Last month I reported new findings that solve a longstanding Blackbeard mystery: the pirate's whereabouts in the winter of 1717-18. The findings have received media attention in North Carolina, particularly in "Blackbeard country" - the eastern region where the arch-pirate spent the last phase of his career.

The central coast's regional daily, the New Bern Sun-Journal carried a lengthy interview conducted by Tom Mayer. The Sun-Journal circulates in Beaufort, where the remains of Blackbeard's Queen Anne's Revenge is believed to have been found.

Earlier, the Elizabeth City Daily Advance, a Cox daily, ran this feature on the discovery. Elizabeth City is at the southern periphery of the Hampton Roads, Virginia region, where triumphant Royal Navy sailors delivered Blackbeard's head and captured crewmen.

The editorial pages of the Winston-Salem Journal also carried a short brief in their May 17 edition. It's not available online, but readers will probably prefer this feature on a new play on Blackbeard's life, currently being staged in Greensboro, NC.

Blackbeard is, of course, one of the subjects of my book, The Republic of Pirates, which has just been released in paperback.

My book, The Republic of Pirates, is now officially available in paperback from Harcourt/Houghton-Mifflin's Harvest Books imprint.

It's also available in Spanish, as a Sony e-book, an Amazon kindlebook, a BBC America audiobook, and as a Harcourt hardcover. Click here to read reviews.

 

On a recent return visit to the British National Archives, I located documents that solve one of the most nagging mysteries of Blackbeard's career.

At the height of his piracy career, Blackbeard vanished for several months,  leaving historians to speculate as to where he was and what he was doing. He disapeared from the historical record at a particularly intriguing moment: immediately after learning that King George was offering a pardon to any pirate who surrendered. Scholars have wondered if he was laying low in Spanish waters, hiding out from the British authorities who had been pursuing him across the Caribbean (described in detail in my book, The Republic of Pirates.) But a series of letters and legal depositions sent to Royal Navy headquarters in London indicate that during the winter of 1717-1718, Blackbeard was cruising the coasts of Mexico and Central America -- and he definately wasn't "hiding out."

In fact Blackbeard -- whose real name was Edward Thatch or Teach -- spent this “missing winter” threatening shipping coming to and from the Mexican port of Vera Cruz and the Bay of Honduras before cleaning and repairing his vessel on the island of Roatan, just off modern Honduras.

Mariners who were captured by the pirate reported to authorities that he sought to engage and overwhelm HMS Diamond and HMS Adventure, two Royal Navy frigates assigned to protect British vessels trading on the Spanish Main.

The captives’ accounts, which were taken down by the Diamond’s commander, Thomas Jacob, lend credence to a London newspaper account that Blackbeard’s flotilla sought to capture the Royal Prince, a merchant vessel of unusual symbolic importance to British authorities. Blackbeard and his perhaps-unwilling consort Stede Bonnet had lost been seen in late December 1717, sailing westwards from Puerto Rico to Hispaniola after engaging in a reign of terror in the Windward, Leeward, and Virgin Islands. He resurfaced in late March 1718 at Turneffe Island, off modern Belize, a gap of three months.

The new documents indicate that he proceeded to the Gulf of Mexico or the Yucatan Passage, where he hoped to surprise and capture the South Seas Company flagship, Royal Prince, and her escort, HMS Diamond, which the documents show were in the Mexican port of Vera Cruz on a high-profile trading mission from October to February. The Royal Prince was what we would now call a "terrorist target of symolic importance." She was the first ship to trade in the Spanish Americas under the provisions of the Treaty of Utrecht and, at her launch, King George and his court were feted on board. Her mission was considered so critical to royal prestige that the Diamond had been ordered to convoy her all the way from Madera. Blackbeard never came across the ship, probably because he gave up prematurely. The documents place him on Roatan -- in Honduras' Bay Islands -- in early February 1718. There he captured several English merchant vessels and cleaned and refitted his flagship, the Queen Anne’s Revenge. 

“They often threatened to take his majesty’s ship the Diamond, as they heard she was weakly manned,” former captive Martin Preston declared. Blackbeard’s intelligence was excellent: Captain Jacobs’ letters indicate his crew had been critically weakened by tropical diseases on their trip from Jamaica to Vera Cruz.  Another captive, William Wade, reported that they boasted they would overwhelm another vessel, the 36-gun HMS Adventure, the largest British warship in the Caribbean at the time.

Wade also reported that 70 of Blackbeard’s 250 crewmen were of African descent, further evidence that blacks aboard the Queen Anne's Revenge were fellow pirates, not pirate cargo. (The role of Africans and African-Americans in pirate crews is also explored in detail in Republic of Pirates.)

Blackbeard never encountered either Royal Navy frigate. In fact, the next time he would encounter naval personnel up close was in November 1718, at his final battle off the north shore of Ocracoke Island, North Carolina.

The Spanish language edition of my book, The Republic of Pirates, has just been released by Editorial Critica of Barcelona, and an excerpt has been published in the Spanish daily La Razon.

La República de los piratas: La verdadera historia de los piratas del Caribe is available for purchase online at: Topbooks.es, Casadellibro.es, Antag.es and other retailers. A Danish edition of the book will be released later this year.

One of the many historical mysteries connected to the Golden Age of Piracy concerns Woodes Rogers, the man who brought the Flying Gang pirates down. Why was he dismissed as the Governor of the Bahamas in 1721?

As told in The Republic of Pirates, Rogers was unceremoniously fired after an incredible feat: defending Nassau against a Spanish invasion force many times his strength in March 1720. Abandoned by both the British government and his own business partners, Rogers even languished for a time in a London debtor's prison for debts he'd accumulated defending the Bahamas from pirates and Spanish alike. While he was later rehabilitated, it's never been clear just what he'd done to displease his superiors in London.

However, newly discovered documents suggest the possibility that Rogers dismissal may have been linked to his erratic behavior towards officers of the Royal Navy.

While at the British National Archives recently, I located the letters of Captain Johnathan Hidlesley of the HMS Flamborough. As related in the book, Hidesley and Rogers fought a duel in South Carolina in late 1720 over some disagreement they had in Nassau earlier that year. The young officer's letters describe, in detail, what happened in Nassau -- an account that puts Rogers in an extremely unfavorable light.

The Flamborough was the only Royal Navy warship in the Bahamas at the time of the Spanish invasion, and her young commander through himself into the island's defense. As Hidesley later explained in letters to his superiors, during the attack he sent some of his men aboard Rogers' armed merchant ship, Delicia, "there being no watch aboard her." Rogers responded in the most bizzare fashion: he ordered the guns of Fort Nassau to be trained on the Flamborough and had Hidlesley and his first officer arrested! immediately after the invasion, he challenged Hidlesley to a duel, but failed to appear at the appointed time. (They later fought an inconclusive match in Charleston.) Rogers also allegedly encouraged "a mob" to attack the Flamborough's first officer on the streets of Nassau.

In his letter, Hidlesley's tone is apologetic. "If my ignorance of the extent of my commission had led me inot any error in this affair... I humbly [hope] their Lordshps will be pleased to excuse what I have done...and consider me as a young officer who may better know how to act..." He ennumerates any grievances Rogers could have had against him, all of them involving questions of whether Rogers had the right to order a naval captain around. (He did not.) Rogers may have been particularly incensed by Hidesley's refusal to attack Havana -- a suicide mission. 

Rogers had already offended the captains of HMS. Milford, Rose, and Shark. By threatening one of the King's ships and arresting her commander, Rogers likely prompted the Admiralty to move against him in London. It strengthens the impression that Rogers, while brave and patriotic, had an erratic streak that turned many would-be allies against him.

Researchers of the Golden Age pirates have made great use of the Boston News-Letter, the first regularly published newspaper in British America, whose publisher covered the pirates movements, often from firsthand accounts related to him by sailors arriving in that port. The London papers -- of which there were many in 1715-1725 -- generally republished accounts from the News-Letter and, towards the end of this period, the Boston Gazette, American Weekly Mercury (Philadeplphia). and New England Courant (Boston). Had these newspapers not survived -- we have nearly complete press runs of each -- many important episodes would have been lost to history.

That's why I'm hoping somebody, somewhere out there is sitting on copies of the Weekly Jamaica Courant. Published in Kingston by Robert Baldwin, who operated the island's official print shop, its first issue (now lost) appeared in May 1718, at the height of the careers of Blackbeard, Charles Vane, and other pirates operating in the area. The newspaper continued publishing until at least June, 1730 -- 688 issues -- and possibly as late as 1755, and would have carried extensive information on the pirates.

Unfortunately, only 17 editions appear to have survived, all of them by happenstance. The oldest editions -- No. 10 and No. 11 from the summer of 1718 -- were found in 1936 by curators at the British Museum when they were rebinding the papers of Governor Vernon; Vernon's papers had originally been bound in 1718 by Robert Baldwin, who had glued together unsold copies of the Courant to create the volume's cover. Previous to this, only three issues had been found: one by the British Library, two others in the UK National Archives, because they had been enclosed for one reason or another in official diplomatic correspondence. Five more editions were later found in the National Library of Jamaica. The contents of fifteen issues can be found on a reel of microfilm at Harvard University, which I made use of while researching The Republic of Pirates.

I've included a master list of all issues known to have survived. If you have or know of a copy of an issue not listed here, please comment or contact me. Any new information that can be confirmed will be posted to this site.

Surviving issues of the Weekly Jamaica Courant:

No. 10   July 30, 1718. Microfilm. Originals in British Library and National Library of Jamaica. 

No. 11   August 5, 1718. Microfilm. Originals in British Library and National Library of Jamaica. 

No. 38   February 11, 1719* Microfilm. Original in National Library of Jamaica.

No. 47   April 15, 1719* Microfilm. Original in National Library of Jamaica.

No. xx   June 17, 1720. Reportedly held by National Library of Jamaica.

No. xx   September 12, 1720. Reportedly held by National Library of Jamaica.

No. 162  June 28, 1721. Microfilm. Original in National Library of Jamaica.

No. 224  June 20, 1722. Microfilm. Location of original unclear.

No. 235  September 12, 1722. Microfilm. Original in Burney Collection, British Library.

No. 249  December 12, 1722. Microfilm. Location of original unclear.

No. 469  March 22, 1726. Microfilm. Location of original unclear.

No. 448  October 26, 1726. Microfilm. Original in UK National Archives (CO137/52).

No. 449  November 2, 1726. Microfilm. Original in UK National Archives (CO137/52).

No. xx   May 31, 1727. Microfilm. Location of original unclear.

No. 575  April 24, 1728. Microfilm. Location of original unclear.

No. 595  March 25, 1730. Microfilm. Location of original unclear.

No. 688  June 24, 1730. Microfilm. Location of original unclear.

* - Due to the eccentric dating conventions of the time, these issues are printed with the date "1718," even though they were published in 1719.

(Jump to The Republic of Pirates website.)

Despite its many shortcomings, those researching the Golden Age pirates are sometimes forced to rely on The General History of the Pyrates (1724) for lack of alternatives. We do so reluctantly because there are plenty of erroneous or embelished passages in this benchmark history, which was written while some of the pirates were still alive. However, many sections of this book have been proven entirely accurate by corroborating evidence; indeed, the author of the General History clearly had priviledged access to official colonial and military documents when preparing his manuscript, as he often lifted from them word-for-word. In the absence of outside conformation, smetimes researchers have gone on a gut feeling, whether something "fits" with the rest of what we know about a particular pirates.

The "gentleman pirate" Stede Bonnet offers a case in point. Trial records, letters from colonial officials, and parish records from Barbados confirm many aspects of his life story, including his birth and marriage in Barbados, his priviledged background, incompetence as a mariner and pirate, and the shame and misgivings he had about his dual failures as planter and pirate. But one colorful story from the General History has eluded confirmation: Bonnet's covert departure from Barbados to begin his piracy career.

It's a story, aspects of which can now be confirmed.

The General History claims that Bonnet "fitted out a sloop with ten guns and 70 men, entirely at his own expense, and in the night-time sailed from Barbados." From the context of other events in his career, it appears to have taken place in the spring of 1717.

In September, I had the opportunity to revisit the British National Archives outside London and, in the letters of Captain Benjamin Candler of the HMS Winchelsea, found the following intelligence. "There is also or has been lately over on the [North American] Coast, a pirate sloop from Barbados commanded by one Major Bonnet, who has an Estate on that island," Candler wrote his superiors in London in the summer of 1717. "The sloop is his own. This advice I had from a letter from thence, that in April last [1717] he ran away out of Carlisle Bay in the night and had aboard 126 men and 6 guns... and ammunition enough."

The account confirms that Bonnet built the Revenge, snuck her out of port in the spring of 1717 when she was fully fitted with men and weapons -- even more men than previously thought.

(Jump to The Republic of Pirates website.)

Not surprisingly, pirate talk comes from the movies, specifically the 1950 Disney classic Treasure Island, starring Robert Newton as Long Joihn Silver. Newton's performance -- full of "arrs," "shiver me timbers" and references to "landlubbers" -- not only stole the show, it permanently shaped pop culture's vision of how pirates looked, acted, and spoke. Before Disney's Treasure Island, movie pirates spoke like Erroll Flynn. Afterwards, Newton-esque pirates were everywhere, from Captain Hook to Captain McAllister of The Simpsons series.

But, oddly enough, Newton's pirate talk may not be completely off the mark. Knowing that the Robert Lous Stevenson character hailed from the English West Country, Newton based his pirate talk on the vernacular of that region, where "arr" is an affirmation, not unlike the Canadian "eh," and maritime expressions were a part of everyday speech. He kept the accent for a 1954 sequel, Return to Treasure Island, and for his leading role in Blackbeard the Pirate (1952), which made sense since Blackbeard, like many of the characters in Treasure Island, is believed to have grown up in Bristol.

Newton knew how rural West Country people spoke in the early 20th century; he was one himself. Born in 1905 in Shaftesbury, Dorset -- not far from the presumed birthplaces of Sam Bellamy and Henry Avery -- Newton went to school near Penzance, Cornwall before taking to the stage with the British Repertory Company. While the region's dialect had undoubtedly evolved over the two centuries since the pirate's era, the homogenizing effects of mass media were still in the future. Newton's Blackbeard and the real man may well have had similar accents.

But while many of the pirates and mariners engaged in the American trade had West Country origins, the majority did not. The Flying Gang included large numbers of Scots, Irish, Africans, and French, as well as a smattering of Dutchmen, Swedes, and Danes. Of those of English origin, the largest number were probably from London, then by far the empire's largest port and city. Pirates spoke in many languages and with many accents, but a few of them may well have been in the habit of saying "arrrr."

(Jump to The Republic of Pirates website)

Recently, a reader wrote taking me to task for rendering Blackbeard's name as Edward Thatch instead of Edward Teach. "I was angry that a book about pirates would get the name of such a figure wrong," she said. "This may not seem like a big deal to you, but it was to me! How do I know that other historical facts are not wrong?"

Fact is, either spelling is acceptable, but if one has to pick, Thatch is a better choice.

In the early 1700s, spelling had yet to be standardized -- the first reasonably comprehensive English dictionary wasn't published until 1755 -- and people tended to spell things as they heard them. A given scribe often spelled a person's name differently from one document to the next, and sometimes within the same document. Even a famous, well-known, and literate man like the Governor of Virginia would have his name spelled in a variety of ways: Spottswood, Spotswood, Spotswoode, and Spottiswoode. Given the variety of dialects at the time, it's no surprise that Blackbeard's name was spelled in a variety of ways as well, including Teach, Teache, Titche, Teatch, Tack, Tatch, Theach, Thach, Thache, and Thatch.

Today, most sources refer to the pirate as Teach, following the lead of A General History of the Pyrates, an account published in London a few years after his death. However, over 90 percent of the primary documents of the time disagree, having spelled his name Thatch, or some derivative thereof, as revealed by David Moore, the historian at the Queen Anne's Revenge Project in Beaufort, North Carolina.

Indeed, I found that Thatch (or its close homonyms) were invariably preferred by people who had actually known and interacted with the arch-pirate, including Tobias Knight (the North Carolina Collector of Customs who was apparently helping fence Blackbeard's loot), the official scribe to North Carolina Governor Charles Eden, who pardoned Blackbeard and entertained him at his home, and merchant captain David Herriot, who spent two months as a captive aboard Blackbeard's ship. "Thach" was the spelling used in the official reports of Ellis Brand, the Royal Navy officer who lead the force sent into North Carolina to capture Blackbeard. Brand's colleague, George Gordon, was captain of the HMS Pearl and the immediate superior of Lt. Robert Maynard, the man who actually found and killed Blackbeard, and described him as "Thatch, alias Blackbeard." To top it off, in the first edition of A General History (1724), the author also used Thatch.

So how did Teach come to be the preferred form? Turns out the media is to blame. The Boston News-Letter, the only newspaper published in the Americas at the time, consistently spelled his name "Teach," an error copied by the London newspapers. Confronted with this, the author of A General History apparently decided to "correct" the spelling before the printing of the second edition. It's just one of many inaccuracies passed down to us by the book, but one of the least consequential.

I tell people to use whichever they like, but don't criticize The Republic of Pirates for using the more correct version.

Pirates have existed since ancient times, and remain with us today, attacking container ships in the Straits of Malacca. But this particular gang of pirates was different from the rest, both in terms of their motivations and the degree to which they disrupted the empires they preyed upon, albeit briefly.

At their zenith, the Bahamian pirate gang had not only largely severed the trans-Atlantic commerce of three empires, they had graduated to terrorizing naval warships and the colonies themselves. The Royal Navy went from being unable to catch the pirates (who initially favored swift sloops) to being afaid to encounter them at all (as their flagships grew larger and better-manned then the fifth- and sixth-rate frigates the Royal Navy had assigned to defend Britian's American empire.) They occupied colonial outposts like Virgin Gorda (then the seat of the Deputy Governor of the British Leeward islands), burned the important French settlement of Guadeloupe Town to ground, destroyed all shipping in St. Kitts under the guns of the king's fort, blockaded Charleston, South Carolina (one of the most important ports in British North America), and made credible threats to destroy Philadelphia and invade and occupy Bermuda.

Their motivations went beyond simple banditry; indeed, most were former sailors who saw themselves as engaged in a social revolt against the shipowners and ship captains who exploited them. On seizing their first ships, they turned the order of things upside down, electing and deposing their captains by popular vote and sharing plunder near-equally. Some called themselves "Robin Hood's men," and many ordinary people seem to have regarded them as heroes. Governors and other leading figures in the American colonies wrote letters to the superiors in London complaining of the pirates' popularity among their citizenry. Virginians, that colony's governor, Alexander Spotswood sniffed, have "an unaccountable inclinatiion to favor pyrates." Some pirates were also engaged in a political struggle to depose King George and restore the House of Stuart to the British throne. Others -- African and Indian slaves -- joined the pirates because they offered the possibility of freedom and, in some crews at least, equality with people of European ancestry.

My book, The Republic of Pirates, explores these pirates' story, and this blog is intended to continue that pursuit, exploring certain topics in more detail, providing a forum for discussion about their lives and legacy, and a source of up-to-date news on discoveries and scholarship related to them.

So raise the anchors and stand by to set sails; this cruise is now underway.