Blackbeard

Edward Teach (or Thatch; c. 1680 – 22 November 1718), better known as Blackbeard, was an English pirate who operated around the West Indies and the eastern coast of Britain's North American colonies. Little is known about his early life, but he may have been a sailor on privateering ships during Queen Anne's War before he settled on the Bahamian island of New Providence, a base for Captain Benjamin Hornigold, whose crew Teach joined around 1716. Hornigold placed him in command of a sloop that he had captured, and the two engaged in numerous acts of piracy. Their numbers were boosted by the addition to their fleet of two more ships, one of which was commanded by Stede Bonnet, but Hornigold retired from piracy toward the end of 1717, taking two vessels with him.

Teach captured a French slave ship known as La Concorde, renamed her Queen Anne's Revenge, equipped her with 40 guns, and crewed her with over 300 men. His nickname derived from his thick black beard and menacing appearance. He was reported to have tied lit fuses (slow matches) under his hat to frighten his enemies. He formed an alliance of pirates and blockaded the port of Charles Town, South Carolina, ransoming its inhabitants. He then ran Queen Anne's Revenge aground on a sandbar near Beaufort, North Carolina. He parted company with Stede Bonnet and settled in Bath, North Carolina, historically known as Bath Town, where he accepted a royal pardon. However, he was soon back at sea, where he attracted the attention of Alexander Spotswood, the governor of Virginia. Spotswood arranged for a party of soldiers and sailors to capture him. On 22 November 1718, following a ferocious battle at Ocracoke, Teach and several of his crew were killed by a small force of sailors led by Lieutenant Robert Maynard.

Teach was a shrewd and calculating leader who spurned the use of violence, relying instead on his fearsome image to elicit the response that he desired from those whom he robbed. He was romanticised after his death and became the inspiration for an archetypal pirate in works of fiction across many genres.

Early life

Little is known about Blackbeard's early life. It is commonly believed that at the time of his death he was between 35 and 40 years old and thus born around 1680. In contemporary records his name is most often given as Blackbeard, Edward Thatch or Edward Teach. The latter is most often used because it is the form used in the dispatches of North America's only newspaper at the time, The Boston News-Letter, but primary sources written by people who had actually met the pirate all refer to him as "Thatch" or variations thereof. Several spellings of his surname exist: Thatch, Thach, Thache, Thack, Tack, Thatche, and Theach. One source claims that his surname was Drummond, but the lack of any supporting documentation makes this unlikely. Pirates habitually used fictitious surnames while engaged in piracy so as not to tarnish the family name, which makes it unlikely that Teach's real name will ever be known.

The 17th-century rise of Britain's American colonies and the rapid 18th-century expansion of the Atlantic slave trade had made Bristol an important international seaport, and Teach was most likely raised in what was then the second-largest city in England. He could almost certainly read and write. He communicated with merchants and, upon his death, had in his possession a letter addressed to him by the Chief Justice and Secretary of the Province of Carolina, Tobias Knight. Author Robert Lee speculated that Teach may therefore have been born into a respectable, wealthy family. He may have arrived in the Caribbean in the last years of the 17th century, on a merchant vessel (possibly a slave ship). The 18th-century author Charles Johnson claimed that Teach was for some time a sailor operating from Jamaica on privateer ships during the War of the Spanish Succession, and that "he had often distinguished himself for his uncommon boldness and personal courage." It is unknown at what point during the war Teach joined the fighting, as with the record of most of his life before he became a pirate.

Life as a pirate

New Providence

With its history of colonialism, trade and piracy, the West Indies was the setting for many 17th- and 18th-century maritime incidents. The privateer-turned-pirate Henry Jennings and his followers decided, early in the 18th century, to use the uninhabited island of New Providence as a base for their operations since it was within easy reach of the Florida Strait and its busy shipping lanes, which were filled with European vessels crossing the Atlantic. New Providence's harbour could easily accommodate hundreds of ships but was too shallow for the Royal Navy's larger vessels. The author George Woodbury described New Providence as "no city of homes. It was a place of temporary sojourn and refreshment for a literally floating population," continuing, "The only permanent residents were the piratical camp followers, the traders, and the hangers-on. All others were transient." In New Providence, pirates found a welcome respite from the law.

Teach was one of those who came to enjoy the island's benefits. Probably shortly after the signing of the Treaty of Utrecht, he moved there from Jamaica, and, along with most privateers once involved in the war, became involved in piracy. Possibly about 1716, he joined the crew of Captain Benjamin Hornigold, a renowned pirate who operated from New Providence's safe waters. In 1716, Hornigold placed Teach in charge of a sloop he had taken as a prize. In early 1717, Hornigold and Teach, each captaining a sloop, set out for the mainland. They captured a boat carrying 120 barrels of flour out of Havana, and shortly thereafter took 100 barrels of wine from a sloop out of Bermuda. A few days later they stopped a vessel sailing from Madeira to Charles Town, South Carolina. Teach and his quartermaster, William Howard, may at this time have struggled to control their crews. By then they had probably developed a taste for Madeira wine, and on 29 September near Cape Charles all they took from the Betty of Virginia was her cargo of Madeira, before they scuttled her with the remaining cargo.

It was during this cruise with Hornigold that the earliest known report of Teach was made, in which he is recorded as a pirate in his own right, in command of a large crew. In a report made by a Captain Mathew Munthe on an anti-piracy patrol for North Carolina, "Thatch" was described as operating "a sloop 6 gunns and about 70 men." In September, Teach and Hornigold encountered Stede Bonnet, a landowner and military officer from a wealthy family who had turned to piracy earlier that year. Bonnet's crew of about 70 were reportedly dissatisfied with his command, so with Bonnet's permission, Teach took control of his ship, Revenge. The pirates' flotilla now consisted of three ships: Teach on Revenge, Teach's old sloop, and Hornigold's Ranger. By October, another vessel had been captured and added to the small fleet. The sloops Robert of Philadelphia and Good Intent of Dublin were stopped on 22 October 1717 and their cargo holds emptied.

As a former British privateer, Hornigold attacked only his old enemies, but for his crew, the sight of British vessels filled with valuable cargo passing by unharmed became too much, and at some point toward the end of 1717 he was demoted. Whether Teach had any involvement in this decision is unknown, but Hornigold quickly retired from piracy. He took Ranger and one of the sloops, leaving Teach with Revenge and the remaining sloop. The two never met again and, as did many other occupants of New Providence, Hornigold accepted the King's pardon.

Blackbeard

On 28 November 1717 Teach's two ships attacked a French merchant vessel off the coast of Saint Vincent. They each fired a broadside across its bulwarks, killing several of its crew, and forcing its captain to surrender. The ship was La Concorde, a large French Guineaman registered in Saint-Malo and carrying a cargo of slaves. This ship had originally been the English merchantman Concord, captured in 1711 by a French squadron, and then changed hands several times by 1717. Teach and his crews sailed the vessel south along Saint Vincent and the Grenadines to Bequia, where they disembarked her crew and cargo, and converted the ship for their own use. The crew of La Concorde were given the smaller of Teach's two sloops, which they renamed Mauvaise Rencontre ("Bad Meeting"), and sailed for Martinique. Teach may have recruited some of their slaves, but the remainder were left on the island and were later recaptured by the returning crew of Mauvaise Rencontre.