piratical escaped slaves until early 1577, when they finished building a new boat, and followed the Pinas River to the ocean, becoming the first Englishmen ever in the Pacific. Subsequently they raided nearby Spanish settlements, freed slaves, and eventually made an extremely rich capture of a Spanish treasure ship from Peru, with which they set off for England. Unfortunately, by May 1577, a group of Spanish soldiers caught up with and attacked Oxenham’s encampment while Oxenham was away, burning the camp of Oxenham’s escaped slave allies, and scattering his men. Oxenham and those men who remained were captured within a few months, upon which they were taken as prisoners to Lima, Peru, and hanged in 1580, marking an unfortunate end to a colorful career.;
Works Cited:; James McDermott, ‘Oxenham, John (c.1536–1580)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/21057, accessed 13 Oct 2011];