Blackbeard- The Birth of America

by Samuel Marquis

  There are many other ridiculous Blackbeard myths that this book has refuted, or not included to preserve sanity. With regard to Blackbeard’s marriage to sixteen-year-old Mary Ormond of Bath Town and his pimping his new bride out to his crew to be gang-raped, his supposed sickly condition due to syphilis, and his stuffing slow-burning fuses in his tangled beard to intimidate his victims, there is no evidence to support these ludicrous assertions. For starters, there’s no written documentation he even had a wife—ever. Legend has it that during his brief sojourns to Bath Town during his six-month semi-retirement in the summer and fall of 1718 (i.e., when he was splitting his time between Bath, Ocracoke, Philadelphia, and the open Atlantic to take the Rose Emelye), he had the time to marry Ormond, the sixteen-year-old daughter of a local planter, supposedly his fourteenth wife. Due to severe time constraints, that scenario is highly unlikely and it is for this reason his supposed marriage to Ormond does not appear in the novel. With regard to the pernicious syphilis charge which for some inexplicable reason many Blackbeard scholars cling to, a single urethral syringe with residual traces of mercury (commonly used to treat syphilis during the early 18th century) recovered from the Queen’s Anne’s Revenge does not make Blackbeard a ranting, raving Stage II syphilis victim. All it means is that one or more members of his crew likely had the disease and the captain tried to ensure that the doctors on board treated the condition for those afflicted. His holding Charles Town under siege was to procure medical supplies for the affliction—but that was for his crew not him. Otherwise, more than one of his crew members would have known if their captain was sick with syphilis and you can bet it would be documented. One common manifestation of the disease is rough, reddish-brown spots on the bottoms of your feet and on the palms of your hands, which would not go unnoticed, especially by Israel Hands and others he had had a falling out with. And if he had syphilis he would most certainly not have gone to Philadelphia in August of 1718 to see his beloved Margaret of Marcus Hook. Furthermore, other symptoms of the disease include fatigue, muscle aches, and joint pain. At Ocracoke, Maynard and his Royal Navy fighters reportedly shot Blackbeard five times at close range and stabbed him more than twenty times with their swords before he faltered, and even then he did not stop fighting until he had been decapitated. Granted he was fighting for his very life, but that still does not sound like a seriously debilitated man with syphilis—it sounds more like the Incredible Hulk. Then there are the mythical sparkling fuses in his beard that in pictures make him look like a Rastafarian on PCP, an invention of Captain Johnson (Mist) and no one else. The always-astute Duffus has neatly put this one to rest: “Common sense also tells us that the ‘lighted matches under his hat’ in times of a pursuit or battle would simply be impractical. Had Black Beard stood among dozens of men upon the deck of his pirate ship as they were attempting to intimidate their prey into surrendering, his smoking face would not have been readily discernible, especially from hundreds of yards away on board a pitching, rolling ship. As his men would be preparing for a boarding action, their captain, most likely, would have been trying to keep his hair and hat from catching fire. He would have looked ridiculous.”

  Another important question of Blackbeard scholars is the political leanings of Blackbeard and how this may have influenced him to become a pirate. Most historians agree that he was a lukewarm Jacobite who identified more with the American colonial “common man” than his oppressive British rulers, was opposed to the Hanoverian-elector King George I who spoke no English, and supported James III, Prince of Wales, who lived in exile in France and in Rome following the failed Jacobite Rising of 1715. But what ultimately drove him to become the commodore of a five-vessel flotilla with seven hundred men under his command, the largest pirate fleet ever to sail in the Americas? What drove a well-to-do sea captain from a good, upstanding Jamaica plantation family to go all in on piracy and, in the process, make a grandiose political statement. Johnson-Mist and tradition have it that he became a pirate purely for the money, but more recent and detailed research suggests that while this may have served as the initial motivation for his entry into a life of crime, it is not what ultimately sustained him or drove him by the middle of 1716 and thereafter. By this time, a closer reading of the man reveals that something much larger and patriotic was at work in molding the legendary Blackbeard, and it was the reason he named the captured La Concorde Queen Anne’s Revenge. Unlike his friend Charles Vane, it was not ardent Jacobitism that drove the well-bred, heretofore-loyal-to-the-Crown, British-born Edward Thache to declare total war on the British Empire and the accumulated wealth of all nations—it was the Pirates-As-Robin-Hood’s-Men philosophy of his good friend Samuel Bellamy that was truly transformational. It was a philosophy cast in stark, easy-to-understand terms of good vs. evil, Colonial America vs. Britain and Global Big Money. Virtually overnight, it turned him from a privateer who was content with taking only Spanish or French prizes to a hardcore revolutionary bent on destroying the commerce of the country of his birth. Yes, pirates were after monetary rewards and plunder first and foremost and their democratic governance arose from their criminality (see Leeson’s excellent The Invisible Hook: The Hidden Economics of Pirates), but Thache and Bellamy were politically motived as well and the pirates-as-social-justice-equalizers theme of Marcus Rediker and the pirates-as-early-American-patriots-and-resisters-of-British-oppression model of Brooks have strong explanatory power.

  In their short time spent together on at least two extended occasions in 1716, the young yet enormously charismatic Bellamy literally changed Edward Thache’s life. Black Sam had no qualms about seizing the property of all nations and desired to openly wage war against the British Crown that had treated him so miserably as a Royal Navy seaman, as well as the wealthy merchant class that did the Crown’s bidding. Envisioning himself and his men as Robin Hoods of the sea, the influential Bellamy sparked something in Thache that turned him into Blackbeard the pirate and made him understand that what they were doing was a political revolution much bigger than simple robbery, disruption of commerce, and transfer of accumulated wealth upon the high seas. When in 1717, Thache learned that Bellamy’s men were to be hung or had been hung in Boston, he went ballistic at the King’s impertinence and destruction of Robin Hood’s men. In retaliation, he seized or threw overboard all merchandise or belongings and burned the vessels to the waterline if they were from Massachusetts where the British trial was held. There were no exceptions. While pirates in general felt a sense of solidarity, proclaimed themselves as “people without a nation,” and hoisted the black flag and their tankards of ale to drink damnation to King George, Thache and his men were not embarking on an anti-national crusade as a gang of proletarian outlaws solely to redistribute wealth—they wanted to stick it to Great Britain to limit its domineering influence over New World interests. In short, they—like Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, and their revolutionary brethren a half century later—wanted to cut the giant down to size and for American interests to be left alone.

  As Woodard states, pirates like Blackbeard were “folk heroes.” While the British authorities characterized him and other freebooters as “devils and demons, enemies of all mankind,” he declares, “many colonial citizens supported them. People saw pirates as Robin Hood figures, socking it to the man on their behalf.” He further maintains that there were many ordinary people during the Golden Age of Piracy that supported Thache and other pirates because they were “upset about the growing gap between rich and poor, and the growing authoritarian power of the British empire.” Blackbeard: The Birth of America explores the Blackbeard-as-proto-American-Revolutionary theme advanced by Woodard and Baylus Brooks in detail because I believe it best explains Thache’s devotion to Bellamy and the Robin-Hood’s-Men paradigm of the Golden Age of Piracy.

  Countering the fledgling colonists—who were, unknowingly, a mere sixty years from victory in what would become known as the American Revolution— was the powerful British Board of Trade. As historians B
ialuschewski and Brooks make clear, the Board wanted to quell smuggling and piracy to preserve commerce and fund British expansion and dominance over the New World—and pirates like Blackbeard, Hornigold, Bellamy, Paulsgrave Williams, and Vane resisted what they viewed as an incursion into the Americas, forming their own Republic of Pirates on New Providence, Bahamas. The British Crown knew that the pirate revolution was not just about redistributing accumulated wealth, but was political in nature and firmly against the new Hanoverian king who spoke no English. Which is what made men like Thache so dangerous. They also knew popular American sentiment remained with the pirates, and in order to eradicate them, public perception across the Empire had to be altered. Therefore, the British began to demonize and punish those who practiced America’s favorite economic practice. That is what marked the end for Blackbeard and the Golden Age of Piracy. Once pro-British colonial newspapers like the Boston News-Letter and various pamphlets began presenting biased accounts of pirate attacks, providing readers in the New World with embellished accounts of vicious behavior and horrific details of pirate life, Blackbeard was living on borrowed time. All it took was a single highly motivated and relentless colonial governor named Alexander Spotswood to put an end to him and his motley crew once and for all.

  But what Spotswood hadn’t counted on was that in his efforts to destroy Blackbeard, he more than anyone else secured the man’s place in the pantheon of great American antiheroes, and as history’s most illustrious pirate and one of its most colorful characters. In the end, few people remember or care about Alexander Spotswood—but virtually everyone knows the name Blackbeard. To this day, three hundred years after his death, he is the only pirate who remains a household name. And the truth is, he has earned it. The privateer-turned-gentleman-of-fortune who did not kill a single soul until the day he was illegally trapped, murdered, and beheaded; who graciously bequeathed his family inheritance to his step-mother and half-siblings; who desperately loved a Swedish woman named Margaret; who freed a black African slave named Caesar and made him a seaman drawing equal shares aboard his ships; and who viewed himself and his motley crew as Robin Hood’s Men and patriots combatting British oppression deserves his immortality.

  Even more than my ancestor Captain Kidd.

  Why?

  Because Blackbeard—the real man explored in this book and the legend—was and will forever be the quintessential sea rover of the Golden Age of Piracy.

  ALEXANDER SPOTSWOOD

  On February 14, 1719, Spotswood wrote a letter to Lord Cartwright, a proprietor of North Carolina, in which he attempted to explain his justification for invading his lordship’s colony. It was one of the British lieutenant governor’s usual interminable fussy letters, and in it he falsely boasted to have rescued “the trade of North Carolina from the insults of pirates upon the earnest solicitations of the inhabitants there” and he hoped his actions would “not be unacceptable to your lordships.” He admitted that he had not informed either the proprietors or Eden about his invasion plan, but chose not to mention that this was because he believed Eden to be conspiring with Blackbeard. Instead, he claimed to have done Eden a service by excluding him, for had he been “let into that secret” the pirates might have attacked him if Maynard’s operation had failed. Besides, as Spotswood indelicately put it, Eden and his friends “could contribute nothing to the success of the design.” Spotswood further wrote that the “prisoners have been brought hither and tried, and it plainly appears that the ship they brought into Carolina was after the date of His Majesty’s pardon.” According to Duffus, what Spotswood was trying to convey was not the guilt or innocence of Thache’s men for bringing in the French merchant ship Rose Emelye, but that Lord Cartwright’s senior representative in North Carolina, Governor Eden, had been collaborating with and harboring unrepentant pirates, and that he had no business finding on behalf of Blackbeard that the French ship was legal salvage.

  The death of Blackbeard and subsequent trial of his crew in which one white man and five black pirates were found guilty and hung and the rest were pardoned or acquitted marked the beginning of a legal dispute between Spotswood and Eden that would consume their lives until Eden’s death in March 1722. According to Blackbeard biographer Robert E. Lee, Eden and the citizens of North Carolina resented not only Spotswood’s invasion of their proprietary colony, but the heavy-handed manner in which he had conducted it. They justifiably felt that their powerful neighbor had taken advantage of North Carolina’s weakness and that Spotswood had acted without authority. In response, Eden challenged his legal right to invade the colony, which is what forced him to have to explain himself before Lord Cartwright and his London superiors. The episode served only to rekindle the ill feelings that already existed between the two colonies and both sides hardened their positions until the question of jurisdiction was lost in a tangled web of legal arguments. Ultimately, it became clear to the Board of Trade and governments of both colonies that Spotswood had overreached and disobeyed both his superiors and the rule of law, but that Eden had lacked the power to do anything about it. Consequently, Spotswood was not punished for exceeding his authority by the Board of Trade or the King, but unlike Governor Johnson of South Carolina he was given no praise from London for his anti-piracy measures.

  For a short time, Spotswood rejoiced in the success of the attack against Blackbeard. But the political difficulties it created contributed to the growing clamor mounting against him, and his illegal invasion of his southern neighbor did little to silence his many critics. While the governor was busy with his war against Blackbeard and his pirates, and later Governor Eden and Tobias Knight, his three political arch-enemies—Philip Ludwell the Younger, William Byrd in London, and Reverend James Blair—continued to lodge formal and behind-the-scenes complaints against him to the British government, repeatedly demanding his removal from office.

  Spotswood’s well-documented bombast, dismissiveness towards colonials of all stripes, and steadfast support of the Crown at the expanse of the increasingly independent-minded colonists whose interests he was supposed to represent has not endeared him to history. As Duffus states, “The former army officer must have been an exceedingly pompous and tiresome bore, which becomes evident by reading just one or two of his diffuse, long-winded letters to his superiors back in England. With a slight paunch, receding hairline and supercilious expression, Spotswood took enormous pleasure in his lordly station, even though he was merely a deputy governor for the absentee Earl of Orkney, George Hamilton.” One of his more disgraceful actions was to deny payment of the promised reward money to Lieutenant Maynard and the other Royal Navy seamen who had battled Thache at Ocracoke until four years after the battle—even though Spotswood had, by binding decree, promised prompt payment upon the capture of the pirate and his crew (as presented in the novel). After four years of delay, many of those who had fought valiantly and spilled blood upon the decks of the Jane and Ranger had died or retired from the service, and so never received a penny.

  Spotswood had a habit of overplaying his hand and then using his powerful position to brush aside dissent, but eventually his old tricks caught up with him. He learned too late that he had several masters to please, each with a different set of interests: English merchants, imperial bureaucrats, and the Virginia planter elite. It took four years of lobbying by his political enemies following the death of Blackbeard, but the open ill feeling continually gnawed at Spotswood’s position until on April 3, 1722 he was toppled from government due to “an accumulation of grievances.” Experienced Scottish soldier and diplomat Hugh Drysdale was duly named as his successor. However, by that time Spotswood had made so much money from questionable land deals that his governorship had become immaterial. He would remain the wealthiest man in Virginia until his death in 1740. In 1724, at the age of forty-eight, Spotswood returned to England to secure title to his lands in Virginia and to determine the taxes on the vast grants. That same year, he married for the first time in his life to Anne Butler Brayne o
f St. Margaret’s Parish, Westminster, with whom he had two sons and two daughters.

  When war with Spain broke out in 1739, Spotswood resumed his military career. He was appointed a brigadier general in the British army and second in command to Major General Charles Cathcart. At long last, Spotswood had fulfilled his dream of military advancement. But he never saw battle: after suffering a short illness, he died on June 7, 1740, in Annapolis, Maryland, where he had traveled to organize troops and consult with colonial governors. His burial site is unknown. Although he had successfully taken on the most feared pirate captain of the day, Spotswood’s bold operation against Blackbeard was overshadowed by years of political infighting. However his twelve years as governor had a lasting impact on Virginia, as noted by the Privy Council, which recorded that he had done “more than any other person towards peopling the country.” But with regard to Blackbeard, the judgement of history has been more severe: he knowingly launched an illegal expedition in violation of the King’s and governor of North Carolina’s pardons to destroy the freebooter (who was likely retired from piracy) and his crew at Ocracoke, all in an effort to gather evidence to be used to undermine Eden and Tobias Knight and thereby further his own career and financial gain. In the end, the reputations of Eden and Knight were only mildly tarnished by Spotswood’s aggressive maneuvers and history has shown them to be guilty only of being mildly cozy with Blackbeard, who brought much-needed capital and commerce into their struggling proprietary colony.