Blackbeard- The Birth of America

by Samuel Marquis

  “Here I stand humbly before you, mates,” Hornigold began, his tone more contrite than Caesar had expected. “We have taken many prizes together and shared much plunder. Now times have changed and we’ve had a falling out. There are many of you who don’t agree with me. I can understand that. But I want you to hear me out before you set to voting. Because many of you don’t know exactly why I have chosen the path I have chosen. And because once you vote and things get set in motion, you can’t take them back. Their effect will be permanent.”

  He paused a moment, allowing the words to resonate.

  “Now I want you all to know, if you don’t already, that I have good reasons for doing things the way I do. First off, I’m an Englishman and I don’t believe in plundering my own country. I don’t much support the Crown or insolent government officials, but I also don’t want to bring harm to my countrymen. But that’s not the most important reason. No, the most important reason is that I don’t want to give the Admiralty, or any other party for that matter, a good reason to take a strong interest in what I do. For in addition to being the leader of the Flying Gang, I am a Christian man, believe it or not, and I don’t much want to hang from bloody Execution Dock.”

  At this the crowd laughed and many nodded their heads in agreement. Looking around at the faces, Caesar saw that the men were listening closely and that many still seemed to be in Hornigold’s camp. In his own way, he was inspiring them through their fraternal bond as members of the Flying Gang.

  But then his tone sharpened. “Unlike young and inexperienced Captain Bellamy here”—he turned his balding head and delivered a hard stare—“I am no idealist. I have no desire to be a martyr to my fellow brethren of the coast. I have no desire to soil my breeches during a dance of death in Port Royal or Boston and have dismal songs sung about me. By taking only French and Spanish prizes, I hope to keep the executioner at bay, or at least stall him until I can make a clean escape. That, lads, is my motivation.”

  Here he paused a moment, and Caesar could see the men hanging on his words. He had expected Hornigold to put up a fight, but he had not expected such convincing oratory.

  Now Hornigold wagged a bony finger in warning. “You keep raiding them British ships, lads, and I tell you all you’re going to accomplish is to bring a British man-of-war or two and an official Bahamas government down upon the rest of us. If you want to seal your own fate and end up with a rope around your neck, then be my guest. But what gives you the right to spoil things for the rest of us?” Again, he glared pointedly at Bellamy. “What gives you the right to make the high seas unsafe for your fellow brothers by increased patrols, harsher sentences, and the Crown’s presence on New Providence? Can you tell me, Black Sam, what gives you the right to imperil the rest of us? Can you? Because that’s what you’ll be doing if you vigorously be raising the black flag against King George. Mark my words, that’s what you’ll be doing. That’s all I have to say. Now you best think properly on my words before you vote, men.”

  He tipped his head in a kind of bow and stepped back with the other captains. Some of the men hissed and booed, but to Caesar the response was surprisingly restrained. Looking around at the faces, he could tell that some men had been moved by Hornigold’s argument, and a few appeared to have been genuinely frightened. The members of the combined companies had never thought about the impact their actions might have on other seamen. By linking the plundering of British vessels to an increased Admiralty presence in the Caribbean and the possibility of a formal British government in Nassau backed by the military, Hornigold had made the men think twice about how their actions might affect their freebooting brothers-in-arms.

  But what Hornigold had done most masterfully, Caesar saw at once, was raise the specter of punishment and death. Most of the men were raised as Christians and believed in God, heaven, and a fiery hell. That they would likely be hunted down like animals, caught, and convicted as criminals in a court of law was a prospect that terrified them. But what they feared most of all was that their unconsecrated mortal remains might be tarred, gibbeted, and left to the elements to rot as an example to the world, or their bodies tossed into unmarked graves between the low- and high-tide marks where their souls would roam restlessly for all eternity. To avoid the fate of hanging and an unchristianly end, some pirates would choose to blow themselves up rather than be captured or plead for the King’s forgiveness if they were ever offered a pardon.

  Quartermaster Howard now turned the floor over to the other captains. It was then Caesar saw Black Sam Bellamy step forward to speak.

  “Captain Hornigold’s words were chosen well,” began the young pirate captain diplomatically. “At first glance, they seem to make sense. That is until one begins to look at the larger picture here. We don’t serve no king or country, and we don’t live in fear of the law—on land or the high seas. What we stand for is fairness in the face of an unfair world. A world dominated by the high and mighty. We’re not the bandits here. The real thieves are the royal pigs in their powdered wigs, the titled landowners, the wealthy merchants, and the cruel captains that lash a seaman for taking a simple ladle of water from a barrel in the heat of a summer sun. Make no mistake, they are the real thieves. They are the ones who should answer before the courts and God Almighty, not us.”

  Vigorous nods and murmurs of assent circulated through the companies, and already Caesar could feel a change in the air.

  “I have said all along that we are but Robin Hood’s men and the rest of the world is the Sheriff of Nottingham. We have no country but each other. For us, there is no flag except the Jolly Roger, and until the rest of the world changes, that’s the way it’s going to be. But wretches though the sheriff’s men think we be, the truth is we have a system of legal government that is fairer than anything else from Norfolk to Glasgow, from Port Royal to Calcutta. For we choose a captain from amongst ourselves, who in effect holds little more than a title, excepting in an engagement. It is then and only then that he commands absolutely and without interference from the rest of the company. Many of us have suffered from the ill-treatment of the ruling classes, the merchants, and Royal Navy and merchant sea captains that fill their troughs. The articles we have created protect against such tyrants. We have chosen a more democratic way by putting the power in the hands of the many rather than into the hands of any one man. We provide for our sick with an equal share and the color of a man’s skin don’t matter aboard our ships. We have provided carefully against the evils of tyrants. By our code, we provide for quarrels such as is happening among the companies at the present to be settled by a simple vote. We and our world, mates, is the way things ought to be. With an eye towards fairness for all and a little sliver of the pie, a sliver so small that it harms no one but those who have stolen too much for themselves and don’t even have the eyes to see it!”

  Caesar watched as dozens of men jumped suddenly to their feet and began shouting out their support, including his good mate Richard Greensail.

  “Aye, Black Sam! Aye!”

  “The black flag is the flag we fly—and there ain’t no other!”

  “Huzzah! Huzzah!”

  Caesar quickly found himself up on his feet with the rest of them, yelling and cheering and pumping his fist. Several pirates yanked out their pistols and began firing them in the air. For several minutes the rowdy crowd roared its approval and the men shot off their weapons. Finally, Howard and Bellamy raised their hands and waved to quiet the crowd. It took a full minute before the men went silent again. Caesar looked at Hornigold; even he seemed surprised by the outpouring of support. But he also looked dejected. Clearly, he saw the writing on the wall.

  “I have to wonder, mates, if Captain Hornigold don’t want to take British ships, then why don’t he join the Royal Navy or work for the Crown as a privateer? We all know the answer: because he wants his fair share of the pie just like the rest of us. He don’t want his hard labors and all the risks he took to go towards nothing but filling another man’s
pockets. He don’t want to share his plunder with King George and his supplicants. He has no more sympathy for the merchants, shipowners, and sea captains who have made our lives miserable than you or me. So why does he do it? I’ll tell you why. He does it out of fear. He does it because he is still cowed by the authority of King George. He thinks that by not taking them English ships, he will somehow be safe from the long reach of the Admiralty. But that is nonsense, mates. The King has already declared Jennings, Wills, and several other of them Jamaican privateers as pirates. They are the same as us. They can no longer hide behind a governor’s commission and are freebooters just like the rest of us. They are wanted outlaws by all nations!”

  Again, the crowd exploded with a cheer, but this time it was near a frenzy as dozens of men discharged their pistols and rattled their cutlasses. It took several minutes for Howard and the other quartermasters to bring the men under control.

  “I have only one last thing to say, and it’s something I’ve said before and will no doubt say again. We are truly Robin Hood’s men, and we need to continue to act like it. We take from the wealthy merchants and give to ourselves as poor sailors not because we are heartless bandits, but because that is what is fair. Because that is what is just in a world where only a minority of men take the most, and the rest of us get only what trickles down through their fat, greedy fingers. They vilify us, these scoundrels they do, but there is but a single difference between them and us. They rob the poor under the cover of law, forsooth, and we plunder the rich under the protection of our own bravery. And that is why we are free princes, and have as much authority to make war on the whole world as those who own or command a hundred sail of ships at sea or an army of one-hundred-thousand strong in the field. My conscience—and the laws of men and Christian charity—tell me this, men! And I swear by it or I be not Black Sam Bellamy!”

  For several seconds the crowd was simply awestruck and not a word was whispered. The inspiring young sea captain stood with his head and shoulders in a dignified, resolute pose, gazing out at two-hundred dirty, half-drunk seamen with determination. For a moment, Caesar thought, Bellamy and his audience seemed to be united as one. He had read about an ancient slave, gladiator, and powerful orator named Spartacus who had defied the Roman Empire by leading a two-year revolt, and Black Sam reminded him of that legendary figure who had fought for the equal rights of men. In his eyes, the dashing young pirate commander was a modern-day Spartacus.

  He couldn’t help but feel here was history in the making. Even Hornigold seemed deeply moved.

  And then, like a sloop-of-war firing across a merchantman’s bow, the mesmerized crowd suddenly awoke and roared its approval. The sound was so loud that Caesar could feel the beach sand shake beneath his feet. Cutlasses and cups were hoisted in Bellamy’s honor and pistols again exploded into the warm Caribbean night.

  Five minutes later, the vote in accordance with the articles was taken. By majority vote, Hornigold was out as commodore of the combined fleet, the consortium would be led by Bellamy, and they would no longer spare English prizes. Adding further insult, two-thirds of his crew made it clear that they were going to join Bellamy, La Buse, or Thache aboard their gunships rather than continue to avoid raising the black flag against the Crown. The deposed Flying Gang leader, they decreed, could keep the Adventure, but he and the twenty-six men who remained loyal to him, including his formidable quartermaster William Howard, were to leave the rendezvous immediately and not show their faces there again. When the votes were cast, some of the men gloated, some even going so far as to wave their pistols and cutlasses at Hornigold menacingly and spit in his direction, as if purging a foul taste from their mouths.

  It was then Edward Thache fired his pistol into the air to gain control over the crowd and stepped forward to issue a cautionary warning. Looking into his eyes, Caesar could see that rubbing it into the deposed pirate commodore’s face had raised his ire. As he came forward, the firelight danced off his heavily-bearded face in little flickers and the crowd instantly hushed, as if a king had entered a room. Above his towering figure hung a three-quarters moon and a marine-blue sky filled with glimmering stars.

  “I want to remind you all that although we’ve followed the articles, taken a vote, and found resolution, no one has won here today,” he said to the assembled men, his voice forceful but tinged with sadness and regret above the thin crackle of the fire. “Like most of you, I am of the mind that English ships should be ours for the taking, and I don’t serve no king. And also like you, I believe there isn’t any flag for us but the black one, our beloved Jolly Roger. But that doesn’t mean that I’ll abide people kicking a man when he’s down. Ben Hornigold’s been good to us. He’s been good to me”—he turned and looked sharply at Bellamy—“and he’s been especially good to you, Sam. There’s no denying it. If it weren’t for him in fact, you, Paulsgrave, and the rest of your sea dogs might very well still be paddling about in your glorified canoes.” He turned back again and stared at the rest of the men, who stood mesmerized by his forceful presence. “All I’m asking of the lot of you is to show Ben and his remaining crew the respect they deserve and say goodbye to them like men—like men, by thunder—and don’t be walking around boasting and spitting at them like vengeful schoolboys. Sam’s right about our fight. It’s about something bigger than simply taking plunder. Which means that we must be better than the tyrants we take from. The articles are about humility, too, mates. Which means that we must show the proper respect to those to whom the vote hasn’t been too kindly. You hear me, men? Tread softly and with humility—otherwise, we’re just like them, just like the very fat royals and bloated merchants we wage this war of ours upon.”

  The crowd remained silent, soberly taking in the words. Caesar could see that they had had an impact, as scores of men were quietly nodding.

  “As for me and my crew, I would humbly suggest that we set about on our own for a spell and let the other companies go their separate ways. I have nothing against any of you—Ben, Sam, and Oliver. I would sail with any of you again in a heartbeat, but I think we need some time apart to heal.” He looked now to his quartermaster. “Mr. Martin, if you would please take a vote.”

  John Martin stepped forward and did just that. The crew of the Margaret voted to proceed on their own, without either Hornigold or the Bellamy-La Buse contingent who would continue to sail in consort.

  “That’s it then,” said Thache to conclude the council. “Remember, men, the articles aren’t just about taking power away from one man and giving it to another. And they’re not only about making things right. They’re also about humility and fairness before God and one another. That’s all I have to say.”

  He stood there in silence, staring out at the men. There was a tense moment as no one seemed to know what to do, and then someone clapped their hands. One clap turned to two, then two swelled to a dozen, and then there were a hundred clapping men, and then more than two hundred—until every single one was clapping his hands together in praise. Deeply moved, Caesar and his African mate Richard Greensail were up and on their feet and clapping thunderously along with the others as the applause slowly picked up in intensity before building to a crescendo and then quieting down again. Thache continued to stand there gazing out at the men, and the world seemed to unfold in slow motion and the night had a strange quality about it, the kind of strangeness that happened only in a dream.

  In that moment, Caesar thought Edward Thache—the experienced seaman who had plied his trade in the ports of Jamaica, Philadelphia, Barbados, the Carolinas, the Bahamas, and many points in between—looked like a larger-than-life statue. By any standard, he was no ordinary man. His prominent cheekbones, jutting jaw, robust shoulders, lean sinewy frame—all appeared to have been chiseled from pure granite. The flickering light of the fire brought out the deep stormy-gray of his eyes, which, when combined with his thick owlish brows, gave him a quiet, focused intensity to go along with an acute intelligence. But his sublime gifts
were his titanic height and his long, jet-black beard: it gave him an aura of almost mythical power, as if he had been unleashed upon mankind from the submarine lair of Poseidon himself.

  And yet, Caesar knew, he was really just an ordinary man. A man who had confided in him just last night on the quarterdeck that all he had ever wanted was one simple thing: to be a great sea captain.

  After tonight, it was readily apparent he was a lot more than that.

  Thache was about something bigger in this world, the black man knew. He and Bellamy were not misguided youthful rebels, common thieves, or petty disrupters of oceanic commerce, they were leading a revolution against the injustice of the Old World, a war against the British Crown and all other crowns, a war against oppression and the unearned right of one man to rule over or exploit another—and Caesar the former slave saw it as clear as day. He knew he was witnessing something new and unprecedented, and it made him feel an electric tingle down his spine.

  Because he knew—absolutely knew—he was a part of something important here in America, something patriotic and rebellious in which the ground was shifting beneath his very feet.

  CHAPTER 14

  BLUE RIDGE MOUNTAINS AND SHENANDOAH VALLEY, WESTERN VIRGINIA

  SEPTEMBER 6, 1716

  WHEN HE REACHED THE CREST OF THE RIDGE, Alexander Spotswood truly felt on top of the world and all of his problems seemed to disappear. The threats of Indian attacks to his royal colony, his ongoing battles with the House of Burgesses and Governor’s Council, and the growing menace of the new Bahamian Republic of Pirates—all these instantly vanished from his mind at the sight of the lush green valley and breathtaking meandering river below that would one day be called by the Native American name of Shenandoah—the River of the Stars.