The Life of Blackbeard – Edward Teach

When his nickname Blackbeard is mentioned we only think of one thing, “Pirates”. Among the pirates in history, he is one of the most famous, his name was one of the most popular among the salty sea.

But who was he? Why was he so much famous and what did he achieve?

Edward Teach

This is a really hard question to answer, it’s really hard to know what Blackbeard did before he became a pirate and accepted that lifestyle. But by some sources, we might have a little glimpse of the truth. As for his name, it’s still not known whether he was called Blackbeard or Edward Teach. But after he became famous there is a good portion of story telling about him and his achievements.

In this period the colonization onto American land is big but provinces were already established. The trade was going great, but there was someone who could always cause trouble, in this period were the pirates. The kings of the sea made a lot of damage for personal wealth on anything they laid their eyes upon even to the crown and other institutions.

For Teach, it’s know that he was born in England. He was enlisted working for the crown. It is known that he began his journey with a servant to the English crown a guy named Benjamin Hornigold, they both started with two ships but Horingold quit his piracy life and went later as a pirate hunter instead.

With Hornigold they cruised the east coast of north America, they seized and plundered a lot of ships, they seized around 8 merchant ships.

He again began to plunder East coast of America and captured around 14 – 16 ships in just 6 short weeks, this was in 1717.

Blackbeard?

Everything is about his name Blackbeard. He first started with a much famous story, he seized a merchant ship and renamed her into his most famous ship “Queen Ann’s Revenge”. This ship was a big merchant ship from France and it wasn’t meant for war. But Teach added somewhere around 35 – 40 guns to it and made it a vicious death machine.

This ship was discovered by archeologists in 1996. He used this ship to seize other ships and to get plunder from the cargo of other merchant ships or even attack other pirates and military ships. But her fate was sealed with the fate of Blackbeard as well and that is the end of Queen Ann’s Revenge.

He used fear as his weapon, everyone was terrified of him. His name was just enough to make you scared and the stories kept spreading of him. But where fear wasn’t enough he used force with tactical planning, he wasn’t a simple grunt who got lucky, he made his moves smart.

The safe house for the pirates were the Bahamas, that is where they could get some rest and reorder, and could also sell the stolen goods to the merchants on the islands. This is how they made money.

After he got Queen Ann’s Revenge he started plundering Central and South America, including the islands.

He also got a nickname, he was called the Great Devil which brought more fear to whoever opposed him.

The Third Part

After he plundered everything and finished creating his name and story things got a little bit rough. Simply there wasn’t enough profit and he wanted to grab more.

There is also a story about the Spanish Fleet full of gold, when he moved to seize the gold there was nothing there.

He made the worst move after that, it was a slight depression mode he started hitting bigger towns. He occupied the port of Charles Town in North America and he made a bad mistake. The higher officers got notice of this act and made it more personal, it gave them a code of honor and a duty to get rid of this monster.

He seized the town for days but moved on the coast of north America.

He got caught, but the thing is that he and his crew got pardons for their acts and got listed as soldiers for the crown. But he was known for wanting more and started plundering again.

But then he got caught and everything went down hill.

Alexandar Spotswood from Virginia wanted to take action against him. He chased and caught Blackbeard.

In the final battler in 1718 Blackbeard fought off against the English crown but he lost. He was seen shot and stabbed a lot of times before he died going away with glory. After that, his head was removed and was displayed as a warning for piracy.

He left a monstrous legacy in such short period of time, he is one of the greatest pirate legends and his legacy grows.