If you Google the name Blackbeard, everything you read will start with something like “Blackbeard was the most famous pirate…”
May, may, may. There is so much to figure out about this particular felon.
One thing we do know about him is only a surmisal, but has to be true: he was certainly charismatic. He was able to get men to follow him. Yes, there was the lure of gold. But he had to have a magnetic personality to have attracted a crew of over 300 men.
For all that, here is a trio of mysteries that flow around the fabled captain.
Mystery #1
Captain Charles Johnson, writing about pirates in 1724, referred to Blackbeard as the bloodthirstiest of pirates. He once sat at a table with his most trusted crewman Israel Hands and another fellow. As they chatted, Israel noticed that Blackbeard slowly lowered two pistols under the table, and he heard the click as Blackbeard cocked them. Fearing the worst, Israel leapt to his feet – but too late. A pistol ball smashed his knee. The second shot went wide.
“Why on Earth did ye do that?” Israel bellowed.
“If your crew don’t fear ye, they won’t respect ye,” came the laconic reply.
And yet, many historians write that Blackbeard was far more fearsome than bloodthirsty. An educated man, he doesn’t seem to have done half the nasty things history says he did.
Was he bloodthirsty, or was he crafty? And, as this is the only reference to his management style, do you suppose he was trying things out? Looking for ways to be a more effective leader?
Mystery #2
Little pieces of a book were found inside one of the cannons recovered from the wreck of Blackbeard’s prized ship, Queen Anne’s Revenge. At first they were thought to have been pieces of his personal diary. Sadly, they turned out to have been torn from a popular book of the day about another pirate’s ocean voyage to Peru.
According to the infamous Captain Johnson, Blackbeard kept a journal. The hope remains to find and decipher the exact location of the treasure he buried on his South Carolina plantation.
When asked where it buried, the pirate’s response was reported to be “that’s between me and the devil.”
By the time Blackbeard reached his final days, he was in command of over 300 buccaneers – a circumstance with which he was not happy. He was equally aware that the Royal Navy was actively hunting for him.
Do you suppose that is what prompted him to bury his spoils? Did he actually bury them? Did he keep a journal? And, does the journal tell us where the treasure is buried?
Mystery #3
He was evidently quite proud of his ship Queen Anne’s Revenge. Originally a British ship, she found her way into France and into the French slave trade. When Blackbeard took her, she was pierced for 26 cannons. That’s an old naval term for you – pierced refers to square holes cut in the ship’s side to accommodate the guns.
Typical of English pirates of the day, Blackbeard apparently packed 14 more cannons into her. The English mindset of the day was the more cannons, the better. Adding so much weight to Queen Anne’s Revenge undoubtedly affected her trim and sailing capabilities and made her several tons heavier.
Marine archaeologists have found her, in the shallows off of Beaufort, North Carolina, and have brought thousands of her pieces ashore. To date they’ve recovered 30 cannons of all shapes and sizes. That makes sense, as the pirates would have stolen the guns from the various ships they captured.
Sadly, she ran hard aground, and was abandoned.
Here’s the mystery: did he run her aground on purpose?
As before, he had over 300 pirates following him. It’s possible that the weight of that command was too much for him, and he wrecked the ship so as to disperse the crew.
Or it may have been accidental: the gentleman pirate Stede Bonnet ran his sloop Adventure aground on the same sandbar just a few yards away at the same time.
Things aboard Queen Anne’s Revenge evidently got chaotic and a little vicious. Blackbeard had already abandoned 17 of his men on a desert islet, leaving them to starve if they didn’t first die of thirst. After the grounding he took command of the Adventure and sailed her off the bar at high tide, possibly without Bonnet’s permission, leaving the greatest part of his crew to fend for themselves in the wilds of North Carolina.
But the question remains: did he run Queen Anne’s Revenge aground on purpose?
There’s none can tell for sure, but research continues every single day to solve the mysteries of this most notorious Gentleman of Fortune.
By John D Reinhart 05/10/2023 SeaRover’sCove/Wordpress.com
John D Reinhart 