Matt, Drake's purpose was always to fight the Spanish and Portuguese ships and settlements. From Wikipedia:
At the age of eighteen he was purser of a ship which sailed to the Bay of Biscay. At twenty he made a voyage to the coast of Guinea.[20] In 1563, Drake, aged 23, made his first voyage to the Americas, sailing with his second cousin, Sir John Hawkins, on one of a fleet of ships owned by his relatives, the Hawkins family of Plymouth. He made three voyages with this fleet, attacking Portuguese towns and ships on the coast of West Africa.[21] They then sailed to the Americas and sold the captured cargoes of slaves to Spanish plantations.[22] John Hawkins is considered to have been the first English slave-trader.[23] Hawkins made three such expeditions, the first in 1563, second in 1564 and the third expedition ending in the ill-fated 1568 incident at San Juan de Ulúa.
From then on, Drake mainly went to the now known as North America, Central America and South America. He did a round the world trip passing through Africa of course and was the second person to circumnavigate the world after Elcano.
I have not heard, or read anywhere, that Drake went to Africa thereafter for the sole purpose of taking slaves to the Americas.
Ivonne Holliday ● 2343d