Was Blackbeard Really as Bloodthirsty as His Legend? Smoke, Ransom and His Last Fight

Surprisingly, the evidence suggests Blackbeard was less bloodthirsty than his legend. Historians describe Edward Teach as a shrewd, calculating leader who avoided violence where he could and relied instead on a fearsome image to make his victims hand over what he wanted. The smoking beard, the black flag and the reputation did most of the work. His real pirate career was also short, about two years, and it ended in a desperate hand-to-hand fight at Ocracoke Inlet, North Carolina, on 22 November 1718. So who was the man behind the most famous pirate costume in history?

A man with almost no past

Very little is known about Blackbeard's early life. He was probably between 35 and 40 when he died, which puts his birth around 1680, and in contemporary records his name appears as Edward Teach or Edward Thatch. The eighteenth-century author Charles Johnson claimed that he sailed from Jamaica on privateering ships during the War of the Spanish Succession, known in the colonies as Queen Anne's War. Privateers were essentially licensed raiders; when the war ended, many of them simply kept raiding without the licence.

Apprenticed to a pirate captain

Around 1716 Teach joined the crew of Benjamin Hornigold, who operated from New Providence in the Bahamas, a lawless haven for pirates. Hornigold gave him command of a captured sloop, and together they took many ships. When Hornigold retired from piracy at the end of 1717, Teach went his own way.

On 28 November 1717, near Martinique, he captured a French slave ship called La Concorde. He made her his flagship, renamed her Queen Anne's Revenge, armed her with 40 guns and crewed her with more than 300 men. The name may refer to Queen Anne's War, or possibly to sympathy for the Jacobite cause.

The beard, the smoke and the strategy

The nickname came from his thick black beard and menacing appearance. He was reported to tie lit slow-burning fuses under his hat so that smoke curled around his face in battle. Whether or not every detail is true, the purpose is clear. A pirate who looked like a devil out of the smoke rarely needed to fire a shot. Frightened merchant crews surrendered, and a ship taken without a fight was a ship whose cargo was undamaged and whose attackers were alive.

That is why historians call him calculating rather than simply cruel. Terror was a business tool. It is also why stories about him grew more violent after his death; legend kept the image and forgot the strategy.

Holding a whole city to ransom

His boldest act came in 1718, when his pirate fleet blockaded the port of Charles Town (today Charleston), South Carolina. Over five or six days about nine ships were stopped and ransacked. One of them carried prominent citizens, including a council member, Samuel Wragg.

Teach's demand was oddly practical: a chest of medical supplies. He warned that if the colony did not send them, the prisoners would be executed and the captured ships burned. Wragg agreed, and after delays (one of the escorting pirates was found drunk in town) the medicines were delivered and the prisoners released, robbed of their valuables. The episode shows both sides of Blackbeard: a credible threat of violence, and a preference for getting what he wanted without carrying it out.

Running aground and taking a pardon

Shortly afterwards Queen Anne's Revenge ran aground on a sandbar at Topsail Inlet, now Beaufort Inlet, in North Carolina. Teach then parted company with his ally Stede Bonnet, stripping Bonnet's ship of supplies and marooning some of its men.

He settled in Bath, North Carolina, and accepted a royal pardon from Governor Charles Eden. For a short time it looked as if Blackbeard might retire. Instead he was soon back at sea, using Ocracoke Inlet, his favourite anchorage, as a base for watching passing ships.

The last fight at Ocracoke

His return to piracy alarmed Alexander Spotswood, the governor of neighbouring Virginia, who personally financed an expedition to capture him, possibly believing he had treasure hidden away. Lieutenant Robert Maynard of the Royal Navy was given two hired sloops and 57 men.

On 22 November 1718 Maynard's sloops found Teach at Ocracoke. After an exchange of fire, the pirates boarded Maynard's sloop and a vicious close-quarters fight followed. Teach was killed along with several of his crew. Casualty reports disagree, but roughly ten men died on each side. When Maynard examined the body, he noted that Blackbeard had been shot five times and cut about twenty.

Teach's head was hung from the bowsprit of Maynard's sloop so the reward could be claimed. Back in Virginia it was set on a pole at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay as a warning to other pirates, and it stayed there for several years.

What about his treasure?

Treasure hunters have dreamed of Blackbeard's gold for three centuries, but the loot Maynard actually recovered was ordinary trade goods: sugar, cocoa, indigo and cotton. Folk tales are more colourful. Mysterious lights at sea are called "Teach's light", and a North Carolina tale claims his skull was turned into a silver drinking cup. These are stories, not history.

The real treasure turned out to be the ship. In 1996 a private firm found a wreck off Beaufort Inlet, and in 2011 North Carolina confirmed it as Queen Anne's Revenge. Thirty cannons have been identified and more than 300,000 artefacts recovered, giving archaeologists a rare look at life on a real pirate ship.

Why Blackbeard became the pirate

After his death Blackbeard was romanticised and became the model for the archetypal pirate in novels, films and games. Even the stereotypical "pirate voice" owes something to him: Robert Newton's exaggerated West Country accent in the 1952 film Blackbeard the Pirate helped popularise it. The irony is that the most famous pirate of all may have been most successful when he did not have to fight.

Learn with Blackbeard: English phrases about the sea and fear

Phrase	Meaning	Example
to show your true colours	to reveal what you are really like	The pardoned pirate soon showed his true colours.
to be all bark and no bite	to seem dangerous but not act on it	Blackbeard was not all bark and no bite.
to hold someone to ransom	to demand something under threat	He held a whole city to ransom.
to run aground	(of a ship or plan) to get stuck	His flagship ran aground in 1718.
to clean up your act	to start behaving well	He took a pardon but never cleaned up his act.

Try this: Write three English sentences about Blackbeard's strategy, using "show your true colours" and "hold someone to ransom".