by Craig Cabell
In Captain Johnson’s narrative we are told that one of Blackbeard’s crew asked him one night if anyone, such as his wife, knew the location of his treasure. Blackbeard answered the man by saying that ‘nobody but himself and the Devil knew where it was, and the longest liver should take all’. Ironically, the pirate captain died the following day.
While we know a lot about Spotswood and some of the other players involved in the Blackbeard saga, we know little of the man himself. Yet he is remembered in many different ways. For example, every year Hampton in Virginia holds a Blackbeard Festival. The recently-discovered wreck that appears to be his flagship, the Queen Anne’s Revenge that went aground near Beaufort, is being carefully excavated and studied. Stories about local people seeing the headless ghost of Blackbeard abound, and almost any cafe, restaurant or park that claims to have the most tenuous connection to the pirate blows that connection out of all proportion in order to attract tourists.
For centuries his story has filled the pages of books, comics, magazines and now recently, computer games. Films, television productions, a theme park and a painting have all immortalised him. Of all the pirates operating in the Caribbean and coastal waters of the American Colonies during the ‘Golden Age of Piracy’, none are more famous, or infamous, than Edward Teach, alias Blackbeard.
Through his actions we can see that Blackbeard was a man on a mission. If his goal was for his life in piracy to be remembered throughout history, and his actions point to this being the case, then he certainly achieved it.
We’ve laid out the facts of Blackbeard’s story but there are still many questions that remain unanswered. Who was he and where did he come from? We leave that for you to decide.
Further Reading & Information
BBC Drama, Blackbeard (Dangerous Films)
Cordingly, David, Under the Black Flag: The Romance and Reality of Life Among the Pirates (Harvest Edition, New York: Random House, 1996)
CSPCS – Calendar State Papers Colonial Series (For ease of reference, these can be found at British History Online)
Gosse, Philip, The History of Piracy (New York: Longmans, Green & Co., 2007)
Havighurst, Walter, Alexander Spotswood: Portrait of a Governor (New York: Hold, Reinhart and Winston Inc., 1967)
Johnson, Captain Charles, A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pirates (London: Conway Maritime Press, 2002 (First published in 1724))
Konstam, Angus, Blackbeard – America’ s Most Notorious Pirate (Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons Inc., 2006)
Lee, Robert E., Blackbeard the Pirate – A Reappraisal of His Life and Times (Winston-Salem, North Carolina: John F. Blair, 1974)
Parry, Dan, Blackbeard – The Real Pirate of the Caribbean (London: National Maritime Museum Publishing, 2006)
Pickering, David, Pirates (London: Collins Gem, 2006)
Spotswood, Alexander, The Official Letters of Alexander Spotswood, Lieutenant-Governor of the Colony of Virginia, 1710 – 1722: Now First Printed from the Manuscript in the ... of the Virginia Historical Society, Volumes 1 & 2 (Virginia Historical Society, 2010)
Appendix I
Spotswood’s Version of the Truth
The following is the complete letter written by Governor Alexander Spotswood to the Council of Trade and Plantations, dated 22 December 1718. Its significance to this work is that it illustrates in detail Spotswood’s precarious political position and the accusations that had been levelled against him by his opponents. It touches on the issue of William Howard, Blackbeard’s quartermaster on the Queen Anne’ s Revenge, on the attack at Ocracoke Island and on the issue of what to do with the plunder seized from the captured pirates and what was left on board the New Adventure. It is currently found in Colonial and State Papers, America and the West Indies, Volume 30:
Having long struggled with a set of men here, whose designs for many years have been to engross into their own hands the whole power of the Government and to form a new plan thereof according to their own caprice, but directly opposite to the interest of their Sovereign, as well as of their Mother Country; It is no wonder that I now share with the rest of my predecessors, the effects of their resentment: it being too well known for these thirty years past, that no Governor has longer escaped being vilified and aspersed here, and misrepresented at home, than he began to discover the intrigues and thwart the politicks of this formidable party, etc. Thus a Governors asserting the undoubted prerogative of the Crown in the nomination of Judges, is in the language of these men, a subversion of the Constitution; and his endeavours to obtain a just payment of the Kings Rents a depriving the people of their ancient rights and privileges, and by such false glosses the ignorant are imposed on to believe, and the knavish encouraged to hope for mighty liberties and advantages by adhering to this Party, and choosing such Representatives as are agreeable to them. But notwithstanding these and many other artifices to foment dissatisfactions among the people, the Country in general is so sensible of its present happiness, that with all the industry of the Party, not one grievance came to the Assembly which mett here on the 11th of last month; and indeed if ever any people had reason to be easy under a flourishing trade and moderate taxes, an exuberant Treasury, and a profound Peace, it is certain those of Virginia ought to be so.
Under these happy circumstances this last Session of Assembly mett, and as the peaceable state of the country gave me no occasion to demand anything in behalf of the Government, everyone expected the Burgesses had nothing else to do, but to call for the few bills which remained unfinished at their former Session, and to lay the levy for discharging the publick creditors: but instead of proceeding on any of their bills that lay before them, the first business they went upon was to re-enact a law which H.M. had very lately repealed viz. that declaring who shall not bear office in this Country. This bill brought in by Mr. Grymes the Deputy Auditor, soon passed the Burgesses without removing the very objection for which it was formerly repealed; and being sent to the Council found as easy a passage there, though not without the opposition of some of that Board and particularly Colonel. Jenings, who having been at your Lordships Board, when the repeal was under deliberation, argued for leaving out those parts agt. which your Lordships took exception; but all objections were in vain, the avowed design of this bill being to exclude from offices, all persons recommended from England.
The reasonableness of this set of Counsellors will further appear by the enclosed Minutes of Council, wherein they advise me to pass this bill, notwithstanding the many just exceptions; I represented it liable to. After passing this bill and one other which I shall mention hereafter, the Burgesses seem’d inclined to no other business. All petitions brought before them, were immediately referred to the next Assembly, and their Grand Committee converted into a trifling Office of Enquiry into the Capitol furniture; in which they spent five or six days at the expense of £400 to their country to examine into the state of a few old chairs and sconces of less than £50 value. When many of the more sensible members of that House, tired out with these amusements were return’d home, as apprehending no business of moment would be brought in, and others believing their presence unnecessary, were gone to take the diversion of a horse race near the town, the Party managers watched that opportunity to bring in an Address to the King, with a long roll of Articles; in the first charging me in general with subverting the Constitution of their Government, depriving them of their ancient rights and privileges, and daily exercising hardships on H.M. good subjects: and in the second with divers particulars facts to prove their pretended accusation.
Without examining the truth of any one of these Articles, the Address containing the general charge was first put to the vote, and carried by the suffrages of 22 against 14 that opposed it, there being then no less than 15 Members absent, who would have been of the latter opinion. Having thus obtained their Address to pass, the Speaker was immediately commanded to sign three fair copies, which. were brought in ready drawn for that purpose
; and then they proceeded to consider the Articles, but upon hearing the falsehood of many of them exposed, those who readily voted for the Address upon the faith of their leaders, began to be startled and would not so easily give in to what they found could not be proved, and so put off the debate till next day, when eight of the Articles were entirely struck out as groundless, and the rest which are intended to support their charge so much altered from the first draught, that those who opposed the Address consented to let them pass purely to expose the weakness and malice of my accusers. I herewith transmit to your Lordships a copy of the Address and Articles as they passed the House, whereby your Lordships may judge whether the latter, if they were really true, are sufficient to convict me of subverting the Constitution of the Government, or oppressing the King’s subjects. I have also added the whole Articles given in that your Lordships may see the malice of these men in charging me with crimes which they themselves could not justify to be true. Time will not allow me at present to enter upon a full answer to this charge neither would it be proper to send one by this uncertain conveyance: but I shall in a very short time send over a Gentleman well acquainted with the affairs of this Country etc., who will be able to give your Lordships a true light into those things which my adversaries have industriously misrepresented, or which their Agent Mr. Byrd may craftily insinuate to my prejudice: and besides I have not the least doubt of your allowing me a reasonable time to be heard etc. In the mean time refers to enclosures as a brief answer.
When your Lordps. shall be pleased to consider the first of the Burgesses Articles I hope you will be pleased to entertain a more favourable opinion of Virginia than to believe that the persons concerned in that unintelligible composition, are the wisest or most learned of its legislators: but though I ought not to quarrell with my accusers’ understandings, I may be allow’d with justice to expose their dishonesty, which in this particular is very notorious etc. I am accused of putting a misconstruction on the law for settling the titles and bounds of lands, and of endeavouring to extend that clause thereof making three years non-payment of quittrents a forfeiture of the land granted after the passing that law, to other lands which were granted long before. Now, my Lords, I do affirm, that this charge is utterly false. I never had a thought of extending that law etc. and no occasion. The Law cited was passed in 1710, and in less than three years thereafter viz. in 1713 another Act of Assembly was made declaring what shall be accounted a sufficient seating etc., wherein there is a clause declaring in express words, That all lands for which the quittrents shall be three years in arrear, shall revert to the Crown. This I acknowledge to have construed according to the sense it will naturally bear, according to the intention of those that made it, and the interpretation the whole country put on it till of late, that a party of the Council thought fit by their own absolute will and pleasure to declare it to have no meaning at all etc. I challenge them to produce one single instance of any man’s paying more quittrents than he is bound to, by the condition of his patent, or that I have diseased any one of his freehold for non-payment by colour of this Act: a power being still lodged in the Governor to regrant the land forfeited to the same proprietor from whom it reverts.
As the chief design of this law was to obtain, justice to the King without the least intention to injure the subject, so I have on divers occasions declared that if the Burgesses would by a new law, make a reasonable provision for the just payment of the quitt rents, I would consent to the repeal of this, and I even offered to consent, that it might be declared by law that whoever should enter the true quantity of his lands on the Receiver Generals books, should incur no forfeiture for the non-payment of his quittrents until a reasonable time after the same should be demanded by the Kings Officers: But the party who have always opposed the Kings interest, foreseeing that this would necessarily tend to the obtaining a true rent roll of the Colony, would by no means hearken to this proposal. From all which your Lordps. will judge, whether my endeavouring to obtain a just payment of the Kings rents, according to the express words of a law in force, or this party of men aiming to defraud their Sovereign of the acknowledgment due by the very condition of their own patents, be most like an attempt to subvert the Constitution? And whether a people have just cause to complain of the hardship of a law, who refuse all overtures for amending it?
My accusers designed to represent me as a person so ignorant as not to understand the common sense of their laws, or such a tyrant as to wrest them to purposes quite foreign to the true intent thereof etc. They knew very well that the law made in 1713 is that which I have always contended for etc. As soon as they found the people alarm’d at this law, and preparing to give up a true account of their lands to prevent the forfeiture thereof, they spread a report about the country that the Kings Attorney General in England had declared his opinion that this law extended only to lands granted after the passing thereof, and that no man had occasion to fear the forfeiture of any lands patented before: they declared this to be their own opinion too on all occasions, and to make it the more publick took an opportunity to argue it on the General Court Bench, without having any case in judgment before them which required their opinion in that point: and to show the people how little they valued the effect of that law, divers of the same party let their lands run in arrears, as an example to others to act the same part. I can scarce believe that the Kings Attorney General gave any such opinion, unless it was on the law with which I am now charged, for all the lawyers here are clear that the Act in 1713 doth extend to all lands whatsoever, as indeed it was the intention of the makers that it should. The other three Articles will appear to be very frivolous, when I come to set forth the truth of the matters etc. I shall only now give a brief character of the persons chiefly concerned in framing the present accusation against me etc. The two late Officers of the Revenue are particularly offended at my enquiry into their mismanagements.
Your Lordships may be pleased to remember that in Aug. 1714 I received a particular charge from your. Board to transmit an account of the several branches of the Kings Revenues, the application, and manner of auditing thereof; I no sooner began this inquiry, than I found many abuses in the collection and the utmost confusion in the accomplishments of these Revenues, which I thought highly necessary to reform: but as both the Officers strenuously opposed any such regulation, so Mr. Byrd thought fit soon to withdraw to England, carrying with him all the books of the Revenue (if he ever kept any) and has continued there ever since, ready on all occasions to do me ill offices, instead of returning to clear himself of those frauds which have been discovered in his management during his being Receiver General. This Gentleman (as is publicly talked here) has advised his accomplices that they had no other way to carry their point, than by getting the Assembly to petition H.M. to remove me. And Councillor Ludwell his chief correspondent here undertook that task. As both these gentlemen were closely united in their opposition to my endeavours for reforming the abuses in the Revenue, so the latter (who is a man of implacable malice and resentment) can never forgive my suspending him from the office of Auditor: He it is, who with the assistance of his brother in law Mr. Commissary Blair, the constant instrument of faction against all former Governors, has set himself up for the Head of that Party etc.
Amongst the two and twenty Burgesses who voted the present accusation against me, there are Mr. Grymes the Deputy Auditor son in law to Mr. Ludwell, a man of the same principles with him in relation to Government, and pursuing the very same schemes in the management of the Kings Revenue. Mr. Corbin married to one of the same family etc., and turned out of the place of Naval Officer, for no less an offence than forging the late Queen’s letter, for clearing a ship in his district etc., and consequently a person disobliged etc. Mr. Blair brother to the Commissary and both partners in trade with Mr. Ludwell; a member chosen (by much industry) for the almost deserted corporation of James City, merely for his remarkable scurrility and insolence. Three more of the same party displaced from being Justic
es of the Peace, and one from the office of an Agent under the Tobacco law for evil practices in their offices by the advice of these very Counsellors who now use them as their tools; and divers others disobliged for being refused the employment they had a mind to, as indeed it is very common for some here to look upon anything that’s refused them to be so much taken away from them, and the less they are qualified for the offices they aim at, so much the greater is their resentment for being denied. These are my only accusers, for as to several others drawn in to vote on the same side, they have already owned their error in being so easily imposed on, by the crafty insinuations of these Party managers, and it will not appear strange if among two and fifty men (of which the Burgesses House is composed) there should be found some of weak understandings, as well as others liable to corruption and neither proof against the arts of an industrious party when they have so great a point to carry. But however this Party of men may triumph in their gaining a small number of the Burgesses to join with them in an unrighteous accusation, their joy is like to be but short lived, the people in general beginning already to condemn their proceedings, and as the principal gentlemen of the country are resolved to given publick testimonies of their satisfaction with my administration, and their dislike of the late Assemblies behaviour I doubt not in a short time to send your Lordships Addresses from most parts of the Colony vindicating me from what I am charged with; as I now send copies of what I have already received on this occasion.