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Edward “Blackbeard” Teach
a.k.a. Edward Thatch, Edward Teach,
Edward Thache, BlackBeard, Drummond
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Born: Unknown
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Died: November 22, 1718 |
 During The Golden Age of Piracy (1689-1718), numerous rogues pursued
their lawless and murderous trade throughout the New World. Restrictive
laws passed by the British Parliament had made smuggling acceptable and
even desirable in North Carolina and the other American colonies.
Preying upon lightly armed merchant ships, the pirates seized their
contents and sometimes killed those who resisted. Because of its shallow
sounds and inlets, North Carolina's Outer Banks became a haven for many
of these outlaws in the 17th and 18th centuries.
Blackbeard was the most notorious pirate in the history of seafaring.
With a beard that almost covered his face, he would strike terror into
the hearts of his victims, according to some early accounts, by weaving
wicks laced with gunpowder into his hair, and lighting them during
battle. A big man, he added to his menacing appearance by wearing a
crimson coat, two swords at his waist, and bandoleers stuffed with
numerous pistols and knives across his chest.
The sight of Blackbeard was enough to make most of his victims surrender
without a fight. If they gave up peacefully, he would usually take their
valuables, navigational instruments, weapons, and rum before allowing
them to sail away. If they resisted, he would often maroon the crews and
burn their ship. Blackbeard worked hard at establishing his devilish
image, but there is no archival evidence to indicate that he ever killed
anyone who was not trying to kill him.
Blackbeard's lawless career lasted only a few years, but his fearsome
reputation has long outlived him. Thought to have been a native of
England, he was using the name Edward Teach (or Thatch) when he began
his pirating sometime after 1713 as a crewman aboard a Jamaican sloop
commanded by the pirate Benjamin Hornigold. In 1716, Hornigold appointed
Teach to command a captured vessel. By mid-1717 the two, sailing in
concert, were among the most feared pirates of their day.
In November 1717, in the eastern Caribbean, Hornigold and Teach took a
26 gun richly laden French "guineyman" called the Concorde (research
indicated she had originally been built in Great Britain.) Hornigold
subsequently decided to accept the British Crown's recent offer of a
general amnesty and retire as a pirate. Teach rejected a pardon, decided
to make the Concorde his flagship, increased her armament to 40 guns,
and re-named her Queen Anne's Revenge (QAR).
Shortly thereafter, the QAR encountered another vessel flying the black
flag. She was the ten-gun pirate sloop Revenge from Barbados, commanded
by Stede Bonnet, "The Gentleman Pirate." Bonnet had been an educated and
wealthy landowner before turning to piracy. After inviting the Revenge
to sail along with the QAR, Blackbeard soon realized that Bonnet was a
poor leader and an incompetent sailor. He appointed another pirate to
command Revenge, and forced Bonnet to become a "guest" aboard QAR, where
he remained, a virtual prisoner, until she wrecked six months later.
During the winter of 1717-1718, the QAR and Revenge cruised the
Caribbean, taking prizes. Along the way, Blackbeard decided to keep two
smaller captured vessels. When he sailed northward up the American coast
in the spring of 1718, he was in command of four vessels and over three
hundred pirates.
Blackbeard's reign of terror climaxed in a weeklong blockade of the port
of Charleston, S.C. in late May 1718. One week later, the QAR was lost
at Beaufort Inlet. One of the smaller vessels in Blackbeard's flotilla,
the 10-gun sloop Adventure, was lost the same day while trying to assist
the stranded flagship.
Before leaving Beaufort Inlet, Blackbeard marooned about twenty-five
disgruntled pirates on a deserted sandbar, stripped Bonnet's sloop the
Revenge of her provisions, and absconded with much of the accumulated
booty aboard another smaller vessel. Bonnet rescued the marooned men
and, with them, resumed his lawless ways aboard the Revenge, which he
re-named the Royal James.
In October 1718, Bonnet and his crew were captured near present-day
Wilmington, North Carolina, and taken to Charleston, where they were
tried for piracy. All but four were found guilty and hung that November
(the record of that trial, published in London in 1719, provided
researchers with important clues to the location of the QAR site.)
Meanwhile, Blackbeard and his confidants had sailed to Bath, then the
capital of North Carolina, where they received pardons from the
Governor, Charles Eden.
 In
November 1718, Governor Alexander Spottswood of Virginia, knowing that
Blackbeard and his men had continued taking ships long after the period
of amnesty had expired, sent a Royal Navy contingent to North Carolina,
where Blackbeard was killed in a bloody battle at Ocracoke Inlet on
November 22, 1718. During the action, Blackbeard received a reported 5
musket ball wounds and more than twenty sword lacerations before dying.
Blackbeard had captured over 40 ships during his piratical career, and
his death virtually represented the end of an era in the history of
piracy in the New World. |
Some Interesting (Yet Randomly Presented)
Facts About Blackbeard the Pirate:
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Little is known concerning the origin of
Blackbeard the pirate. Documents suggest both Bristol and London in
England, the island of Jamaica and even Philadelphia as his home. He is
said to have operated out of Jamaica as privateer during Queen Anne's
War (1702-1713) previous to having been a pirate.
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Historical sources vary as to Blackbeard's
real name. Though most publications mentioning the pirate by name over
the past couple of centuries have identified him as Edward Teach, the
majority of primary source documents written during the time of his
activities indicate that Thatch or some other phonetic derivation (i.e.,
Thach, Thache, etc.), was actually the name he was going by at the time.
The name Drummond is mentioned by one early source, but this not
supported by the vast volume of other documentation.
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It appears that Blackbeard began his
piratical career under the command of Benjamin Hornigold. Though
Hornigold's activities as a pirate can be traced back to as early as
1714, it is not known for sure when Thatch joined his crew. The earliest
mention of Blackbeard by name is in the Boston News-Letter in October
1717.
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Thatch and Hornigold captured a French
slave ship called the Concorde off the island of St. Vincent around
November 1717. Hornigold gave Blackbeard the ship and retired from
piracy soon after. Thatch strengthened the armament of the vessel,
renamed her the Queen Anne's Revenge and for the next 7 months used the
ship in consort with smaller sloops to harass shipping throughout the
Caribbean and up the eastern seaboard of North America.
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It is not currently known how many vessels
Blackbeard captured during his exploits, but a preliminary database
compiled by museum researchers currently contains over 45 prizes which
can be directly attributed to Thatch's activities.
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Blackbeard was eventually tracked down to
Ocracoke Inlet, North Carolina by the Royal Navy and killed in a brief,
but bloody battle on 22 November 1718.
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