As the heavy steel door closed behind him, he gave a little start. There was a jarring note of finality to it: with despair he realized that his fate was sealed and they were here to tell him that unless he cooperated he would be hung. But he would never cooperate. He took in the grim face of the guard who had remained behind posted at the door. Then he took another breath of air to calm his nerves and looked out the window. Dark billowy clouds had settled over the Virginia capital, dampening the already dull sunlight with an unwelcome hint of doom and gloom.
Spotswood broke the excruciating silence: “Sit down, Caesar.” It was an order, not a request.
He did as instructed. He knew he was in deep trouble, probably for refusing to talk, but at the same time he couldn’t help wondering if there was a glimmer of hope and he wouldn’t be hung. That was doubtful, he decided. His gaze met Spotswood’s and the periwigged lieutenant governor looked him in the eye with a supercilious expression on his face.
“You, Caesar the Negro slave, are a person of a very notorious character for your piracies. By any fair and just God, you should be hung from the neck until dead and buried below the high-water mark for your villainous deeds. Wouldn’t you agree?”
He gave a little gulp, feeling suddenly dry and constricted in his throat. How could he possibly answer such a loaded question? Did the bastard want him to confess so that they could hang him and be done with him altogether? He said nothing.
“Very well. If you have nothing to say on the matter, there are two other items that have been brought to my attention. Items which you failed to disclose in your depositions. Though it must be said that you did not yield much of anything in either session with my secretary here.” He nodded to his young aide, the lawyer seated next to him.
Again, Caesar said nothing, waiting for the governor to inform him what he had failed to reveal.
“It appears that you are the property of Tobias Knight, the council secretary, collector of customs, and interim chief justice of North Carolina. Is this correct?”
“I once belonged to him, but I am now a free man.”
Spotswood looked at his aide and rolled his eyes sarcastically. “‘I am a free man,’ he says. ‘I am a free man.’” Now his dark eyes flickered menacingly, like a hectoring judge. “No, my felonious Negro, you are not free—you are a slave.” He pulled out two sheets of foolscap. “This document, signed and sealed by Mr. Knight, and the accompanying bill of sale make it quite clear that you are his legal property. You were purchased in 1713 at the age of eighteen by Mr. Knight from the Robert Daniel family of Bath Town. The price was twenty pounds and it appears that your current owner wants you back. He has indicated such in his letter.” He pushed the documents across to him. “Would you like to review them? I understand you can read.”
“Aye, and as well as you, I imagine.” He took the documents and examined them closely. He didn’t understand every word, but he wasn’t about to let Spotswood know that. In reading the documents, he realized that Knight was requesting that he be returned to him to spare him from the hangman. The letter was written in a formal manner and requested the release of “my legally-purchased servile property, the twenty-three-year-old Negro known as Caesar” from custody in Virginia and his “prompt return to Bath Town to his rightful owner.”
When he looked up, Spotswood was peering down his nose at him. “How did you learn to read? It is forbidden for most slaves.”
“Tobias Knight’s wife taught me. Mostly the Bible. But it was Captain Thache that opened up a whole new world to me with the books on his ship.”
“So the pair of you are educated book readers—ahoy, how enlightened our thieving rogues. Now regarding the other matter which you failed to disclose to my secretary here. It has been brought to my attention that you attempted to blow up the Adventure and the two naval vessels by setting fire to the powder stores belowdecks. Is this true?”
Caesar took a breath, sat back in his chair, and licked his lips, trying to buy himself time. He had wondered why Spotswood’s men hadn’t brought it up before. He had surmised that Samuel Odell and James Robins, the two men that had stopped him from igniting the powder stores, must not have mentioned it in the trial, most likely because it might have implicated them as well. So they had kept quiet about the incident to protect their own skin. But now somehow the governor had found out about it.
“Who told you this? Did someone bring it up in court?”
“That is not important. The question is whether or not it is true?”
Weighing his answer carefully, he decided that it was better to lie and claim, like Samuel Odell and James Robins, that he was hiding out in the hold of the ship to avoid the fighting. He couldn’t claim that he was not a pirate aboard the ship, but he could truthfully maintain that he had not taken up arms against the King’s men since the trader Odell and Robins had prevented him from blowing up the Adventure. Was it possible that that would be enough for him to gain his freedom?
“No, I did not try and blow up the ship. That is a lie.”
“Are you sure? The word around the docks is that a Negro tried to blow up the ship. I think it was you.”
“Well then, you would be wrong. It was not I.”
“Then who was it?”
“I do not know.”
“It appears, Mr. Educated Negro Caesar, that you are aware that such an offense is considered high treason against the Crown. That is why you proclaim your innocence, isn’t it?”
“No,” he said crisply. “I only know that there was no explosion. How can there be a crime if nothing was blown up?”
“Malicious intent is punishable as a crime too, Caesar. But I wouldn’t expect a mere Negro to be aware of such legal niceties.” He suddenly sat upright in his chair. “Very well, you are hereby pardoned and free to go.”
He wasn’t sure he had heard correctly. “What…what did you just say?”
Spotswood snapped his leatherbound book shut and removed his reading glasses. “I said you are free to go, provided you are willing to pay the fee due the attorney-general. I am, of course, referring to the fee he receives for making out pardons for condemned men, even a Negro such as yourself.”
“But I have no money. Your men took it from me.”
“As luck would have it—even though, as I have said, you a person of a very notorious character for your piracies—you shall have the money that was on your person when you were captured restored to you.”
He wasn’t sure he believed his ears. “You’re telling me my money is being returned to me?”
The governor made a snooty face, as if he had caught a whiff of something malodorous. “Even though you have been condemned, there is no proof of your monies on your person to have been piratically taken.”
“I see. And why am I being pardoned again?”
“Let’s just say you have benefitted from King George’s most gracious proclamation that arrived in mid-December. It is the same that spared your former quartermaster, the villainous William Howard, from the gallows. Now, without further ado, I must make you aware of the terms of your pardon.”
“Terms?”
“You are to leave the colony of Virginia posthaste and return to your rightful owner, Mr. Tobias Knight, of Bath Town by the end of March. Any violation of the terms of your pardon and you will be punished to the full extent of the law. My secretary here has your pass, which is good through to the end of March. Which means that you have three weeks, Caesar, with which to convey yourself southward to the home of your proper owner. I would advise you to get started as soon as possible. But first, is there anything you would like to tell me and my secretary about Mr. Knight that might illuminate his interactions with your captain, Edward Thache, the notorious pirate known as Blackbeard? I believe it is in your best interest to unburden yourself and come clean now that you are set to go free.”
“To go free as a slave, you mean.”
“Yes well, you are a Negro. I did not devise your station in life—th
at is God’s doing.”
Caesar saw what the lieutenant governor was up to and was not fooled. He knew the man was fishing for information that would implicate Tobias Knight. That was the whole reason for the trial: it was all a fishing expedition to uncover dirt on Governor Eden and Knight, not to prosecute Blackbeard and his pirates.
“No, I know nothing of their interactions. Except to say that the twenty casks of sugar delivered to Mr. Knight was payment for services rendered.”
“Services rendered?”
“In his role as customs inspector and officer of North Carolina’s Vice-Admiralty court. That be all I know.”
Spotswood sneered. “Oh, that’s not how it was, my Negro friend. It was a bribe, pure and simple.”
“I disagree. Now if there are no further questions, I should be going.”
Spotswood signaled the guard. “Unshackle and release him.” He looked back at him. “Truth be told, I shall be more than happy to be rid of the likes of you and your remaining criminal associates.”
“What will happen to them?” he asked as the guard unlocked the shackles around his wrists.
“What will happen to Mr. Gates, Mr. Greenleaf, Mr. Blake, Mr. White, and Mr. Stiles? The truth is, I don’t know. My Council is scheduled to arrive tomorrow to decide whether they are to be tried as slaves or as…gentlemen of fortune, as you and your ilk are so fond of calling yourselves.”
He rubbed his unshackled wrists to get the blood flowing again and ease his pain. “And if it is decided that they are to be tried as pirates?”
“Then they will hang, for the depositions clearly show that they took up arms against Lieutenant Maynard and his men. You should consider yourself lucky that you are not being subjected to a similar fate. Now I have one more question, and before you are allowed to leave I am going to insist that you answer it. What was he like?”
“What was he like? You mean Blackbeard?”
“Yes.”
He could see the deep curiosity in Spotswood’s eyes, a curiosity that crossed the line into desperation. It was obvious that he was secretly obsessed with the man, like the hunter who greatly admires a massive grizzly bear or whale but all the same sets out to kill the creature. “He set me free and was a great sea captain. A man could serve under no better.”
Spotswood gave a dubious snort. “Come now, he was murderous brute, one of the most bloodthirsty and ruthless corsairs to ever live. In fact, he has been scrupulously described in the newspapers as ‘grotesquely conspicuous a villain as can be found in the annals of crime.’ I saw his severed head and can only imagine that in life he must have provided a picture sufficiently repulsive without calling in his dusky face and savage eyes with a supernatural glare.”
“You didn’t know the man. He was nothing like that.”
Spotswood edged closer in his chair, like a titillated schoolboy at the sight of an alluring young woman. “Then, truly, what was he like?”
“He was my hero. But he was also just an ordinary man who was in love with a woman. That’s why he gave up piracy and waited so long to go south to St. Thomas. He was torn and wanted to return to her. He could not bring himself to go, but he had to deal with the crew.”
The governor waved his hand dismissively. “I don’t believe that for a minute. You’re telling me that monster, with all his savage and pernicious designs, was in love with a woman?”
“Margaret of Marcus Hook, a young Swedish lass with fair hair. He loved her like no other and wanted to be with her for the rest of his natural days.”
“Blackbeard the lover. Humbug, I don’t believe it. Why that murderous, throat-slitting rogue wasn’t capable of loving or being loved by anyone.”
“Aye, but he was. And it was because of her that he had turned his back on piracy. He didn’t want to take the French Martiniqueman—Israel Hands and the rest of the crew almost mutinied and made him do it. He was ready to put it all behind him. He was prepared to live the rest of his life as an honest man, he was.”
“I don’t believe that. Though born into wealth and privilege, the man was a villainous thief and bloodthirsty cutthroat to the core.”
“No, Governor, you are wrong. And it is because you are wrong that you have done him a terrible injustice. You murdered him, plain and simple—and because of the King’s and Governor Eden’s pardons, you had no right to do it.”
Spotswood’s face crimsoned with embarrassment. “How dare you talk to me like that! Why you’re nothing but a Negro slave!”
“And you are not half the man he is, or rather was. He was a great sea captain, as fine as ever sailed the seas, and you murdered him. That’s all he ever wanted to be was a great seaman—and by thunder, he was that, sir!”
“Why I should have you shackled and put back in your cell for your intransigence! But you are not even a man—you are property!”
“No, Governor, I am a free man. I will always be free because of him. I will always be free because I sailed with the great Blackbeard. Mark my words, three hundred years from now, no one will remember you. But everyone will know of the legendary Blackbeard.”
“Guard, get him out of my sight before I have him drawn and quartered! Return to him his effects, point him south, and give him a swift kick in the rump! And that’s an order!”
“Let’s go! On your feet!”
The guard grabbed him gruffly and shoved him towards the door. When they reached it, Caesar turned around to get one last word in. He knew he should just keep his mouth shut and get going, but his blood was up and he wanted to put the pompous governor in his place.
“You, sir, are no Blackbeard,” he said. “He was a great man and that is something that you will never be.”
Spotswood was up out of his chair and screaming, the veins in his neck bulging. “He was nothing, I tell you! Nothing!”
“No, he is and always will be an American hero,” Caesar said calmly. “Unlike your name, his will ring out for all eternity.”
And with that, he walked out of the room with his head held high, collected his money and belongings, and started south, knowing that he would forever be a free man whether he returned to Tobias Knight or not. After all, he had sailed with the legendary Blackbeard and had lived through the adventures of ten lifetimes as a free man.
He would forever feel the free spirit of the open sea and the pirate commander who had liberated him inside him.
AFTERWORD
Blackbeard: The Birth of America was conceived and written by the author as a work of historical fiction. Although the novel takes place during the Golden Age of Piracy and incorporates actual historical figures, events, and locales, the novel is ultimately a work of the imagination and entertainment and should be read as nothing more. Though I have strived for historical accuracy and there is not a single character in the book that is not based on an actual historical figure (with the exception of Major Stede Bonnet’s original quartermaster when he set sail from Barbados in the spring of 1717, whom I have named Ishmael Hanks since I could not find any reliable reference to his actual quartermaster), the names, characters, places, government entities, armed forces, religious and political groups, and incidents, as portrayed in the novel, are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as one-hundred-percent accurate depictions. Also, the reader should know that the name of Thache’s first sloop that he officially captained (as documented in the deposition of the captured Henry Timberlake, captain of the Lamb, on December 17, 1716) has escaped history. I refer to the unknown sloop as Margaret in the novel in honor of Thache’s historically documented love Margaret of Marcus Hook.
With regard to the historical events of the novel, I have tried to place the actual historical figures in a given scene and have used, to the extent possible, their actual words based on transcripts, documents, and other quoted materials. Most of the scenes in the book are based on known events with specific historical figures present, but a minority are based on events that are generally accepted to have take
n place but have unfortunately not been documented by history. In both cases, the interpretations of character and motivation are mine and mine alone. Thus, the book’s characters are ultimately a part of my overall imaginative landscape and are, therefore, the fictitious creations of the author, reflecting my personal research interests and biases. Below I present the ultimate fate and legacy of the three primary historical figures and point-of-view characters of the book: Edward Thache, Alexander Spotswood, and Caesar, with secondary POV characters Stede Bonnet and Lieutenant Robert Maynard worked into the discussions of Blackbeard and Spotswood.
EDWARD THACHE (BLACKBEARD)
The image of Edward Thache as a cruel and ruthless villain was largely created by propagandist newspaper accounts in London and America, the British Board of Trade, colonial governors like Alexander Spotswood, and Captain Charles Johnson’s (Nathanial Mist’s) A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pirates, first published in 1724 six years after Blackbeard’s death. As Blackbeard historian Arne Bialuschewski states about the latter: “This book has been plundered by generations of historians, despite the fact that it is riddled with errors, exaggerations, and misunderstandings.” Unlike my ancestor Captain William Kidd (I am his ninth great-grandson on the Marquis side of my family), whom famous pirate writer-illustrator Howard Pyle said should be “relegated to the dull ranks of simply respectable people,” Blackbeard has attained a mythical status. In doing so, he has represented many different things to many different people over the past three hundred years. To some he is a hero, to others a villain, to still others an antihero or something else in between the two extremes.
He has been called as “grotesquely conspicuous a villain as can be found in the annals of crime” and a thief who perpetrated “the most abominable wickedness imaginable,” “carried out acts of mindless destruction,” and “committed more private murders than he could number on the fingers of both hands” despite the fact that he never killed a single person until Maynard’s attack at Ocracoke on November 22, 1718. To his legion of supporters, he has been called everything from a “canny strategist, a master of improvisation, a showman, a natural leader and an extraordinary risk taker” to “the boldest and most notorious of the sea rovers in the New World in the early 1700’s” to “the bravest and most daring corsair of them all.” One historian recently proclaimed, “Meaner or more evil characters existed, but none were as flamboyant, theatrical, and bold as Thache.” Former Navy Seal and pirate scholar Benerson Little, author of The Golden Age of Piracy: The Truth Behind Pirate Myths, states that if “Blackbeard was not the greatest of pirates” he was “at least a great one.” He believes “Blackbeard’s greatest triumph was his image” which “indeed was a fierce one”—but only enough to terrify “merchant seamen, lubberly shore-based merchants, and armchair adventurers” and not the “English naval seamen who killed him in action.” So, in the judgement of history was Blackbeard a hero or villain, and just how “great” was he? Was he a nefarious brute who stuffed lit matches in his beard and gave up his sixteen-year-old Bath Town wife to his crew to be raped? Or was he a brilliant marine tactician like Horatio Nelson, or a dashing swashbuckler like Errol Flynn? Or was he perhaps just an ordinary man in love with a woman named Margaret of Marcus Hook, a man who aspired to be nothing more than to ply his trade as a sea captain but was overtaken by the events of his day?
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