Simon Fernandez
| Simon Fernandes | |
|---|---|
| Born | c. 1538 Terceira, the Azores |
| Died | c. 1590 (aged c. 52) unknown, possibly the Azores |
| Piratical career | |
| Nickname | The Swine |
| Allegiance |
 Portuguese Empire Spain England |
| Years active | 1570s-c.1590 |
| Rank | Captain |
| Base of operations | South Wales, England |
| Battles/wars | Spanish Armada |
| Later work | Piloted Sir Walter Raleigh's failed 1587 expedition to Roanoke island, "The Lost Colony" |
Simon Fernandes (Portuguese: Simão Fernandes; c. 1538 – c. 1590) was a 16th-century Portuguese-born navigator and sometime pirate who piloted the 1585 and 1587 English expeditions to found colonies on Roanoke island, part of modern-day North Carolina but then known as Virginia. Fernandes trained as a navigator in Spain at the famed Casa de Contratación in Seville, but later took up arms against the Spanish empire, preying upon Spanish shipping along with fellow pirate John Callis. Charged with piracy in 1577, he was saved from the hangman's noose by Sir Francis Walsingham, becoming a Protestant and a subject of the Queen of England. In 1578 Fernandes entered the service of Sir Humphrey Gilbert and later Sir Walter Raleigh, piloting the failed 1587 expedition to Roanoke, known to history as the "Lost Colony".
Fernandes disappears from the records after 1590, when he sailed with an English fleet to the Azores, a journey from which he most likely did not return alive. However, a copy of one of his charts of the East coast of North America still survives in the Cotton Collection, and was probably one of the chief sources used by John Dee for his 1580 map justifying English claims to North America.
Fernandes was born Simão Fernandes in c.1538 in Terceira in the Portuguese colony of the Azores. He received his navigational training in Spain, at the renowned Casa de Contratación pilot training school in Seville, and made at least one journey across the Atlantic in the service of the Spanish Crown.
At some point Fernandez severed his loyalty to the Spanish crown and in the 1570s he took up a career in piracy, operating out of South Wales in association with the notorious pirate John Callis, preying upon Spanish shipping. England was at peace with Spain at this time and piracy was an offence punishable by hanging, but in practice Fernandes was engaged in exactly the sort of behaviour to which Queen Elizabeth I of England was inclined to turn a blind eye. However, the Portuguese ambassador Francisco Giraldi vigorously protested Fernandes's activities to the Queen's ministers, after the alleged murder of seven Portuguese sailors, and in 1577 the 39-year-old Fernandes was arrested in Cardiff and taken to London to face trial.
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