The End of Blackbeard
The End of BlackbeardFrom the book "The Pirates Of The Colonial North Carolina" By Hugh F. Rankin
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Perhaps Drummond's piratical tendencies were the result of his early environment. His home town, Bristol, turned out more pirates in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries than any other English port. As a young lad, he went to sea as a merchant seaman. His first taste of adventure came in Queen Anne's War, which lasted from 1701 to 1713. Towards the latter stages of this war he served on a privateer, sailing out of Kingston in Jamaica to prey on French shipping. | ||||
Teach was not the name which was so feared, however the pirate became better known as " Blackbeard." It was good business for a pirate to cultivate such a name and make it as fearsome as possible. An evil reputation was a great aid in persuading prospective victims to surrender quickly with a minimum of resistance. With this in mind, he deliberately attempted to emphasize the evil side of his character. He was a tall man, and of powerful physique. His long, bushy, pitch-black beard gave him his name. Before any action he would plait this beard into little pig-tails which he tied up with colored ribbons. some of these braids were twisted back over his ears. And just before doing battle he would secure several of the long, slow-burning matches used to touch off the cannon. These he would tuck under his hat, lighted, allowing them to dangle around his face, the curling wisps of smoke adding to the frightfulness of his appearance. In the belt strapped around his waist there were pistols, daggers, and his cutlass. Across his shaggy chest he wore a bandoleer, or sling, in which were fixed three brace of pistols, all six of which were primed, cocked, and ready for instant firing,. Indeed, Blackbeard, in his battle dress, was a most awesome sight. To the sailors of the day, he was feared almost as much as the devil himself, and many were sure that they were kin. | ||||
Blackbeard's squadron began to haunt the sea lanes between the mainland and the West Indian Islands. Several times they put into Cuba and sold their booty in Havana. Although these buccaneers roamed far out to sea, North Carolina became their headquarters. They used a number of hideouts, for it was too dangerous to always return to the same spot. Legend says that one of their retreats was up the Chowan River as far as Holiday's Island. Probably the favorite refuge, however, was Ocracoke Inlet. Tradition indicates that a house known as "Blackbeard's Castle" used to stand in the village. And an inlet not too far from today's village of Ocracoke is still known as "Teach's Hole." Here, supposedly, Blackbeard came to careen his ships. | ||||
One of the best hunting grounds in the Atlantic at this time was off the port of Charleston, South Carolina. This Port was the busiest and most important in the southern colonies. Because of the happy prospect of taking richly-laden merchant vessels, Blackbeard's flotilla began to hover outside the entrance to the harbor, ready to pounce upon the first unwary victim that shoved it's bowsprit into the open sea. Before the South Carolinians realized what was happening outside the harbor, eight or none ships had been quickly taken. Within Charleston, all was confusion. Trade came to a standstill. Eight ships lay tied to the wharves, not daring to hoist their sails. | ||||
Charles Eden had arrived as Governor of North Carolina in 1714. Blackbeard was no stranger to the governor as there were stories that he had been paying the governor for protection. Blackbeard himself boasted that he could be invited into any home in North Carolina. Despite the friendship of the governor, even this colony was no linger the safe haven it had once been. Human endurance had been pushed to the limit by the insolence and insults of the pirates. Every captain who took his ship out of port was gambling on his ability to slip by the buccaneers. Something had to be done. When help came, it came from the neighboring Colony of Virginia rather than from North Carolina. Virginia, because of the valuable cargoes carried in and out of Chesapeake Bay, had long been plagued by pirates. In 1717 Governor Alexander Spotswood of that province reported that sea traffic was practically at a standstill because pirates were almost constantly patrolling the ocean off the Virginia Capes. During one six-week period, not one ship dared to leave the safety of Virginia shores. Spotswood was no Eden. His activities in suppressing the buccaneers were just as vigorous as Governor Eden's were lax. | ||||
And so it was to the governor of Virginia rather than to Eden that the people of North Carolina turned. The "Trading People" of the colony transmitted a number of pleas for help to their neighbor to the north. Witnesses were found who signed statements, or affidavits, indication the close relations between Governor Eden of North Carolina and the pirates. | ||||
Even with these accusations, there were certain legal obstacles which must first be cleared away. Because Teach had accepted the King's pardon, he was supposedly no longer a pirate. Evidence had to be secured that proved he had committed additional acts of piracy after his acceptance of the pardon and taking the oath. This evidence was found in Virginia. One William Howard, who at one time had served as quartermaster under Teach, was captured in the colony. Charged with serving with "one Edward Tach and other Wicked and desolute Persons..." he was brought to trial not having the "Fear of God before his Eyes nor Regarding the Allegiance due to his Majesty nor the just Obedience he owed to the Laws of the Land...." Howard broke down under questioning and it was from his testimony that it was learned that Blackbeard and his crew had returned to a career of piracy after accepting His Majesty's pardon. Not only that , but they had taken at least two prizes since they had resumed the profession. | ||||
Reports began to filter in from North Carolina. Blackbeard had entered Ocracoke Inlet with His latest prize. Even more disturbing was the information that the pirate had indicated that he was planning to fortify the shore of that place and develop it into something of a pirate's refuge or haven. | ||||
At this time two British warships were lying at anchor in the James River. One was the "Pearl," under a Captain Gordon; the other, the "Lyme," was commanded by Captain Ellis Brand. Although these men-of-war carried the necessary fire-power to blast the pirates out of the water, they were much too large and drew too much water to navigate the shallow waters of North Carolina's sounds and inlets. Governor Spotswood was determined to dispatch and expedition to capture Blackbeard. Yet he wanted to keep it secret, and therefore could not request the legislature for the necessary funds. Two fast and light sloops were hired with money from his own pocket. Two pilots familiar with the shoal waters of Ocracoke Inlet were also employed. | ||||
But what about a crew? Seamen were plentiful, but it was going to take a trained fighting crew to capture the pirate. Captains Gordon and Brand agreed to man the sloops with sailors from the "Pearl" and the "Lyme." Sixty men were selected. Lieutenant Robert Maynard of the "pearl" was given command of the larger sloop, which was nameless in the official dispatches, while the first officer of the "Lyme" was in charge of the smaller vessel, the "Ranger." Captain Ellis Brand was given the overall command and direction of the expedition. Governor Spotswood persuaded the legislature to offer a reward for the capture of Blackbeard and his men. Even then, he did not reveal the purpose of his expedition. | ||||
Captain Brand hurried to Bath. The two sloops, on November 17, 1718, quietly weighed anchor and slipped out of Chesapeake Bay into the Atlantic. A course was set for Ocracoke Inlet. | ||||
Near dusk on the evening of November 21, the "Ranger" with its companion sloop steered into the inlet. Blackbeard's "Adventure" was anchored in open water. Maynard dropped anchor and waited for daylight to launch an attack. | ||||
The appearance of an enemy was no surprise to the pirate. Tobias Knight of North Carolina had thoughtfully dispatched a letter which warned of the possibility of such an expedition. Edward Teach, the terror of the seas, worried little what the morning might bring. He feared no one. Unlike Maynard, who spent the night preparing for the next day's struggle, Blackbeard spent most of the night carousing in his cabin with the captain of a nearby merchant vessel. | ||||
Lieutenant Maynard attacked with the sun. Small boats were put overboard. These were to explore the interval between the ships and take soundings. Maynard would take no risk of running aground. As these rowboats came within range of the "Adventure," (Blackbeard's ship") they were greeted with a round of shot. They scurried back to the protection of the sloops. Maynard ordered the smaller of his ships to slip in close to the pirates and board their ship. The larger sloop followed, but soon found herself stuck hard and fast on a sandbar. Ballast was thrown overboard, and she was soon light enough to float once more. By this time the "Ranger" had also run aground, and was now definitely out of the fight. Maynard's sloop had to carry the fight to the enemy alone. | ||||
Blackbeard, leaping to the top of the deck cabin, shouted across the water, " You villains! And, from whence come you?" | ||||
Running up the British ensign, Maynard answered, "You may see by our colors, that we are no pirates." | ||||
The pirate captain shouted an invitation to send over a boat so that he might see who they were. | ||||
Maynard, still playing this game of words, indicated his intention of boarding the pirate sloop with, " I cannot spare my boat, but I will come aboard as soon as I can with my sloop." | ||||
Blackbeard angrily shook his empty rum cup at the sky and bellowed, " Damnation seize my soul if I give you quarters or take any from you." | ||||
With this " the black Ensign with the Death's Head" was run up to mast head, the anchor cable was cut, and sails quickly hoisted. The first pirate broadside was directed at the "Ranger" whose crew were still working ferverishly to refloat her from the sandbbar on which she was stuck. The commanding officer and several of his seamen were instantly killed. Pulling around quickly, the next cannon blast was loosed at Maynard's sloop. The ship was not armed with cannon, and her men could return the fire only by popping away with muskets. The wind died down. Maynard had to get in close before the pirate cannon blasted him right out of the water. The sweeps, or heavy oars, were broken out, and the large sloop was slowly worked towards the "Adventure." Another pirate broadside tore into the men at the sweeps. A number of the men were killed or badly wounded, some reports listing as many as twenty-one. | ||||
Fearing a greater slaughter, Maynard ordered his men below decks but instructed them to keep their pistols primed and their cutlasses ready. Only two men, a midshipman and a pilot, remained on deck, shouting information to Maynard below. Blackbeard, seeing the empty deck of this adversary, worked the "Adventure" toward Maynard's vessel. As the pirate craft came up alongside the sloop, homemade grenades, boxes filled with powder, small shot and scrap iron, with fuses smoking, were tossed into Maynard's ship. The explosions did little damage. Through the smoke clouds the pirates could see only a few man running about the decks of the vessel. Blackbeard called to his men that their enemies were all dead except three or four and shouted, "Let us jump on board, and cut to pieces those that are alive." | ||||
As the pirates scrambled over the gunwales, Maynard and his men burst from the hold. All was confusion. Amidst the shouts, the cracking of pistol shots, the clatter of swinging cutlasses, and the cries of wounded men, Blackbeard and Maynard met face to face. Both fired their pistols at almost the same instant. Blackbeard missed. The ball from Maynard's weapon ploughed into the pirate's body. It failed to stop him and hardly slowed him down. both men began to swing their heavy swords. A powerful sweep of Blackbeard's weapon snapped Maynard's cutlass like a twig. The mighty arm drew back to deliver the death blow. Just in the nick of time, one of Maynard's men stepped in and slashed the throat of the pirate. Maynard received a blow across the knuckles. Still the powerful Blackbeard fought on > He pulled another pistol from his belt. While still in the act of cocking the weapon, he suddenly toppled over dead upon the deck. Twenty-five wounds. five of which were pistol balls, had finally sapped the life from his magnificent body. Edward Teach had died just as hard as he had lived. | ||||
With over half the "Adventure's" crew killed, and their leader lying motionless, the remaining pirates threw down their weapons and cried for mercy. Several made their escape by leaping over the side and swimming ashore. | ||||
Down in the hold of the "Adventure," another struggle had been going on. One of the crew members, a Negro by the name of Caesar, had been ordered to station himself at the door leading into the powder magazine. If Maynard's men were able to take the ship, Blackbeard had ordered Caesar to blow it up. A planter, seized the night before and and held prisoner during the fight, overpowered him before he could set off the explosives. | ||||
Nine pirates lay dead, sprawled on the deck of Maynard's sloop near the body of their captain. All nine of the survivors were wounded. Of Maynard's crew, ten had been killed. Another twenty-four were wounded, one of whom later died. A search of Blackeard's belongings revealed several interesting items. There were a number of interesting letters, including several from prominent New York merchants. There was another which began "My Friend," and which was signed "T. Knight." This communication from the governor's secretary contained a veiled warning, and indicated that Governor Eden of North Carolina would welcome a visit from the pirate. There was also a very revealing account book of the disposition of the loot taken by Blackbeard. | ||||
After searching the pirate's belongings. Maynard severed Blackbeard's head from the shattered body. This grisly trophy was then suspended beneath the bowsprit of the sloop. Sails were hoisted and the course was steered for Bath. Here the letter from Knight to Blackbeard was delivered to Captain Brand. The captain had already contacted Maurice Moore and Captain Jeremiah Vail who had shown him Tobias Knight's barn in which much of the pirate booty had been stored. When Knight was accused by Brand of having these goods, the secretary protested that he knew nothing of what he was talking about. He began to weaken when he was shown the pirate's account book. When Governor Eden was shown the evidence, he could do nothing to protect his secretary, and issued the necessary orders permitting a search of the barn. Concealed under the hay were found one hundred and forty barrels of cocoa and one cask of sugar. Knight then changed his pretense and now said that he had known the loot was there , but he had merely been storing the goods there for Blackbeard, who he had thought was now a respectable tradesman. It was even suggested that some of the articles found in Knight's barn belonged to Governor Eden. Nevertheless, all were removed and placed aboard the ships under Brand's command. | ||||
Six other pirates, including the lame Israel Hands, were also picked up in Bath. Then, with toe pirate booty on board, and with Blackbeard's head still dangling from the bowsprit of the sloop, Maynard and Brand sailed back to Virginia. | ||||
This incident led to quite a dispute between the governments of North Carolina and Virginia. Governor Eden, especially after he discovered that his share of the pirate goods had been taken away along with that of Knight, lodged a vigorous protest with Governor Spotswood. He justified his objections on the rounds that Spotswood had exceeded his authority in the invasion of North Carolina waters. He demanded that the captured pirates be returned to North Carolina for trial. | ||||
The evidence showing Knight's connections with the pirates began to grow. Israel Hands, desperately trying to save himself from the gallows, supplied much of the testimony which implicated Knight with Blackbeard. Maurice Moore, Edward Moseley, and Jeremiah Vail decided to furnish additional evidence in an attempt to destroy any likelihood of North Carolina becoming a pirate haven again. They tried to examine the records. When this was denied them, they decided to take matters into their own hands. On December 27, 1718, they broke into the home of John Lovick, deputy-secretary, at Sandy Point. In order to have sufficient time for a full examination of the records, they nailed up the room and spent the next twenty-four hours shuffling through the papers. Governor Eden, declaring this to be an "unlawful and improper action," sent a large posse to arrest them, which led Moseley to make the bitter observation that " the governor could find enough men to arrest peaceable citizens, but none to arrest thieves and robbers." | ||||
Governor Eden could not afford to ignore the charges which were piling up against his secretary, especially after Spotswood sent him a copy of the testimony of Israel Hands. ON May 27, 1719, Knight was called before the Governor's Council to defend his past actions. His letter to Teach was entered as evidence, and the handwriting was compared with other documents prepared by the secretary. It was the same. Despite this proof, Knight still denied that either he or Governor Eden had anything to do with the pirate captain. The Council, which seems to have been under the influence of the governor, pictured Knight as "a good and faithful officer," declaring the evidence against him to be "false and malicious," and handed down a verdict "not guilty." | ||||
Moseley and Moore did not get off so easily. Both were brought to trial before the General Court and both were found guilty. Moore received a light fine, but Moseley, who had been most critical of the Governor's actions, was the victim of a more severe punishment. He was not convicted for breaking into Lovick's house to examine the records, but for speaking "scandalous words" against the governor. He had been so bold as to criticize Eden for not doing anything about Teach. His fine was set high and he was forbidden to hold any public office for three years. | ||||
Meanwhile, most of Teach's crew had met the same fate as their captain. The courts of Virginia had found them guilty of piracy. Thirteen of their number met their end swinging beneath the gallows. Only two escaped the noose. Samuel Odell, who had received over seventy wounds in the fight with Maynard's men, was one. He was able to prove that he had been forcibly taken from a trading vessel only the night before the battle and had been forced to join Blackbeard's crew. The other was Israel Hands, whose lameness at the hands of his captain may have been responsible for some sympathy from the judges. He was convicted and sentenced to hang, but while still awaiting execution received word that the King's pardon for pirates had been extended. His request that he be allowed to take advantage of this was granted. | ||||
So ends the saga of Blackbeard, the "most ferocious pirate of them all." The death of Blackbeard marked the end of the "Golden Age of Piracy" in North Carolina, although as late as 1720 it was reported that the people of North Carolina were still "entertaining pirates." Yet never again were these freebooters so bold as to operate only out of the colony's shallow sounds and inlets. | ||||
The legend of Blackbeard, despite his cruelty and past crimes, continued to grow into something of a romantic tradition in American literature. The legend began to spread even while the memory of his cruelty was fresh in the minds of his victims. Among those who aided in its growth was the youthful Benjamin Franklin, at the time of Blackbeard's death a "printer's devil" working in the Boston newspaper office of his brother. One of his first bits of writing was in verse, which he printed and hawked about the streets of Boston. Although no copy of this work is known to exist today, the lines below are sometimes thought to have been taken from what Franklin called "a sailor's song on the taking of Teach (or Blackbeard) the pirate": | ||||
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Lemuel Sawyer's "Blackbeard," published in 1824 was, so far as we know, the first play written by a native North Carolinian, with a North Carolina setting and North Carolina characters. Robert Louis Stevenson in his famous book, "Treasure Island," borrowed the name of one of Blackbeard's pirates, Israel Hands, for a character. | ||||
There were, pirates and rumors of pirates operating off the coasts of the souther colonies as late as 1724. Certainly there were enough to give a great deal of concern to Alexander Spotswood, former governor of Virginia. Although his official duties were over, he had not dared return to England to make a personal report of his administration to the Lords of Trade. He gave as his reason his responsibility for causing so may of Teach's men "to swing in the open air of Virginia." He explained that he was afraid to take passage on any ship across the ocean for fear of what pirates might do to him should they capture him on the high seas. | ||||
The victim of Spotswood's planning, the pirate known as Blackbeard, lived much longer in the memory of men than did the former governor of Virginia. One possible explanation for this continued interest lies in the many tales that were circulated about his buried treasure. One story reports that on the night before his battle with Lieutenant Maynard, one of his crew asked if his wife knew the whereabouts of his treasure, should anything happen to him on the morrow. Supposedly the captain answered "that nobody but himself and the devil knew where it was, and the longest liver should take all." This story, if true, implies that there may have been a buried treasure, Many years later, a Portuguese sailor claiming to have once been a member of Blackbeard's crew maintained that the treasure was buried on a place called Mulberry Island in Virginia's York River. | ||||
The surface of the earth has become pockmarked with searchers digging for Blackbeard's gold, but no one has ever reported finding it. It appears unlikely that any such treasure was ever buried. The explanation for this is quite simple. Blackbeard was too much of a spendthrift and caroused too often to have ever saved enough of his loot to bury. | ||||
His greatest fortune, along with that of the other pirates, was that he became a byword in history. The legends which have come down to us through the years paint these buccaneers as stirring figures. Alas, they are but romantic tales. | ||||
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