Raiders and Rebels

by Frank Sherry

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

  Although he was for all intents and purposes a prisoner aboard Blackbeard’s ship, Bonnet apparently accepted his secondary role. Perhaps his acceptance was made more palatable by the fact that Blackbeard awarded him a full share of the plunder and treated him with rare tact, telling the deposed amateur captain, according to Defoe, that “as he had not been used to the Fatigues and Care of such a Post [as captain], it would be better for him to decline it and live easy at his Pleasure.”

  In January 1718, Blackbeard, with Bonnet still in company, was back in Nassau. Here he heard that the famed circumnavigator Woodes Rogers was planning to come to New Providence with an armed militia and the Royal Navy to make himself governor.

  Blackbeard, having no desire to confront Rogers, or to beg the king’s pardon either, departed Nassau. He set sail northward toward the American coast on the first leg of a cruise that would earn him a permanent place in the annals of the outlaw nation.

  At the end of January 1718, Blackbeard, with Bonnet and the Revenge still accompanying him, reached the town of Bath, North Carolina, where he had a good friend and ally: the governor himself, Charles Eden. Although most of the other English colonies in North America had long ago closed their ports to pirates, North Carolina—poor and lacking in trade—still welcomed freebooters and allowed them to market their plunder openly.

  When Blackbeard and his men arrived in North Carolina, they applied to Governor Eden for a “pardon.” This was, in fact, no more than a legal fiction that allowed Blackbeard and his men to use the colony as a base of operations. In return for a share of the profits, Governor Eden and Tobias Knight, secretary of the colony and collector of customs, looked the other way while Blackbeard disposed of his booty to the public and merchants of Bath. As men who had been pardoned by the governor for their crimes, Blackbeard and his crew were free to dispose of their goods as they wished—as any other honest citizens of North Carolina were. The pardoned Blackbeard and his band of pirates were also free to careen their ships and to refit and resupply for any further voyage they might contemplate.

  After a few weeks’ respite in North Carolina, Blackbeard and Bonnet set sail again. This time they headed southward for the Bay of Honduras, which had become a favorite hunting ground for Blackbeard. Here Blackbeard captured another vessel, the sloop Adventure out of Jamaica, and added it to his growing flotilla. As captain of the Adventure he appointed one of his own favorite officers, Israel Hands. (The name was later appropriated by Robert Louis Stevenson.)

  Over the next two months, Blackbeard made a series of captures, adding another sloop and several smaller vessels to his growing fleet. Then, after a patternless crisscrossing of the West Indian sea-lanes, which included a pause in Havana to dispose of plunder and at least one stop at Nassau, Blackbeard headed north once again to the American coast.

  In May 1718, he and his now-formidable fleet stood off the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina. Blackbeard was about to carry out one of the most audacious acts of piracy ever committed.

  Aware that there were a dozen or more ships in Charleston preparing to get under way, Blackbeard and his consorts set up a blockade beyond the mouth of the harbor and waited for prey to come to them.

  Within a day or two, three unsuspecting merchants, all bearing rich cargoes, fell into the net. Before a week was out half a dozen smaller vessels had also been captured.

  Aboard one of the larger vessels that had run afoul of his blockade, Blackbeard had discovered four passengers, including one important individual: Samuel Wragg, a member of the governor’s council of South Carolina, who was traveling to England with his four-year-old son. Blackbeard took Wragg, his son, and two other passengers as hostages. The town of Charleston, he decided, could ransom Mr. Wragg and the others only by supplying the pirates with medicine to treat the syphilis that was tormenting them. Blackbeard sent a delegation of his men into Charleston to deliver this ransom demand to the governor. He allowed one of the prisoners, a man called Marx, to accompany the pirate delegation in order to bear witness to the facts of the story—and to urge his fellow citizens to comply with Blackbeard’s demand.

  Along with the demand for medicine, Blackbeard’s emissaries delivered a gruesome threat: If the governor did not pay the ransom within two days, Blackbeard would murder his captives, including the four-year-old boy, and deliver their heads to the town. He and his men would also destroy the port and burn the ships that lay in the harbor.

  The governor and his council had no alternative but to comply with Blackbeard’s ultimatum. There were no warships anywhere in the neighborhood, and Blackbeard’s blockading fleet could easily have sailed into the port and leveled the city with their cannon.

  The governor and his council turned over some £300 worth of medical supplies, but bad weather kept Blackbeard’s delegation from returning to their fleet until after the deadline for the transaction had expired. But when his men brought the medicine to him, Blackbeard had not carried out his threat to behead the prisoners. They were released as promised, but not until Blackbeard had stripped them of all their belongings, including their clothing—and £6,000 that Samuel Wragg had been carrying. Shivering in their underclothing, the four hostages were set ashore.

  Blackbeard and his fleet lifted their blockade of Charleston. They set sail for the hospitable environs of North Carolina, leaving in their wake hundreds of wrathful citizens who swore to avenge themselves on the terrible Teach.

  In June 1718, Blackbeard and his fleet reached one of his favorite havens: Topsail Inlet, North Carolina. He had given it out that he meant to rest and refit here before resuming operations. But in fact, he had quite a different plan in mind.

  Blackbeard now stood at the zenith of his power. He controlled a formidable fleet. He had more than three hundred men under his command. He had seized dozens of prizes in the West Indies and off the southern coast of the American mainland. He had made his name a terror from Honduras to Virginia. Now, despite all this success, Blackbeard had decided, in his terrifyingly erratic way, that the time had come to divest himself of his fleet. Operating with so many ships had become unwieldy. The flotilla was too easily seen at sea and impossible to disguise. There were also too many crewmen. By the time the booty was divided among all hands, each man’s share was hardly worth the counting.

  For these reasons he was determined to rid himself of all but his best vessel and a small select crew. He had also resolved to dispose of his hostage colleague, the gentlemanly Stede Bonnet.1

  Accordingly, Blackbeard now devised a scheme—typically full of both guile and menace—to accomplish his aims.

  First, with a great show of goodwill, he allowed Bonnet to resume command of his ship Revenge. Then, mixing cajolery with the threat of reprisal, Blackbeard suggested that Bonnet travel overland to Bath to obtain a pardon from the obliging Governor Eden. Blackbeard suggested to the gullible Bonnet that this legal fiction was essential before their fleet could set out again after prey. Bonnet departed. Now Blackbeard implemented the rest of his plan. He dismissed most of the 320 men under his command, selecting only 40 to serve with him in the future. He then loaded the plunder and supplies belonging to the whole fleet aboard the sloop Adventure, which he considered the most seaworthy of his vessels, as well as the craft most suitable for the smaller crew he intended to work with.

  When some of Blackbeard’s dismissed crewman had the temerity to object to his seizure of their common goods, the black giant exploded with rage. He marooned the objectors on a barren sandbar (from which they were later rescued by Bonnet). The rest of Blackbeard’s former crewmen acceded without argument to his confiscation of their property. Fearful of their ex-captain’s fury, most of them simply fled inland.

  Now Blackbeard, with his pared-down crew, his plunder, and his swift sloop Adventure, left Topsail Inlet and made his way once again to Bath where he again “surrendered” to his friend Governor Eden and obtained another “pardon” for all his previous il
legal activities, including the blockade of Charleston.

  After concluding this business—and no doubt making a substantial payment to the governor—Blackbeard departed Bath once more to cruise in Adventure off the American coast.

  By now the legend of Blackbeard was spreading rapidly. Stories about his enormous appetites and his unpredictable cruelty were circulated in waterfront cities from Cartagena to New York. Most of the stories were not much exaggerated.

  Fragments of a journal—supposed to be Blackbeard’s—tell of a life aboard Blackbeard’s ship centering around violence and alcohol:

  “Such a Day—Rum all out:—Our Company somewhat sober: Rogues a plotting;—great Talk of Separation:—So I look’d Sharp for a Prize.”

  Another fragment tells how the capture of a merchant ship, with a supply of liquor on board, mollified his men:

  “Such a Day took one, with a great deal of Liquor on board, so kept the Company hot, damn’d hot, then all Things went well again.”

  To keep his turbulent crew in line Blackbeard resorted to often-grotesque outbursts of violence. According to one story, he was drinking in his cabin one night with his navigator, Israel Hands, and another crew member, when, for no discernible reason, he furtively drew out a pair of small pistols under the table and cocked them. The other crewman saw what was going on and went up on deck, leaving the unsuspecting Hands and Blackbeard alone in the cabin. Suddenly Blackbeard blew out the candle and fired his pistols. One of the pistol balls struck Hands in the knee, crippling him for life.

  When asked why he had shot Hands, Blackbeard answered that if he did not now and then kill one of his men, they would forget who he was.2

  Some tales about Blackbeard had a supernatural aura. Defoe, for example, tells one such story that he says he got from surviving members of Blackbeard’s crew.

  During one of Blackbeard’s cruises, Defoe relates, the crew became aware that there was a strange extra man on board. For several days the men glimpsed this shadowy figure “sometimes below, and sometimes upon Deck, yet no Man in the Ship could give an Account who he was, or from whence he came.” The stranger never spoke, never showed his face. One day the mysterious extra crewman simply disappeared and was seen no more. Blackbeard’s men were convinced that the Devil had boarded their ship—to examine and wonder at their own diabolical captain.

  In September 1718—three months after ridding himself of Bonnet and setting off with his forty picked men in the sloop Adventure—Blackbeard again returned to North Carolina for rest and refitting. This time he chose as his hideout Ocracoke Island, off the tip of Cape Hatteras—a low-lying sandy strip, but with numerous inlets, shallows, and sandbars. There were also stands of tall trees growing on the high ground. It was an ideal place to hide out. It was virtually inaccessible to warships because of the shallow waters and because it was crisscrossed with channels navigable only by those who knew the way through the tricky currents and shifting sandbars. In addition, the trees helped camouflage the masts of anchored ships.

  Blackbeard, who knew Ocracoke well, dropped Adventure’s hook in a shallow, hidden inlet. With him also was a prize ship he had recently taken. Snug in their concealed haven, Blackbeard and his men prepared to enjoy a period of drinking and ease before resuming their brigandage off the American coast.

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

  During this interlude at Ocracoke, Blackbeard and his crew were joined by the redoubtable Charles Vane and his men, for a week-long orgy of drinking, sex, and feasting. Vane had also been operating off the coast of America in recent months after escaping from Nassau harbor and from Woodes Rogers and was glad to spend some time with Blackbeard, whom he had known since the early days of the pirate republic on New Providence. But he had no intention of joining forces with the mad giant.

  According to witnesses, the Ocracoke orgy—one of the largest gatherings of pirates ever held—was a nonstop revel of riotous drinking, roaring bonfires on the beach, sex with whores from the mainland and with captive women, and wild dancing to music provided by fiddlers from Vane’s crew and musicians invited over to Ocracoke by Blackbeard.

  Eventually the tumultuous celebration came to an end. Vane sailed away on his own business. Blackbeard, however, continued to lie at Ocracoke, taking his ease and conducting desultory business with officials and merchants from the mainland. Regarding himself as safe from attack while sheltered in Ocracoke’s maze of shallows, Blackbeard made no secret of his presence in the island hideout.

  Unknown to Blackbeard, however, many of the honest planters of North Carolina had agreed among themselves that despite their governor’s illicit relationship with the terrible giant, Blackbeard represented a danger to the future of the colony. They had come to this conclusion after hearing a rumor that Blackbeard intended to build a fortress at Ocracoke Island and to turn the area for many miles around into a kind of “pirate kingdom,” with himself as lord of it. The planters knew better than to ask their own corrupt governor to act against Blackbeard. Instead they appealed to Governor Alexander Spotswood of Virginia to chase him from their midst.

  Spotswood, whose own colony had lost scores of ships to Blackbeard and to other pirates, was a vigorous ex-army officer of forty-two who hated all pirates, and Blackbeard more than any. Born in Tangiers, Morocco, in 1676, Spotswood was a strong-minded, unsmiling man with direct dark eyes. Tall and broad, he bore himself with a military correctness. Spotswood had served with Marlborough in the War of the Spanish Succession. Appointed governor of Virginia in 1710, he had discharged his duties with integrity and with an unusual concern for the future development of the colony. During his tenure as governor, Spotswood had established a Virginia merchant company to carry on trade with the Indians, had encouraged the construction of forts along the colony’s western frontier, and had personally conducted an expedition of exploration into the Shenandoah Valley in 1716.

  Governor Spotswood leaped at the chance to capture the diabolical Blackbeard, even though it meant circumventing the jurisdiction of North Carolina’s own governor.3

  Spotswood had two Royal Navy men-of-war available to him. They were the H.M.S. Pearl and H.M.S. Lyme, stationed in Virginia’s James River. But when the governor conferred with the captains of these two ships to draw plans for capturing Blackbeard, they pointed out that their heavy men-of-war could not possibly navigate the shallows or manage the winding channels of Ocracoke Island. But Spotswood was not daunted. He would, at his own expense, provide shallow-draft sloops for the enterprise if the Royal Navy captains would furnish the seamen from their own crews. It was agreed.

  Acting on his own authority, Spotswood had already sent an agent into North Carolina to gain information on Blackbeard’s location and armament. The agent was also to bring back to Virginia two pilots who knew the tricky waters of the area where Blackbeard had holed up. Their help would be crucial in getting to the pirate.

  Spotswood also persuaded the Virginia legislature to appropriate funds so that he could offer rewards for the capture of Blackbeard and his men. The reward for Blackbeard was set at £100.

  In utmost secrecy Spotswood met with the Royal Navy officers to draw up the final plans for the expedition. Fearing that intelligence of the coming operation would somehow reach Blackbeard and that he would escape, Spotswood did not discuss his plan even with his own colonial council.

  On November 17, the expedition set off in the two sloops Spotswood had provided. Lieutenant Robert Maynard of H.M.S. Pearl, in charge of the expedition, commanded one sloop with thirty-five men. A midshipman named Baker, from H.M.S. Lyme, commanded the second sloop with an additional twenty-five men.

  On the late afternoon of November 21, the expedition arrived off Ocracoke.

  Because the distances on Ocracoke were not great, the navy men could easily see Blackbeard’s sloop Adventure and his captured prize at anchor only a few hundred yards away in one of the island’s larger inlets.

  Yet, as close as Blackbeard lay to them in terms of space, Lieutena
nt Maynard and his men knew that their quarry, protected by the maze of waterways that lay between him and his pursuers, was still far away in terms of time.

  Despite the fact that the day was already nearly spent, the naval sloops began their stalk of Blackbeard. Slowly, yard by yard, they began to feel their way through the channels and shoals.

  When darkness fell, however, they anchored where they lay, fearing to go permanently aground in the treacherous shallows. At first light, Maynard told his men, they would resume the hunt.

  Across the few hundred yards of sandbars and shallows that separated him from the naval sloops Blackbeard must have observed the struggling approach of his would-be captors. It is certain that he knew who Maynard and his men were and why they had come to Ocracoke, for his friend Tobias Knight, North Carolina’s corrupt customs collector, had heard of Spotswood’s expedition, despite the governor’s secrecy, and had sent a warning to Blackbeard. But the black giant had not acted on the warning. And even when Maynard anchored for the night less than a cannon-shot away, Blackbeard seemed unconcerned.

  Although it was clear that the naval force hoped to attack him on the following morning, and although he had only eighteen men with him aboard Adventure, Blackbeard made no effort to escape, or even to prepare for a possible battle. He did not send for the rest of his crew who were scattered on various errands ashore. Instead, he sat up all night drinking with a few cronies and with the master of a merchant ship whom he had invited aboard. His roaring voice must have been easily audible to the naval forces lying in wait across the shallow water.