a matter of debate and rumor for much of its history and historians have recently painted a clear picture. The plate was crafted in 1917 by historian Herbert E. Bolton, a professor at the University of California at Berkeley. He had several accomplices in the plot including a fall guy in the case that the plate was found to be a forgery. It was done to foil the work of archaeologist Zelia Nuttall who had been promoting her work and findings that Drake was never in California waters at all. Bolton and his cohorts prevented Nuttall from publishing her work, and so did not launch the plate until 1936 when Tudor historian Eva Taylor found even more evidence that Drake was further north, on the Northwest Coast. Taylor’s findings were compelling. By 1936 the paradigm was shifting; scholars were looking to the northwest for Drake’s fair bay. Then seemingly out of the blue the Drake Plate of Brass, alleged to be the actual land claim plaque created by Drake, was found on a hillside overlooking San Francisco Bay. This fantastic find was trumped by Herbert E. Bolton, and it ended any further consideration of Nuttall and Taylor’s evidence. It was only in 1977 that the plate was declared a hoax, but by then the question had been mostly forgotten and the paradigm of Drake in California was fossilized. The cover story for the plate was that it was a joke on Bolton that got out of hand. Though it is likely that the plate hoax was designed as a ploy to obstruct the Northwest Coast landing theory, the hoaxers’ primary motivation may have been about dazzling the public with historical artifacts, polishing reputations, and gaining fame, students, and funding support for their universities and particular projects. However, the plate hoax was concocted by an important historian who risked his reputations if his machinations were uncovered. The plate became a potent symbol of California, and of American’s English heritage, and underscored the ideology of Manifest destiny and the conviction that God destined the English to populate North America. Working for ten years, a team of four researchers thought they pieced together a complete narrative of the out-of-hand joke, though that theory is now discounted with new evidence that historian Herbert Bolton was actually behind the creation of the plate (see Thunder Go North, the Hunt for Sir Francis Drake's Fair &