BERKELEY — After 11 years of research, a group of California historians announced Tuesday they have unraveled one of the most bedeviling hoaxes in recent American history, answering the question, "Who Made Drake's Plate of Brass?"
Four researchers released a 17-page journal article pointing the finger at an obscure society of drinking men known as E. Clampus Vitus. Seventy years ago, the group forged and inscribed "Drake's Plate" as a bit of whimsy on the historical record and on the story of Sir Francis Drake.
But did one member of the society carry the hoax to his grave with a darker motive?
The findings offer compelling evidence about the plot and debunk a lesson that was taught to generations of California schoolchildren -- that the plate that boldly staked England's claim to the new land had been found at last.
Headlines and hubbub greeted the discovery in 1936. The object was renowned because it symbolized the dawn of British power in the American West and the beginning of the end of Spanish dominion.
Despite nagging reservations by a few historians about its authenticity, it became a cherished museum piece. It was exhibited at the Smithsonian and around the world. Over the years, reproductions have been given to former first lady Lady Bird Johnson and to Queen Elizabeth II. And, of course, copies appeared in California textbooks.
The brass plate, unfortunately, was actually inscribed closer to 1930 than 1579. The earlier year is when, Drake wrote, he nailed a brass plate to a post somewhere along the Northern California coast, stating that all of the vast countryside belonged to Queen Elizabeth of England.
No bigger than an oversized postcard, the plate now rests in a glass case inside Bancroft Library, UC Berkeley's venerated research center. On Tuesday, reporters filed in to look at the fake, shielded under glass.
Elaborate Hoax
"Research isn't just finding facts, it's finding fiction and learning how to separate the two," mused Stephen Becker, executive director of the California Historical Society.
The investigators concluded that the elaborate hoax had been perpetrated by the "Clampers" (touted as "a historical drinking society or a drinking historical society") against a more earnest academic, University of California history professor Dr. Herbert Bolton.
Bolton was head of the Bancroft Library and himself a member of E. Clampus Vitus.
