Blackbeard: the Epitome of Piracy
Whenever pirates are mentioned, the first person to come to mind is usually Blackbeard. He was notorious for his use of violence and tyranny, making him the scourge of the Caribbean. The modern idea of historical pirates is usually linked to Blackbeard’s style of piracy. Whilst writing my undergraduate dissertation on pirates and highwaymen, I found that there were many pirates, particularly Captain Bartholomew Roberts, the creator of the pirate code, who didn’t match up to this image we have today. Still, this image was largely created by Blackbeard and the legends that surround him. His image and dramatic death became the personification of piracy, inspired by many eighteenth and nineteenth century plays and melodramas written about him. The idea of Blackbeard’s exploits being shown to an eager and willing audience helped spread this image in a way that ensured it is still very much remembered today.
The demonic image that we have of Blackbeard was fuelled by Blackbeard himself. This was purposefully done by matches placed in his hair and beard and his brutal treatment of fellow shipmates. All this was done to give the appearance of a beast from hell. The reputation this created ensured that he gained power from encouraged tales about him to exacerbate his brutal nature. One of these shipmates was Israel Hands, who was shot in the knee, with the hope it would encourage further rumours of brutal treatment.
His reputation for a brutal form of piracy first became noticed by a wider public when his ship besieged Charleston in South Carolina. The oddest thing about this siege was that it was done to get medicines for the crew. It’s not known exactly what disease the medicines were needed for but following the finding of the Queen Anne’s Revenge in 1996, large traces of mercury were found. From this, it has since been believed that the most likely reason for the medicines was for the mercury, suggesting that many on board were suffering from sexually transmitted diseases, which were usually treated with mercury.
Blackbeard was believed to have been a mass bigamist who had married fourteen wives. His last wife, Mary Ormond, was sixteen years old when she married him and afterwards was prostituted out by Blackbeard. This shows a different culture than would have been acceptable in Blackbeard’s native England as bigamy and prostitution was considered illegal but such behaviour was deemed acceptable in the pirate community. However, such transgressive behaviour was usually exaggerated by legitimate sea captains who were the only contemporaries to comment on piracy in order to promote their own careers. This ‘othering’ reaction was certainly something that was part of Blackbeard’s motives behind the behaviour.
The most famous part of Blackbeard’s story is without a doubt his death. It was this that sealed his fate as the most infamous pirate to have sailed the seas of the Caribbean. Johnson describes his final battle as Blackbeard’s last defiant act, as it took 25 shots and cutlass wounds to kill him after Captain Maynard’s crew besieged the Queen Anne’s Revenge. His headless body was thrown overboard and legends circulated that his headless body swam around the ship in defiance of his own death. This would be the last act to reinforce Blackbeard’s devil image, even though it was from beyond the grave. Once dead, Maynard displayed Blackbeard’s head as a war trophy on the front of his ship. This followed the tradition of displaying the body of hanged pirates on waterfronts to act as a deterrent to other would be pirates by indicating that the relevant authorities had command on such crimes.
Pirates were able to romanticise themselves by a lack of ethical accountability and used this in order to establish a common “national-cultural identity”. In the case of Blackbeard, this was done by controlling his own portrayal of individual identity, which in turn influenced the collective memory of what it meant to be pirate. The idea of pirates and their lack of accountability finally changed with the development of official naval legality in Nassau and warships had gained better weapon technology, increasing the number of coordinated campaigns against pirates. Blackbeard was the beginning of the end for the pirates who plagued the seas around the Caribbean and so is continually remembered for being the image by which all pirates are remembered. His legacy is that he has influenced many fictional pirates after him, including Long John Silver and Captain Flint, as well as the Pirates of the Caribbean series, especially as Blackbeard himself makes an appearance.
Bowling, T., Pirates and Privateers (Harpenden: Pocket Essentials, 2008), p. 148.
Cordingly, D., Spanish Gold: Captain Woodes Rogers & the True Story of the Pirates of the Caribbean (London: Bloomsbury, 2011), p. 167.
Johnson, C., A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pirates, Reprint (London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2014), p. 60.
Parry, D., Blackbeard: The Real Pirate of the Caribbean (London: National Maritime Museum Publishing, 2006), p. 10.
Parry, D., Blackbeard, p. 69 and 110.
Cordingly, D., Spanish Gold, p. 169.
Cordingly, D., Spanish Gold, p. 169.
Cordingly, D., Spanish Gold, p. 169.
Johnson, C., A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pirates, p. 50; Parry, D., Blackbeard, pp. 99 and 102.
George Woodbury, The Great Days of Piracy in the West Indies (1951) cited in Lee. R. E., Blackbeard the Pirate, p. 22
Johnson, C., A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pirates, p. 57.
Johnson, C., A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pirates, cited in Lee. R. E., Blackbeard the Pirate, p. 124
Cordingly, D., Spanish Gold, p. 177.
Cordingly, D., Spanish Gold, pp. 161- 162; Parry, D., Blackbeard, pp. 163-164
Mackie, E., Rakes, Highwaymen, and Pirates: The Making of the Modern Gentleman in the Eighteenth Century (Baltimore, USA: John Hopkins University Press, 2009), pp. 12-13.
Cordingly, D., Spanish Gold, p. 161; Parry, D., Blackbeard, p. 161 and 164.
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