1715
Captain Edward Teach (1680-1718), better known as Blackbeard, a pirate who plundered the coasts of the West Indies, North Carolina, and Virginia. His hair is woven with flaming fuses to increase his fearsome appearance. (Photo by Hulton Archive)
1718
Illustration showing the death of the pirate Captain Edward Teach or Thatch, also known as Blackbeard, at the hands of Lieutenant Maynard, during fighting at Ocracoke Inlet, in North Carolina, 1718. Сopy of an illustration in The Pirates Own Book, published in 1842. (Photo by Interim Archives)
Pirate Edward Teach (Thatch, born Edward Drummond), commonly known as Blackbeard. English buccaneer in the Caribbean and the western Atlantic; probably born in the 1680s, he died on November 22, 1718. After an engraving by B Cole. (Photo by Culture Club)
Pirate Edward Teach (Thatch, born Edward Drummond), commonly known as Blackbeard. English buccaneer in the Caribbean and the western Atlantic; probably born in the 1680s, he died on November 22, 1718. Colored engraving, United Kingdom, 1718. (Photo by Fototeca Gilardi)
1718
Illustration showing the death of the pirate Captain Edward Teach or Thatch, also known as Blackbeard, at the hands of Lieutenant Maynard, during fighting at Ocracoke Inlet, in North Carolina, 1718. Сopy of an illustration in The Pirates Own Book, published in 1842. (Photo by Interim Archives)
Pirate Edward Teach (Thatch, born Edward Drummond), commonly known as Blackbeard. English buccaneer in the Caribbean and the western Atlantic; probably born in the 1680s, he died on November 22, 1718. After an engraving by B Cole. (Photo by Culture Club)
Pirate Edward Teach (Thatch, born Edward Drummond), commonly known as Blackbeard. English buccaneer in the Caribbean and the western Atlantic; probably born in the 1680s, he died on November 22, 1718. Colored engraving, United Kingdom, 1718. (Photo by Fototeca Gilardi)
Blackbeard's real name is thought to be Edward Teach. Nevertheless, he is referred to in some documents as Edward Thatch or even Edward Drummond. He is thought to have been born in Bristol, but some writers claim London, Philadelphia, or Jamaica as his home.
Teach went to sea at an early age. He served on an English ship in the War of the Spanish Succession, privateering in the Spanish West Indies and along the Spanish Main. After Britain withdrew from the war in 1713, Teach, like many other privateers, turned to piracy.
The earliest primary source document that mentions Blackbeard by name dates to the summer of 1717. Other records indicate that by the fall of 1717 Blackbeard was operating off Delaware and Chesapeake bays in conjunction with two other pirate captains, Benjamin Hornigold and Stede Bonnet.
Blackbeard served an apprenticeship under Hornigold before becoming a pirate captain in his own right.
Late in the fall of 1717, the pirates made their way to the eastern Caribbean. It was here, off the island of Martinique, that Blackbeard and his fellow pirates captured the French slaveship La Concorde - a vessel he would keep as his flagship and rename Queen Anne's Revenge.
After crossing the Atlantic during its third journey, and only 100 miles from Martinique, the French ship encountered Blackbeard and his company. According to a primary account, the pirates were aboard two sloops, one with 120 men and twelve cannon, and the other with thirty men and eight cannon.
With the French crew already reduced by sixteen fatalities and another thirty-six seriously ill from scurvy and dysentery, the French were powerless to resist. After the pirates fired two volleys at La Concorde, Captain Dosset surrendered the ship.
The pirates took La Concorde to the island of Bequia in the Grenadines where the French crew and the enslaved Africans were put ashore. While the pirates searched La Concorde, the French cabin boy, Louis Arot, informed them of the gold dust that was aboard. The pirates searched the French officers and crew and seized the gold.
The cabin boy and three of his fellow French crewmen voluntarily joined the pirates, and ten others were taken by force including a pilot, three surgeons, two carpenters, two sailors, and the cook. Blackbeard and his crew decided to keep La Concorde and left the French the smaller of the two pirate sloops.
The French gave their new and much smaller vessel the appropriate name Mauvaise Rencontre (Bad Encounter) and, in two trips, succeeded in transporting the remaining Africans from Bequia to Martinique.
Leaving Bequia in late November, Blackbeard cruised the Caribbean in his new ship, now renamed Queen Anne's Revenge, taking prizes and adding to his fleet. From the Grenadines, Blackbeard sailed north along the Lesser Antilles plundering ships near St. Vincent, St. Lucia, Nevis, and Antigua, and by early December he had arrived off the eastern end of Puerto Rico. From there, a former captive reported that the pirates were headed to Samana Bay in Hispaniola (Dominican Republic).
By April 1718, the pirates were off the Turneffe Islands in the Bay of Honduras. It was there that Blackbeard captured the sloop Adventure, forcing the sloop's captain, David Herriot, to join him. Sailing east once again, the pirates passed near the Cayman Islands and captured a Spanish sloop off Cuba that they also added to their flotilla.
Turning north, they sailed through the Bahamas and proceeded up the North American coast. In May 1718, the pirates arrived off Charleston, South Carolina, with Queen Anne's Revenge and three smaller sloops.
In perhaps the most brazen act of his piratical career, Blackbeard blockaded the port of Charleston for nearly a week. The pirates seized several ships attempting to enter or leave the port and detained the crew and passengers of one ship, the Crowley, as prisoners.
As ransom for the hostages, Blackbeard demanded a chest of medicine. Once delivered, the captives were released, and the pirates continued their journey up the coast.
Soon after leaving Charleston, Blackbeard's fleet tried to enter Old Topsail Inlet in North Carolina, now known as Beaufort Inlet. During that attempt, Queen Anne's Revenge and the sloop Adventure grounded on a sandbar and were abandoned. Research has uncovered two eyewitness accounts that shed light on where the two pirate vessels were lost.
According to a deposition given by David Herriot, the former captain of Adventure, "the said Thatch's ship Queen Anne's Revenge run a-ground off of the Bar of Topsail-Inlet." Herriot further states that Adventure "run a-ground likewise about Gun-shot from the said Thatch."
Captain Ellis Brand of HMS Lyme provided additional insight as to where the two ships were lost in a letter (July 12, 1718) to the Lords of Admiralty. In that letter Brand stated that: "On the 10th of June or thereabouts a large pyrate Ship of forty Guns with three Sloops in her company came upon the coast of North Carolina ware they endeavour'd To goe in to a harbour, call'd Topsail Inlet, the Ship Stuck upon the barr att the entrance of the harbour and is lost; as is one of the sloops."
In his deposition, Herriot claims that Blackbeard intentionally grounded Queen Anne's Revenge and Adventure in order to break up the company, which by this time had grown to over 300 pirates. Intentional or not, that is what happened as Blackbeard marooned some pirates and left Beaufort with a hand-picked crew and most of the valuable plunder.
Blackbeard's piratical career ended six months later at Ocracoke Inlet on the North Carolina coast. There he encountered an armed contingent sent by Virginia Governor Alexander Spotswood and led by Royal Navy Lieutenant Robert Maynard.
In a desperate battle aboard Maynard's sloop, Blackbeard and a number of his fellow pirates were killed. Maynard returned to Virginia with the surviving pirates and the grim trophy of Blackbeard's severed head hanging from the sloop's bowsprit.
Teach, and his exploits have become the stuff off lore inspiring books, films, and even amusement park rides.
Much of what is known about him can be sourced to Charles Johnson's A General Historie of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pyrates. In this book, Johnson outlines many of the earliest known biographies of famous pirates. His book first introduced the name of the pirate flag the Jolly Roger, pirates with buried treasure, and the idea of the missing legs or with eyepatches.
Johnson's book directly inspired works such as J.M Barrie's Peter Pan and Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island. Stevenson even directly lifted the name of one of Blackbeard's crew, Israel Hands, and used this in his novel.
There is no information about Edward Teach's religious beliefs.
Edward Teach wasn't involved in politics.
Teach's actions contributed to his reputation as a monster. He disemboweled captives and fed their entrails to the sharks. He cut off the fingers of victims who were too slow to hand over their rings. He sliced up a prisoner's ears - and then forced him to eat them. What's more, he turned on his crew with no forewarning. He shot randomly at the pirates on his ship and marooned them when he didn't feel like sharing the bounty. Although there's no telling where the facts end and legend begins, it is probably safe to say that Blackbeard deserved his reputation as "the devil's brother."
Physical Characteristics:
A tall man with a booming voice, Teach deliberately developed a terrifying appearance. He had an enormous black beard, which he tied up with black ribbons and twisted into braids. According to some accounts, it covered his entire face and grew down to his waist. Before going into battle, he tucked pieces of hempen rope (rope made from fibers of the hemp plant) - which were soaked in saltpeter and lit - into his hair. The slow-burning chords of the rope gave off clouds of thick black smoke that gave him the appearance of a living demon.
Captain Charles Johnson, the author of a pirate history that was published six years after Teach's death, wrote what is probably the best-known description of the infamous pirate: "Captain Teach assumed the cognomen [nickname] of Black-beard, from that large quantity of hair, which, like a frightful meteor, covered his whole face, and frightened America more than any comet that has appeared there in a long time."
Johnson went on to say: "This beard was black, which he suffered to grow of an extravagant length; as to breadth, it came up to his eyes; he was accustomed to twist it with ribbons, in small tails... and turn them about his ears: in time of action, he wore a sling over his shoulders, with three brace of pistols, hanging in holsters like bandoliers [a belt worn over the shoulder]; and stuck lighted matches under his hat, which appearing on each side of his face, his eyes naturally looking fierce and wild, made him altogether such a figure, that imagination cannot form an idea of a fury, from Hell, to look more frightful."
Blackbeard was rumored to have married Mary Ormond, the daughter of William Ormand, a plantation owner. It has been said that he offered his ship Queen Anne's Revenge as a gift to her.
Blackbeard sailed with some famous pirates. He was a friend of Charles Vane. Vane came to see him in North Carolina to try to enlist his help in establishing a pirate kingdom in the Caribbean. Blackbeard wasn't interested, but his men and Vane's had a legendary party.
