Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how
Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Katie Lambert and I'm Sarah Dowdy. So Katie, I've
Speaker 1: always really liked pirates. In high school, my friends and
Speaker 1: I used to have kind of good pirate jokes. I
Speaker 1: don't go to conventions or anything like. No, no, no,
Speaker 1: I actually haven't even been a pirate for Halloween, but
Speaker 1: I have. Really I do like them a lot, And
Speaker 1: of course one of my favorites is Blackbeard. Well, I've
Speaker 1: got you covered because the one Halloween I was a pirate,
Speaker 1: and then this past Halloween, I was Abraham Lincoln and
Speaker 1: wore a big black Beard, but mine did not have candlewicks.
Speaker 1: And unlike black Beard. Blackbeard was one of the most
Speaker 1: feared pirates in history. And it's no wonder with the
Speaker 1: smoking fuses and the sashes full of pistols and pistols
Speaker 1: across the chest. He definitely mastered the art of intimidation,
Speaker 1: and he did a lot to keep that reputation up.
Speaker 1: He wanted people fearing him, although we don't have any
Speaker 1: evidence that he ever killed anyone who wasn't trying to
Speaker 1: kill him. But when you're fearsome pirate, that's not exactly
Speaker 1: the kind of rumor you want to spread around. The
Speaker 1: intimidation kind of saves you a lot of work. You
Speaker 1: just fire a few warning shots and the ship gets
Speaker 1: handed over to you. You don't have to go through
Speaker 1: the trouble of actually fighting and swashbuckling. So every story
Speaker 1: that spreads around, like black Beard slicing off a passenger's
Speaker 1: finger when he wouldn't give him his ring, that all
Speaker 1: builds up to the great black Beard legend. But of
Speaker 1: course Blackbeard wasn't always a pirate, and he obviously had
Speaker 1: another name. He was born probably in Bristol, England, although
Speaker 1: that's debated around six nine, as Edward Teach or possibly
Speaker 1: Edward Thatch, no one's quite sure, which will be a
Speaker 1: theme in black beards life. Somebody who's so surrounded in legend,
Speaker 1: there's going to be a lot of conflicting information about him.
Speaker 1: So Teach enlisted as a privateer for the British in
Speaker 1: the War of Spanish Succession, which went from seventeen o
Speaker 1: one to seventeen thirteen. Privateers were right on the cusp
Speaker 1: of legal The British government obviously wanted to have as
Speaker 1: big of a navy as possible, but they could enhance
Speaker 1: it a little bit with privateers, which were allowed to
Speaker 1: sack French and Spanish ships and take a share of
Speaker 1: the booty for themselves, which would help you develop your
Speaker 1: pirating skills. But of course the war comes to an
Speaker 1: end eventually and privateers are no longer allowed to go
Speaker 1: around sacking French and Spanish ships, and there are a
Speaker 1: lot of people out of work, and some of them
Speaker 1: end up turning to piracy. And the golden age of
Speaker 1: piracy was the late seventeenth to the early eighteen centuries,
Speaker 1: and as far as a mayor could goes, there have
Speaker 1: been a bunch of laws passed by the British Parliament
Speaker 1: which had made smuggling something that was a bit more
Speaker 1: desirable because British imports were so expensive British taxes, right,
Speaker 1: you could buy things so much cheaper from a pirate
Speaker 1: than you could from them. So they would attack merchant
Speaker 1: ships carrying grain, molasses, rum, rope, tools, ammunition, pretty much everything,
Speaker 1: and go ahead and sell it to the colonists. And
Speaker 1: because North Carolina's outer banks have shallow sounds and inlets,
Speaker 1: it was a pirate's favorite hideout place, which is where
Speaker 1: black Beard established his home base, but that wasn't until
Speaker 1: seventeen eighteen, and before that he had to get in
Speaker 1: some more pirate training. He did, and he did that
Speaker 1: with Captain Benjamin Hornigold in the Caribbean. So in Blackbeard's
Speaker 1: sort of apprenticeship, almost with Hornigold, they depart together and
Speaker 1: plunder a bunch of Spanish and British ships of their
Speaker 1: coco and cordwood, sugar, rum, molass, this, all of these
Speaker 1: useful things. It's not so much the gold, treasure and jewels,
Speaker 1: which of course is what you think of when you
Speaker 1: think of black beard buried treasure, but you might just
Speaker 1: be finding rum and sugar instead. Yeah, and during this time,
Speaker 1: Teach gets his first captaincy of a small sloop. And
Speaker 1: then the big guns come out when Hornicle's fleet attacks
Speaker 1: a French slave ship called the Concorde that was bound
Speaker 1: for Martinique, and Teach makes this his flagship and renames
Speaker 1: it Queen Anne's Revenge. And it only had fourteen guns
Speaker 1: to start with, so he added a bunch to make
Speaker 1: it up to forty, because you know, you need your
Speaker 1: guns when you're a pirate. It's more than eighty feet long.
Speaker 1: They're three masts, and he also installs a cannon. And
Speaker 1: Teach probably took this ship with his classic intimidation methods.
Speaker 1: Rather than a bloody fight, It's likely he just fired
Speaker 1: some warning shots and hoisted up the pirate flag, and
Speaker 1: you know, the guys through and they don't want any
Speaker 1: trouble with Blackbeard. But the captain of the Concorde also
Speaker 1: reported when he got back to France that Teach gave
Speaker 1: him a sloop to finish transporting his cargo of slaves,
Speaker 1: which I was surprised to hear that. I always imagined
Speaker 1: pirates making you walk the plank, and but that sounded
Speaker 1: very gentlemanly, we thought. And Hornagold couldn't be Blackbeard's teacher
Speaker 1: forever because after the war, the British government wanted to
Speaker 1: get rid of all their pirates, so they got an
Speaker 1: officer named Wood's Rogers and hired him as the governor
Speaker 1: of the Bahamas and told him he'd better get rid
Speaker 1: of the pirates. So he said he would grant pardons
Speaker 1: to pirates who agreed to walk the straight and narrow,
Speaker 1: and Hornagold is one of the ones who agreed, and
Speaker 1: he became a pirate hunter. But that's okay with black
Speaker 1: Beard by now, because he's really struck off on his
Speaker 1: own and starts patrolling the Virginia and Carolina coasts for
Speaker 1: his reign of terror from seventeen sixteen seventeen eighteen. So
Speaker 1: we've already mentioned that the Outer Banks as fantastic a
Speaker 1: place for pirates just because of how it's designed, but
Speaker 1: it was also a great place for black Beard himself
Speaker 1: because he met a lovely corrupt politician by the name
Speaker 1: of Charles Eden there who would allow him clemency in
Speaker 1: exchange for very generous bribes. So, in addition to the
Speaker 1: excellent geography of North Carolina and the corrupt governor um he's,
Speaker 1: black Beard actually ends up being kind of a folk hero.
Speaker 1: The people of North Carolina. They're not the wealthy rice
Speaker 1: growers or tobacco growers like South Carolina or Virginia, so
Speaker 1: they're more okay with this deal where they get essentially
Speaker 1: duty free goods from black Beard in exchange for sort
Speaker 1: of letting him, letting him hang in the Outer Banks
Speaker 1: and the folk here stuff also comes from Blackbeard's challenge
Speaker 1: to the oppress of authority. He's lauded for sticking a
Speaker 1: hot poker into the eye of British official, which sounds
Speaker 1: pretty awful. But I feel that that's a running theme
Speaker 1: and all the stuff that we've done about gangsters and
Speaker 1: outlaws in any way, part of it is public opinion
Speaker 1: of them being the hero who is the only one
Speaker 1: who's willing to go up against corrupt authority. But it
Speaker 1: also seems that that opinion always turned at some point
Speaker 1: the the outlaw does something which just pushes the reputation
Speaker 1: over the edge. And for black Beard, this is in
Speaker 1: May seventeen eighteen in Charleston, so with four vessels and
Speaker 1: as many as four hundred pirates, black Beard captures eight
Speaker 1: or nine ships coming into and out of Charleston over
Speaker 1: about a week, and he holds the cruise of the
Speaker 1: ship's hostage, along with their passengers and passengers, their kids
Speaker 1: on board, women on board, and um. Black Beard demands
Speaker 1: a chest of medicine in exchange for the lives of
Speaker 1: his passengers, but Charleston takes a while the pony up yes,
Speaker 1: and in the mean time, the pirates have decided they're
Speaker 1: not going to get it, and they've set all the
Speaker 1: citizens up to be hanged like preparations are underway. They're
Speaker 1: about to die, and Charleston eventually comes up with the
Speaker 1: ransom and gets their people back, but not before the
Speaker 1: pirates have taken all of their clothing and jewelry. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they returned to shore almost naked, as the outraged description
Speaker 1: is sent back to England. But all of this goes
Speaker 1: down pretty quickly, and within a week of the Charleston
Speaker 1: hostage situation, the Queen Ann's Revenge is grounded on a
Speaker 1: sandbar near the entrance to present day Beefort Inlet, and
Speaker 1: it's likely that Blackbeard beach this on purpose. He knew
Speaker 1: how to sail a ship and how to scurry around
Speaker 1: through the outer bank, so it's unlikely that he would
Speaker 1: accidentally ground his ship um and it's possible he was
Speaker 1: considering some kind of retirement or at least at least
Speaker 1: trying to dismand this group of four hundred pirates and
Speaker 1: break him up a little bit. Some people say he
Speaker 1: marooned a bunch of pirates on one of the sandbars
Speaker 1: when he left, and then took provisions from one of
Speaker 1: the other ships and got out of there. In addition
Speaker 1: to the blackade at Charleston. Black Beard by this point
Speaker 1: had captured something like fifty ships, and he was also
Speaker 1: charging tolls for other people's ships to make it through
Speaker 1: Pamlico Sound. So things were beginning to come to a head.
Speaker 1: And while North Carolina and Charles Eden were pretty okay
Speaker 1: with the pirrating money off the whole situation right, the
Speaker 1: rich Virginia planters and South Carolina planters were not, and
Speaker 1: they appealed to the Governor of Virginia, Alexander spots Would
Speaker 1: to do something about it, and he engages Lieutenant Robert
Speaker 1: Maynard of the Royal Navy to hunt down black Beard.
Speaker 1: And it's not as hard as it sounds to find
Speaker 1: black Beard. He's you know, you'd think it would be
Speaker 1: difficult to find a pirate, right, not if he's throwing
Speaker 1: the biggest pirate party known to man on Ocracoke Island,
Speaker 1: which I would kind of like to be invited to.
Speaker 1: I don't know, it might sound more fun than it
Speaker 1: really was. Drinking, womanizing, and pirates from all over the
Speaker 1: world were invited to come, and come they did and
Speaker 1: made a complete spectacle out of themselves. So during this
Speaker 1: drunken pirates shindig, Maynard shows up with his sloops intending
Speaker 1: to kill or capture Blackbeard, and the pirates are aware
Speaker 1: that Maynard is there, but they're trapped between this island
Speaker 1: and a sandbar, so they prepare themselves over the night,
Speaker 1: and well accounts a Blackbeard was very calm. His pirates
Speaker 1: were starting to get worried. Yeah, they were freaking out
Speaker 1: a little bit. He kept drinking. Everyone else went out
Speaker 1: and put sand on the decks in case there was blood,
Speaker 1: and so blankets and water in case there were fires,
Speaker 1: and began preparations battle. And Teach only has twenty men too,
Speaker 1: while Mannard has about sixty. But teach his man advantage
Speaker 1: here is mounted weapons on his sloop, which is called
Speaker 1: the adventure. So in the morning, everyone's kind of expecting
Speaker 1: Teach to try to make a getaway. Instead he waits
Speaker 1: and Maynard's men start to approach, and then at the
Speaker 1: last minute, Teach just shoots off to a little winding
Speaker 1: channel which no one else saw. Yes, it's right by
Speaker 1: a sandbar, and Mannerd's men all get stuck. But Mannard
Speaker 1: is pretty good captain, and he tells everybody to start
Speaker 1: throwing extra supplies overboard, and so they lighten the ships
Speaker 1: enough that they're able to sail free, and Maynard recounts
Speaker 1: that Teach drink damn nation to me and my men,
Speaker 1: whom he styled cowardly puppies an insult. Iron're going to
Speaker 1: be your new insult, killing someone a cow actually beware.
Speaker 1: And at this point Blackbeard's crew is bombarding Synard's ship
Speaker 1: with iron scraps and nails from the guns, basically everything
Speaker 1: they've got, and so Maynard and his men going hide
Speaker 1: below deck, all tricky like, and because the ship is
Speaker 1: so quiet after this bombardment, they're even grenades involved. Teach
Speaker 1: thinks that they're dead, and the pirates board the ship,
Speaker 1: black Beard included, and all of a sudden, Maynards men
Speaker 1: rush out their lives prize the gotcha moment and teaching
Speaker 1: Maynard go to a face to face battle that actually
Speaker 1: gets written about in the London papers, and it's really
Speaker 1: it looks like it should be in an action movie
Speaker 1: Maynards story, if it hasn't already. Maynards sort has spent.
Speaker 1: He shoots black Beard. Um black Beard survives after being shot,
Speaker 1: and obviously guns are they put a big hole in you.
Speaker 1: At this point, and one of Maynard's men jumps in
Speaker 1: that the last minute of this brutal fight between these
Speaker 1: two men and slashes Blackbeard's neck, and um, I don't
Speaker 1: know how he did this with a with a bloody
Speaker 1: slash neck, but black Beard apparently says, well done, lad
Speaker 1: are maybe apocryphal, but it's still a good detail. But
Speaker 1: when he died, he'd been shot multiple times and stabbed
Speaker 1: multiple times and kept fighting until the very very end.
Speaker 1: And Maynard's man actually cuts off black Beard's head, which
Speaker 1: is strung up on the ship as a warning to
Speaker 1: other pirates. And Maynards searched and searched for black Beard's treasure,
Speaker 1: as people have been doing for years, but all he
Speaker 1: found were supplies and letters. And during the fight, eight
Speaker 1: of the other pirates were killed. Some cried for mercy
Speaker 1: and some were arrested and they were brought to trial,
Speaker 1: and all but two were hanged. So the pirates didn't
Speaker 1: get off so easily either. And this was pretty much
Speaker 1: the end of piracy, or at least the golden age
Speaker 1: of piracy. That was November twenty, seventeen eighteen, when black
Speaker 1: Beard was killed. So in addition to the legend about
Speaker 1: the treasure, there's another pretty amazing one about Black Beards skull.
Speaker 1: So his head is hung up on the ship. But
Speaker 1: what happens to the skull? Maybe it went to the
Speaker 1: University of Virginia. There's a legend that says the skull
Speaker 1: was dipped in silver and kept by the university, where
Speaker 1: fraternity members were once required to drink from it upon
Speaker 1: their initiation of a great grandfather who went to the
Speaker 1: University of Virginia. Now I'm starting to wonder was he
Speaker 1: in a fraternity as a former member of the Greek system.
Speaker 1: I salute to uv A for a great rumor. You
Speaker 1: can actually go visit black Beard Island. It was acquired
Speaker 1: by the Navy Department and then in nineteen twenty four
Speaker 1: was made a preserve and breeding ground for wildlife and birds.
Speaker 1: You can only go there by boat, which I feel
Speaker 1: is fitting quaint now is it? Do so? If you'd
Speaker 1: like to learn more about piracy from Black Beards Time
Speaker 1: to today, check out How Pirates Work at how stuff
Speaker 1: works dot com, and if you have any suggestions you'd
Speaker 1: love to send us, email us at History Podcast at
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com. For more on this and
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