Zelia Nuttall

Zelia Nuttall made some of the most important discoveries related to Sir Francis Drake with her discovery of Spanish documents from the 16rh century.

Wikimedia Commons Image.

Photo caption:  This June 1914 photograph shows Zelia Nuttall attending the first annual meeting of the Sir Francis Drake Association, an organization  commemorating Francis Drake’s landing at Drakes Bay and the first protestant church service held in what would become the United States..  Notables who attended the meeting are standing from left to right:  Reverend Irving Spencer, Bishop of California; William Nichols, Association Secretary and artist; Josephine Hyde; archaeologist Zelia Nuttall; Mrs. Charles Howard; and a boys choir. Drakes Bay is in the background.

Point Reyes National Seashore Archives

During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when archaeology was evolving into a systematic academic discipline, few people left their imprint on the field of study with such quality as did Zelia Nuttall. 

Nuttall was born in San Francisco, California, in 1857, a time when California’s Gold Rush boom was waning.  Nuttall caught her passion for Mexican archaeology from her mother, a Mexican born woman, Magdelena Parrott.  Her father, Dr. Robert Kennedy, was an Irishman who had a medical practice in San Francisco but left it and moved to Europe for health reasons.  This trip to Europe developed desire, experiences, and skills, that would serve Nuttall well as she began her journey as an academic practitioner.

For the next eleven years, Nuttall visited numerous European countries, became fluent in several

languages, and was formally educated at London’s Bedford College, a school exclusively for women. Returning to San Francisco in 1886 when she was nineteen, Nuttall was educated and worldly beyond that of most people her age.

In 1888, Nuttall moved to Dresden, Germany, and worked in the discipline of museum archives and research.  Her ability and excellence led to opportunities.  Before she was thirty years old, Nuttall was appointed Special Assistant in Mexican Archaeology at the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology at Harvard.  She remained there for forty-seven years. While at Harvard, she was also elected to the American Association for the Advancement of Science.  Nuttall’s friendship with philanthropist Phoebe Hearst proved to be instrumental as they partnered to advance the Museum of Anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley.  Nuttall eventually settled in Mexico and moved into a house named Casa Alvarado.  In Mexico City, she collaborated in establishing the International School of American Archaeology and Anthropology and continued to work in Mexico as a field archaeologist.

While Sir Francis Drake had been Nuttall’s girlhood hero, she strayed into becoming a Drake scholar quite by accident.  In February 1908, while in Mexico at the National Archives, she found a document that lay in a dark corner on the floor.  Bringing it into to the light and then looking at it closely, she saw that the document was a Spanish record of testimonies given by Nuño da Silva, the Portuguese pilot taken prisoner by Drake at Cape Verde. 

Shortly after this discovery, Nuttall left Mexico to travel to

the United States and England. While in England she studied accounts of her girlhood hero’s circumnavigation so that she could effectively search for further Drake documents in Mexico.  Her work eventually took her to Seville where she discovered additional documents relating to Drake’s voyage. Finally, she published her findings in one of the defining books about Drake’s circumnavigating voyage: New Light on Drake, first printed in 1914.

Subsequently, Nuttall became involved in commemorating Drake’s 1579 California landing with her collaboration with the Sir Francis Drake Association.

Further Reading:

• Adams, Amanda (2010).  Ladies of the Field. 

• Nuttall, Zelia (1967).  New Light On Drake.