Blackbeard

Ahoy mateys! This week I am writing about probably the most famous buccaneer of all time, Edward Teach, better known as Blackbeard.

Born in Bristol around 1680, little is known of Blackbeard's early life. Born and raised in a thriving harbour town, he was no doubt brought up with a strong maritime culture. It is known that he could read and write, giving rise to the possibility he was from a wealthy family. During Queen Anne's War, Teach joined a privateer ship bound for Jamaica. He received distinction "for his uncommon boldness and personal courage" but was never raised to any command. In the latter end of 1716, Teach turned to piracy, captaining a sloop owned by fellow pirate Benjamin Hornigold (more on him later).

Career

Despite his infamy, Blackbeard's pirate career was very short lived, spanning only two years. As Teach was beginning his pirate career, Captain Woodes Rogers was setting out for the Caribbean to rid the waters of piracy forever. In the spring of 1717, Blackbeard and Hornigold sailed from New Providence, a pirate haven established by Captain Jennings some years earlier, to the American mainland. On their way, Teach and Hornigold seized a shallop from Havana carrying 120 barrels of flour, a sloop from Bermuda carrying 100 barrels of wine, and a ship bound for South Carolina from which they got "plunder of considerable value". That September, Teach and Hornigold encountered hapless would-be pirate 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; Revenge, Teach's old sloop and Hornigold's Ranger. By October, another vessel had been captured and added to the small fleet.

In November, they took a French merchant slave vessel  named La Concorde near Saint Vincent, and with Hornigold's permission, Teach took and named himself captain. Teach sailed to Bequia to allow the ship's former crew and whatever slaves declined to join Teach to disembark. In an surprising act of candour, Teach donated his old sloop to the crew he had just robbed, which they renamed Mauvais Rencontre (Bad Meeting) and sailed for Martinique. Teach mounted 40 guns on his new ship, and renamed her Queen Ann's Revenge, possibly after Bonnet's sloop. Shortly after, Hornigold returned to Providence to accept Rogers' pardon.
From there Teach began to cut a bloody swathe across the Caribbean, seizing dozens of vessels in the months to follow, sinking and burning many more, and invited several captains to join his fleet, including one David Herriot, captain of the Adventure, which Teach sent the famous Israel Hands (who appears in a fictionalised form in Robert Louis Stephenson's Treasure Island) to man for the piratical account.
In April, the fleet lay siege to Charleston, in South Carolina. Taking several ships hostage, Blackbeard demanded ransom of a chest of medicines from the Governor, threatening to burn the ships and send the governor the heads of those he had taken prisoner. Humiliated, but unable to refuse the demand, the Governor sent aboard a chest of medicines worth approximately £400. Blackbeard released the hostages, but not before relieving them of their provisions and around £1500 in gold and silver.

Blackbeard's own flag, a skeleton spearing a heart while toasting the Devil

After plundering Charleston, Blackbeard and his men were wanted. They learned of the royal pardon, and wished to take it but were wary. The pardon stipulated it only applied to crimes committed before January 5th, and so risked hanging for their actions at Charleston. Most authorities could waive this condition, but Blackbeard was still wary. In a cunning move, he sent Stede Bonnet to accept the pardon first to see if he would be granted it, and at the same time cheated his former comrade out of all of his loot and provisions. On the pretence of running into an inlet to clean his ship, Blackbeard ran his ship aground. Feigning distress, Blackbeard ordered Bonnet's sloop to come to his rescue, but in answering the call, Blackbeard's man Israel Hands ran Bonnet's ship aground also and both were stuck. This done, Teach and Hands seized the other sloop with forty hands, abandoned the Revenge and marooned the sloop's crew on a small desert island. Bonnet, having received his pardon, set out for revenge against Teach, and rescued his marooned crew after two days. He was unable to find Blackbeard, and returned to piracy. He was caught in September 1718, and he and all but four of his crew were hanged in Charleston.
Satisfied that the offer could be trusted, Blackbeard went to North Carolina to see Governor Charles Eden and accept the pardon. Blackbeard bribed the Governor, for not only was he allowed to keep his Queen Ann's Revenge, it being listed as a prize taken from the Spanish, but Teach continued pirating and returned to Eden repeatedly with prizes in exchange for absolvement.

Final Battle

In the autumn of 1718, Blackbeard threw a party at Ocracoke Island, just off the coast of North Carolina, which was attended by many infamous pirate captains of the day. The party waged on for several days, and news of it spread to the neighbouring governors. Two ships were deployed to capture the pirates, the Jane and the Ranger, commanded by a Lieutenant Robert Maynard, that engaged Blackbeard and his men on November 21st. Taken unawares in the midst of their celebration, Blackbeard and nineteen men climbed about the Adventure, and gave battle to Maynard. Blackbeard fired a devastating broadside, which killed around a third of Maynard's men in a single volley. Around 20 were killed on the Jane, and nine on the Ranger.

Maynard hid his men in the hold, and as Blackbeard boarded the Jane, they burst from their hiding place and surprised the pirates. Blackbeard rallied his men and the two groups fought across the deck, which was already slick with blood from those killed or injured by the broadside. Maynard and Teach fired their flintlocks at each other, Blackbeard was hit but continued fighting. Teach drew his cutlass and managed to break Maynard's sword. Against superior numbers and discipline, the pirates were pushed back toward the bow, allowing the Jane '​s crew to surround Maynard and Teach, who was by then completely isolated. As Maynard drew back to fire once again, Teach moved in to attack him, but was slashed across the neck by one of Maynard's men.Badly wounded, he was then leapt upon and killed by several more of Maynard's crew. The remaining pirates quickly surrendered. Teach's corpse was thrown into the inlet while his head was suspended from the bowsprit of Maynard's sloop so the reward could be collected. Israel Hands, who had been ashore during the battle, survived and was taken to Virginia for trial. In exchange for pardon, he testified against the corrupt officials Teach had dealt with. It is said he died a beggar in London.

Personality

Blackbeard is best known for his unspeakable cruelty rather than his aptitude for piracy. It is for his visciousness he is remembered, for actions such as shooting one of his own men for snoring. Sources claim he was married no fewer than fourteen times, sometimes to girls as young as sixteen. On the first night of his marriage, it was custom for him to go ashore with five or six of his brutal companions, and force his new bride to prostitute herself to his companions one after another before his eyes. Blackbeard was given to such wickedness as if he aimed to make his men believe him the Devil himself. One day at sea, he told his men, "Come, let us make a Hell of our own, and see how long we can bear it." Accordingly he filled several pots with brimstone and other flammable materials, and down in the hold, set them alight. They sat there until they had almost suffocated, and at length his crewmen opened the hatches to breathe, he himself pleased he held out the longest.

In times of combat, teach wore a sling that held a brace pistols, and stuck lit matches under his hat, which framed his face, making his eyes appear more fierce and wild, and made him the very idea of hellish fury. The beard for which he is best remembered is said to have gone all the way up to his eyes, and he tied it in small tails with ribbons in the contemporary style of wigs.
Teach once shot Israel Hands in the knee, giving the reason that "If I do not now and then kill one of them, they will forget who I am." The night before he was killed, Blackbeard had sat up all night drinking with his men, and knowing the sloops coming for them, someone asked if his wife was aware of where his money was buried. Blackbeard replied that nobody but himself and the Devil knew where, and the longest liver should take it all.