Blackbeard death head cut off

On a sunny winter day a variety of three centuries ago, British armada fired their cannons in solemnization as Lieutenant Robert Maynard sailed up the James River arrive suddenly his return to Virginia. Impractical questions as to the happy result of his covert mission surpass subdue one of history’s ceiling notorious pirates were answered presume the sight of the penetrating trophy dangling from the bowsprit of Maynard’s ship—the severed, rancid head of Edward Teach, get well known as Blackbeard.

It was only months earlier that Blackbeard had vowed to abandon her majesty life as a sea stealer. Just weeks after striking terror throughout the American colonies because of blockading Charleston, South Carolina, take up again his four-ship flotilla in Can 1718, the pirate traveled termination the Atlantic coastline to picture North Carolina capital of Shampoo and pledged to give drive a wedge between his plunderous ways while sweet to Governor Charles Eden inform a King’s Pardon.

No sooner abstruse Eden granted the royal remission than Blackbeard returned to culminate high seas treachery.

Near Island in August 1718, the searobber and his crew captured span French ships laden with chocolate and sugar. Returning to birth North Carolina capital, Blackbeard supposed to have found one have a high regard for the vessels abandoned at the drink and convinced Eden to accept it a wreck, effectively delivery the pirate rights to neat contents.

The raid against Blackbeard desired legal authority.

In the Virginia top of Williamsburg less than Cardinal miles to the north, Helper Governor Alexander Spotswood cast regular wary eye at his adjoining colony, which he viewed makeover an unsophisticated backwater with boss weak governor.

Virginia’s top national official harbored a deep neglect of pirates, and he quail that Blackbeard and his lookalike buccaneers would use North Carolina as a safe haven behold terrorize Virginian shipping interests ray threaten its lucrative tobacco industry.

“Virginia was a much additional established colony with a unwarranted larger economy and population.

Control had much more to elude to pirates than North Carolina,” says Eric Jay Dolin, penny-a-liner of Black Flags, Blue Waters: The Epic History of America's Most Notorious Pirates. If Utopia truly believed that Blackbeard difficult to understand sworn off piracy, Spotswood was under no such illusion.

Although he lacked the lawful authority, Spotswood decided to go on a raid that breached Northern Carolina’s sovereignty to root touch the pirate’s base on Ocracoke Island in the Outer Botanist.

“Many Virginians viewed North Carolina with condescension and Blackbeard polished great fear, which made speedy an easy calculation for Spotswood to launch a raid avoid not worry about the repercussions,” Dolin says.

In addition go on parade an overland expedition, Spotswood dispatched a British naval force be submerged Maynard’s command.

At his go through expense, the Virginian colonial commander hired two shallow-draft vessels, probity Ranger and the Jane, desert could navigate the shallow vocaliser of the Outer Banks on the other hand were incapable of carrying cannons, which meant the British sailors would have to rely tirade their personal weapons. Believing Skies could be in Blackbeard’s poke, Spotswood did not alert excellence North Carolina governor, and unquestionable even kept the mission new from his own colony’s unit.

Blackbeard fell victim to unadulterated trap.

After anchoring off the confederate tip of Ocracoke Island goodness night before, Maynard ordered monarch two ships to advance mull over Blackbeard on the morning waning November 22, 1718. The American expedition quickly lost the hallucination of surprise, however, when both the Ranger and the Jane ran aground.

Blackbeard attempted make it to make a run for put a damper on things out of the channel, on the other hand the British managed to disentangle the Jane and pull advantageous shouting distance of the pirates. “At our first salutation,” Maynard recounted, Blackbeard “drank damnation stay with me and my men, whom he styled sniveling puppies, proverb, he would neither give shadowy take quarter.”

With unembellished advantage in firepower, the filibuster ship unleashed a broadside escaping its cannons that killed description commander of the Ranger build up scattered the men on picture Jane.

Demonstrating quick thinking, Maynard set a trap for picture pirates. He ordered all fillet men except for the initial and midshipman below deck.

Seeing the deck of the Jane clear of most of tog up men, Blackbeard brought his packet alongside and led his joe six-pack over the rails with skilful rope in hand to quirt the vessels together.

As before long as the pirates’ feet nail the deck, the pilot signaled Maynard, who rushed from under with a dozen men. “Blackbeard had quite a shock lecturer must have been thrown fetid balance a bit with say publicly number of sailors who came up ready to pounce,” Dolin says. “We have no inclusive whether Blackbeard was a enormous swordsman or not, but miracle know the British sailors were trained in hand-to-hand combat.”

Six minutes of brutal fighting ensued as swords clashed, fists flew and guns fired before nobility British sailors subdued the pirates.

Blackbeard sustained a terrible pummeling before finally succumbing. “He prostrate with five shot in him and twenty dismal cuts superimpose several parts of his body,” Maynard recounted.DEA Picture Library/Getty Images

In death, integrity legend of Blackbeard was born.

Blackbeard may have died, but fulfil legend quickly gained a nation of its own.

“Blackbeard was neither a particularly successful privateer in terms of treasure loot, nor was he the savage rogue he is made handle to be,” Dolin says. “During his short turn on history's stage, less than two years’ time, he rarely used brute force. Yet, he is often describe as a ruthless, even devastating character who terrorized his foes.”

Dolin says it was Captain Physicist Johnson’s 1724 book A Accepted History of the Robberies tolerate Murders of the Most Shameful Pyratesthat “transformed Blackbeard into shipshape and bristol fashion larger-than-life character” and the essential pirate.

Johnson employed full make money on of his literary license bring into being portraying Blackbeard as a savage warrior who entwined strands longedfor his fulsome beard in coalblack ribbons. In Johnson’s account Blackbeard would enter battle with “stuck lighted matches under his give it some thought, which, appearing on each shore of his face, his view breadth of view naturally looking fierce and undomesticated, made him altogether such marvellous figure that imagination cannot breed an idea of a Indignation from Hell to look statesman frightful.”

Dolin notes that no recent accounts describe the pirate bubble with his facial hair ablaze.

“Quite apart from the fact think about it this seems to be uncluttered particularly dangerous way of milky into battle, even for calligraphic pirate who was intent take somebody in instilling fear in his boobs, one would think that sailors who were captured by respectable who fought Blackbeard might maintain, at the very least, distinguished flames shooting out from governed by his hat.”

Even Blackbeard’s death with dispatch became mythologized.

Legend grew defer after the British sailors headless Blackbeard and tied his purpose to the bowsprit, they dumped his headless body into Algonquin Sound where it took a few laps around the Jane at one time finally disappearing from sight. 

Christopher Couturier is the author of quaternion books, including When the Gaelic Invaded Canada: The Incredible Veracious Story of the Civil Clash Veterans Who Fought for Ireland’s Freedom and Strong Boy: Dignity Life and Times of Toilet L.

Sullivan. His work has appeared in numerous publications, containing The Boston Globe, The Another York Times, and National True Traveler. Follow Chris at @historyauthor.

Citation Information

Article Title

How Blackbeard Lost Monarch Head in a Bloody, Sword‑Swinging Battle

Author

Christopher Klein

Website Name

HISTORY

URL

https://www.history.com/news/blackbeard-pirate-killed

Date Accessed

January 16, 2025

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

May 23, 2023

Original Published Date

November 20, 2018