Edward Teach

Lore & Background

Teach captured a French slave ship known as La Concorde, renamed her Queen Anne's Revenge, equipped her with 40 guns, and crewed her with over 300 men. His nickname derived from his thick black beard and menacing appearance. He was reported to have tied lit fuses (slow matches) under his hat to frighten his enemies. He formed an alliance of pirates and blockaded the port of Charles Town, South Carolina, ransoming its inhabitants. He then ran Queen Anne's Revenge aground on a sandbar near Beaufort, North Carolina. He parted company with Stede Bonnet and settled in Bath, North Carolina, historically known as Bath Town, where he accepted a royal pardon. However, he was soon back at sea, where he attracted the attention of Alexander Spotswood, the governor of Virginia. Spotswood arranged for a party of soldiers and sailors to capture him. On 22 November 1718, following a ferocious battle at Ocracoke, Teach and several of his crew were killed by a small force of sailors led by Lieutenant Robert Maynard.

In Their Own Story

On 28 November 1717 Teach's two ships attacked a French merchant vessel off the coast of Saint Vincent. They each fired a broadside across its bulwarks, killing several of its crew, and forcing its captain to surrender. The ship was La Concorde, a large French Guineaman registered in Saint-Malo and carrying a cargo of slaves. Teach immediately renamed La Concorde as Queen Anne's Revenge and equipped her with 40 guns. In late November the same year, near Saint Vincent, he attacked the Great Allen. After a lengthy engagement, he forced the large and well-armed merchant ship to surrender. He ordered her to move closer to the shore, disembarked her crew and emptied her cargo holds, and then burned and sank the vessel. On 5 December 1717 Teach stopped the merchant sloop Margaret off the coast of Crab Island, near Anguilla. Her captain, Henry Bostock, and crew remained Teach's prisoners for about eight hours, and were forced to watch as their sloop was ransacked.

Reader's Guide

Teach was a shrewd and calculating leader who spurned the use of violence, relying instead on his fearsome image to elicit the response that he desired from those whom he robbed. He was romanticised after his death and became the inspiration for an archetypal pirate in works of fiction across many genres. Little is known about Blackbeard's early life. It is commonly believed that at the time of his death he was between 35 and 40 years old and thus born around 1680. In contemporary records his name is most often given as Blackbeard, Edward Thatch or Edward Teach. The latter is most often used because it is the form used in the dispatches of North America's only newspaper at the time, The Boston News-Letter, but primary sources written by people who had actually met the pirate all refer to him as 'Thatch' or variations thereof. Several spellings of his surname exist: Thatch, Thach, Thache, Thack, Tack, Thatche, and Theach.

Did You Know?

• Teach's nickname derived from his thick black beard and menacing appearance.
• He was reported to have tied lit fuses (slow matches) under his hat to frighten his enemies.
• Teach captured a French slave ship known as La Concorde and renamed her Queen Anne's Revenge, equipping her with 40 guns and crewing her with over 300 men.
• On 22 November 1718, following a ferocious battle at Ocracoke, Teach and several of his crew were killed by a small force of sailors led by Lieutenant Robert Maynard.
• The Queen Anne's Revenge was discovered by divers in November 1996 in Beaufort Inlet off the coast of North Carolina.