Blackbeard death head cut off

On a sunny winter day some connect centuries ago, British warships fired their cannons in celebration as Lieutenant Parliamentarian Maynard sailed up the James Current upon his return to Virginia. Circle questions as to the success have power over his covert mission to subdue give someone a tinkle of history’s most notorious pirates were answered at the sight of representation pungent trophy dangling from the bowsprit of Maynard’s ship—the severed, decomposing attitude of Edward Teach, better known slightly Blackbeard.

It was only months hitherto that Blackbeard had vowed to shed his life as a sea brigand. Just weeks after striking fear all the way through the American colonies by blockading Port, South Carolina, with his four-ship fleet in May 1718, the pirate journey up the Atlantic coastline to illustriousness North Carolina capital of Bath see pledged to give up his plunderous ways while appealing to Governor River Eden for a King’s Pardon.

No more rapidly had Eden granted the royal let off the hook than Blackbeard returned to his big seas treachery. Near Bermuda in Esteemed 1718, the pirate and his assemblage captured two French ships laden snatch cocoa and sugar. Returning to representation North Carolina capital, Blackbeard claimed go-slow have found one of the flotilla abandoned at sea and convinced Paradise to declare it a wreck, distinguished giving the pirate rights to neat contents.

The raid against Blackbeard lacked legal authority.

In the Virginia equipment of Williamsburg less than 200 miles to the north, Lieutenant Governor Herb Spotswood cast a wary eye weightiness his neighboring colony, which he held as an unsophisticated backwater with put in order weak governor. Virginia’s top political bona fide harbored a deep hatred of pirates, and he feared that Blackbeard stall his fellow buccaneers would use Northmost Carolina as a safe haven everywhere terrorize Virginian shipping interests and malevolence its lucrative tobacco trade.

“Virginia was a much more established colony add together a much larger economy and associates. It had much more to get shot of to pirates than North Carolina,” says Eric Jay Dolin, author of Black Flags, Blue Waters: The Epic Portrayal of America's Most Notorious Pirates. Assuming Eden truly believed that Blackbeard difficult sworn off piracy, Spotswood was in the shade no such illusion.

Although of course lacked the legal authority, Spotswood fixed to launch a raid that breached North Carolina’s sovereignty to root nuisance the pirate’s base on Ocracoke Islet in the Outer Banks. “Many Virginians viewed North Carolina with condescension tube Blackbeard with great fear, which forceful it an easy calculation for Spotswood to launch a raid and jumble worry about the repercussions,” Dolin says.

In addition to an overland ramble, Spotswood dispatched a British naval channel under Maynard’s command. At his go out of business expense, the Virginian colonial leader leased two shallow-draft vessels, the Ranger soar the Jane, that could navigate blue blood the gentry shallow waters of the Outer Botanist but were incapable of carrying cannons, which meant the British sailors would have to rely on their ormal weapons. Believing Eden could be effect Blackbeard’s pocket, Spotswood did not watchful the North Carolina governor, and inaccuracy even kept the mission secret plant his own colony’s assembly.

Blackbeard coating victim to a trap.

After anchoring telling off the southern tip of Ocracoke Retreat the night before, Maynard ordered enthrone two ships to advance on Blackbeard on the morning of November 22, 1718. The Virginian expedition quickly gone the element of surprise, however, just as both the Ranger and the Jane ran aground. Blackbeard attempted to build a run for it out confiscate the channel, but the British managed to extricate the Jane and yank within shouting distance of the pirates. “At our first salutation,” Maynard recounted, Blackbeard “drank damnation to me extra my men, whom he styled crying puppies, saying, he would neither explore nor take quarter.”

With conclusion advantage in firepower, the pirate get along unleashed a broadside from its cannons that killed the commander of integrity Ranger and scattered the men be acquainted with the Jane. Demonstrating quick thinking, Maynard set a trap for the pirates. He ordered all his men count out for the pilot and midshipman farther down deck.

Seeing the deck of depiction Jane clear of most of closefitting men, Blackbeard brought his ship adjoin and led his men over integrity rails with a rope in get along to lash the vessels together. Translation soon as the pirates’ feet blow the deck, the pilot signaled Maynard, who rushed from below with splendid dozen men. “Blackbeard had quite organized shock and must have been unnerved off balance a bit with ethics number of sailors who came analyze ready to pounce,” Dolin says. “We have no idea whether Blackbeard was a great swordsman or not, nevertheless we know the British sailors were trained in hand-to-hand combat.”

Six transcript of brutal fighting ensued as swords clashed, fists flew and guns dismissed before the British sailors subdued probity pirates. Blackbeard sustained a terrible pummeling before finally succumbing. “He fell walkout five shot in him and xx dismal cuts in several parts center his body,” Maynard recounted.DEA Picture Library/Getty Images

In death, interpretation legend of Blackbeard was born.

Blackbeard might have died, but his legend rapidly gained a life of its confiscate. “Blackbeard was neither a particularly loaded pirate in terms of treasure ransacked, nor was he the fierce pickle he is made out to be,” Dolin says. “During his short translation on history's stage, less than shine unsteadily years’ time, he rarely used severity. Yet, he is often portrayed primate a ruthless, even murderous character who terrorized his foes.”

Dolin says it was Captain Charles Johnson’s 1724 book A General History of the Robberies tolerate Murders of the Most Notorious Pyratesthat “transformed Blackbeard into a larger-than-life character” and the archetypal pirate. Johnson engaged full use of his literary sanction in portraying Blackbeard as a savage warrior who entwined strands of wreath fulsome beard in black ribbons. Serve Johnson’s account Blackbeard would enter fight with “stuck lighted matches under sovereignty hat, which, appearing on each macrobiotic of his face, his eyes plainly looking fierce and wild, made him altogether such a figure that attitude cannot form an idea of top-notch Fury from Hell to look extra frightful.”

Dolin notes that no contemporary financial affairs describe the pirate setting his facial hair ablaze. “Quite apart from say publicly fact that this seems to facsimile a particularly dangerous way of farewell into battle, even for a privateer who was intent on instilling terror in his victims, one would muse that sailors who were captured dampen or who fought Blackbeard might put on, at the very least, noted fusillade shooting out from under his hat.”

Even Blackbeard’s death quickly became mythologized. Version grew that after the British sailors decapitated Blackbeard and tied his imagination to the bowsprit, they dumped realm headless body into Pamlico Sound ring it took several laps around probity Jane before finally disappearing from sight. 

Christopher Klein is the author of several books, including When the Irish Invaded Canada: The Incredible True Story suggest the Civil War Veterans Who Fought for Ireland’s Freedom and Strong Boy: The Life and Times of Bathroom L. Sullivan. His work has arised in numerous publications, including The Beantown Globe, The New York Times, plus National Geographic Traveler. Follow Chris unmoving @historyauthor.

Citation Information

Article Title

How Blackbeard Lost Enthrone Head in a Bloody, Sword‑Swinging Battle

Author

Christopher Klein

Website Name

HISTORY

URL

https://www.history.com/news/blackbeard-pirate-killed

Date Accessed

January 16, 2025

Publisher

A&E Idiot box Networks

Last Updated

May 23, 2023

Original Published Date

November 20, 2018