Thanks to games such as Assassin’s Creed and movies such as Pirates of the Caribbean, we have learned a little about pirates, who were once the fearful nightmare of the seas. But there is one among them that has become a true legend. Known as Blackbeard, Edward Teach became famous for his ruthless behavior towards both his crew and hostages, despite being a pirate for a few months.
Predictably, the nickname Blackbeard derives from his fearsome beard. Edward Teach, who is also a burly man, started his life as a simple sailor and soon became the most feared pirate in the Caribbean. His death was exactly the kind that suited him. Let’s see the story of Edward Teach, the pirate nicknamed Blackbeard, in all its details.
Who is Edward Teach? A young man cooking in the salty waters of the sea:
Edward Teach, also known as Edward Thatch, was born in Bristol, England, in 1680, although it is not certain when. It would not be wrong to say that the only thing known about the first youth period is the year of birth. It is thought that he made some raids on these ships during the War of the Spanish Succession as an amateur pirate for a while, but there is no definite information.
The first known record about him is that he joined the crew of a pirate named Benjamin Hornigold in 1716. Edward Thatch was probably not his real name. It is thought that the real name of the young pirate, who is thought to have changed his name due to his dirty past, may be Thatch Drummond. It doesn’t really matter, because his name will go down in history as Blackbeard.
Edward Teach, a determined pirate, soon becomes the owner of his own ship:
There are two rumors about Edward Teach, who joined Benjamin Hornigold’s crew, a member of the Pirate League in the Bahamas, to have his own ship. According to the first, Hornigold had two ships, and one of them was given to Teach. According to another rumor, this young pirate worked hard and became the owner of his own ship. According to both stories, Edward Teach owned the ship Queen Anne’s Revenge in 1717.
With Queen Anne’s Revenge, Edward Teach quickly began to terrorize the Caribbean and the eastern seaboards of the American colonies. He was a rather large man. He had a huge beard on his face. He was extremely cruel to both his crew and the people he took hostage. He was known for burning some kind of drug in his beard. His name in the maritime world began to be heard as Black Beard.
Blackbeard was the most ruthless pirate history had ever seen:
Blackbeard had placed exactly 40 cannons on his three-masted ship, Queen Anne’s Revenge. Thus, she had a much greater weapon power than an average navy ship. She didn’t attack every ship like that. She was especially eyeing the ships laden with gold, jewels and money departing from the colonies.
About 400 crew members were on board the Queen Anne’s Revenge, each of whom was terrified of Blackbeard. Queen Anne’s Revenge used a slightly different version of the pirate flag we know. On this flag, a skull was holding an hourglass and pointing its spear into a bleeding heart. The meaning was certain, if you saw this flag, it means your time is up.
For fun, Blackbeard would shut his crew in the hatch and try to drown them by burning sulfur, leaving 15 people on an island with a machete and returning a month later to see who had killed whom, and shot someone out of nowhere to increase the crew’s fear. These were the things they did to their own men, not the sort of things to be told about what they did to their enemies.
In fact, he was forgiven many times, but the blood of the man is bad, he can’t stop:
Blackbeard had a simple operating system. He would see a ship, confiscate it, take its property, dock at the port, and set the hostages free for ransom. When the other side puts up a defense, things get really messy and the monster inside comes out. Of course, this psychopathic killer caught the attention of the pirate colony governors.
Soldiers have captured Blackbeard many times, and Blackbeard has been pardoned many times. But there is a situation, since the man knows himself, he does not know any other job because he is a pirate. Even more interestingly, he is deliberately asked to be forgiven and returned to piracy, because buying a commodity from a merchant ship is much more expensive than buying it from a pirate who steals and sells it. So piracy is somewhat encouraged.
Blackbeard repented for a time, so it seemed at least:
Blackbeard’s ship always had at least 14 women on board, for the man was said to have an insatiable sexual appetite. However, while he was pardoned, he married a farmer’s young daughter and built a home on Ocracoke Island. He had repented a lot and had withdrawn from these affairs. At least it seemed so.
Blackbeard, who seems to have built a life of recluse for himself, actually continued to piracy, thanks to the bribes he gave to the governors. This so-called home was actually his headquarters in a way. Of course, some honorable governors noticed the situation and the famous pirate came to an end.
Killing the giant was not easy at all:
On November 22, 1718, while Blackbeard was hanging out at his headquarters with about 25 of his men, he saw a British ship run aground ahead. They immediately rolled up their sleeves and jumped onto their ships and set out to sink into the ready loot. But what they didn’t know was that this ship was full of soldiers acting on the orders of Virginia governor Alexander Spotswood.
The soldiers emerged from the lower deck as Blackbeard approached the English ship, unaware of anything. They destroyed the outnumbered pirates in one fell swoop, but Blackbeard was not like the pirates we know. After a long struggle, the ruthless pirate was finally killed by five pistol shots and twenty sword strokes. It is said that Lieutenant Robert Maynard, who delivered the final killing blow, cut off Blackbeard’s head and hung it on the prow of his own ship.
We often come across the pirate Edward Teach, nicknamed Blackbeard, in popular culture:
In Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag, we encounter the character of Edward “Blackbeard” Thatch. Blackbeard was played by Ian McShane in Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. In the movie Peter Pan, the friendship between Captain Hook and Blackbeard is mentioned.
Of course, what made Blackbeard so popular is The General History of Thefts and Murders by Daniel Defoe. In this book, Edward Teach is described at length along with countless pirates. However, it is not possible to know exactly how much of what is told is true and how much is fiction. However, we do know that a pirate named Edward Teach, nicknamed Blackbeard, was notorious in the Caribbean Sea between 1717 and 1718.
We shared interesting details about his extraordinary life story by answering the question of who is Edward Teach, nicknamed Blackbeard, one of the most ruthless pirates that history has ever seen. Maybe it wasn’t as scary as it was described, but at one time, the sea route was one of the most unsafe transportation methods.
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