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- [00:00]
Mark Gagnon
300 years ago, the most feared man in America wasn't a king, wasn't a general or a politician. He was a pirate. A man so feared that even the strongest navy in the world couldn't take him down. And a man whose flag alone could make an entire crew surrender. His name was Blackbeard. He wasn't rich. He wasn't royal. He was just so terrifying that in under two years, he built a reputation that defined how we imagine pirates today. From lighting his beard on fire to scare enemies, to legends of his headless body swimming in circles. This is the legend of black beard. So sit back, relax, and welcome to History Camp. So good, so good, so good. Give big, save big with RAC Friday deals at Nordstrom Rack. For a limited time, take an extra 40% off red tag clearance for a total Savings up to 75% off. Save on gifts for everyone on your list from brands like Vince Cole, Haan, Sam Edelman, and more. All sales final and restrictions apply. The best stuff goes fast, so bring your gift list and your wish list to your nearest Nordstrom Rack today. El Volkswagen taeguan confuciones premium como los.
- [01:36]
David
Acientos de lanteros con masae disponibles solo parese extravagante.
- [01:41]
Mark Gagnon
What's up, people? Welcome back to camp. My name is Mark Gagnon, and thank you for joining me in my tent, where every single week we explore the most interesting, fascinating, controversial stories throughout all history forever. Yes, there's been a lot of stuff that's happened on this planet ever since it started spinning, like, what, 2,000 years ago? Whatever the Bible says. And I'm trying to figure it all out, okay? I've. Ever since the dawn of humankind, there's been so much stuff going on in this, you know. History Camp is my little. My little playbox to figure out everything that's ever happened, okay? And I can't do it alone, obviously. I need you wonderful people at home. I'm also joined by my pal, David. How's it going?
- [02:17]
David
How you, man?
- [02:18]
Mark Gagnon
And I'm also here with Christos Pakabos. Cal boys. Oh, hell yeah, dude. Honestly, I'll let that one slide. Guys, today we're talking about Blackbeard, one of the most infamous pirates to ever sail the seven seas. And this is a good old fashioned, fun history deep dive because you've heard the name Blackbeard. Sure have. That's what the ladies call you. You've heard the name Blackbeard? Yeah. All of us know this guy, but no one actually knows anything about him before. We begin.
- [02:47]
David
Is there a character in Pirates of the Caribbean that's modeled after him?
- [02:50]
Mark Gagnon
Yes. I'll tell you at the end after Christos looks it up, because I don't know, but I'm sure there's gotta be.
- [02:58]
David
I'm sure there is. Yeah. Have you ever seen. Wait, you have never seen the movies though, right?
- [03:01]
Mark Gagnon
I read the books. Are there books? I don't remember? No. I have seen Pirates of the Caribbean, but I don't know which character is modeled after him. Let's find out. So, Chris just hit us with a nice little Google search. In Pirates of the Caribbean, the fourth installment in 2011, Captain Edward Teach, also known as Edward Thatch, which will explain the delineation of why there's no actual consensus on his name. He's the main antagonist of the 2011 swashbuckler film Pirates of the Caribbean, Stranger Tides. So don't watch that movie until you've listened to this episode. Understand everything about Blackbeard, okay? What's crazy about Blackbeard is that he legit only spent two years as a pirate captain. But he became so well known in that little two year stretch that people talk about him 300 years later. He's kind of like the Tekashi 69ine of his day, right? Like a short little run where he ran New York. Everyone knew him. He was on top of the world. And even though, you know he's not doing the numbers he was doing back in the day, people still revere him as one of the most fearsome tattooed bandits of the land. Kind of sick, right? What was that?
- [04:10]
David
I said something. I forgot I wasn't on my best.
- [04:14]
Mark Gagnon
That's jazz. Anyway, there's actually. To be. Honestly, Blackbeard's not like the Jordan of pirates. There's a bunch of pirates that are way more successful. Bartholomew Roberts captured 400 ships during his career. That's like a ship every three days. Uh, Henry every pulled off what might be the biggest heist in history. He stole millions of dollars of treasure and then vanished completely. No one ever found him. Literal pirate treasure. There's even a woman pirate, Chinese, Chinese pirate from back in the day known as Ching Shih. Her first name was literally Ching Ching Shi, and she was commanding 80,000 pirates in China and basically just ran her own navy. But somehow Blackbeard's one everyone knows. So what makes him so special? I'm going to go ahead and say branding, right? Like just like in terms of like a sick name. Like, look, Ching Shi is probably solid, but like, you know, American audience, it's kind of hard. But Blackbeard, I mean, it's like a. Like it's just seared in your brain. You know exactly who we're talking about. So when we look at his life, you're trying to start at the very beginning, right? Well, that's where it doesn't start, because we don't really know anything about him. Now, most of what we know about this guy comes from a book known as A General History of the pirates written by Captain Charles Johnson in 1724. But a lot of historians think that the stories in that book are just basically made up. What's even crazier is that the guy that wrote that book, people dispute if that's even a real guy. Charles Johnson might just be a fake name used by a guy known as Daniel Defoe. Now, if you know Daniel Defoe, this is the guy that wrote Robinson Crusoe. So technically, the only major historical source we have on this guy Blackbeard, from a historical perspective, might have been written by the same dude that wrote Robinson Crusoe. And maybe it's not even him, but no one even knows who the guy that wrote the book is. So you can see the issue here. But what we do know is that Blackbeard was likely born around 1680, most likely in Bristol, England. And he probably, I mean, frankly, could have come from like any English coastal town. But we know that a lot of the pirate activity is coming out of Bristol. Now, what we do know is that he used the name Edward Teach, also sometimes spelled thatch, but also spelled a bunch of different ways of thatch, like T, H A C H, T H A T, C H. Regardless, he used a bunch of fake names. And pirates, you know, historically did this all the time. And a lot of times pirates would use different family names when they were doing piracy type activities because they didn't want to bring dishonor amongst their family. Which is kind of funny that, like, you know, even pirates have a code of the seas. They're like, hey, we're going to steal and rob and pillage and murder, but I don't want to make my dad look bad. So there you go. The most famous pirate in history, and we don't really know anything about his early life and we don't even really know what to call him. So thus, we will stick with Blackbeard. Now, Bristol, if you don't know it's a major port city specifically in that time for, you know, slave trading ships across the Atlantic. So it's most likely that Blackbeard probably started working on ships when he was very young. Now, something interesting. Some historians think that he might have actually come from a good family and he may have even gotten a decent education. So it's possible that he was actually literate, which would have been pretty strange for a pirate at that time, but there's actually not even a ton of evidence of that. This is just conjecture from different historians. So if true, it would have made him very strange in the pirate world because most pirates kind of were vagabonds, you know, sort of wayward criminals with no formal education. What's up, guys? We're going to take a break really quick because you might need a little bit of help. All right? As we know, our society is very sexual, right? It is in everything. We are constantly being marinated in sexual garbage. Memes, music videos, Instagram. You're just scrolling and bang, there it is. And then that leads you down a little rabbit hole. You pop into the hub. Yeah, yeah, you pop into the hub and it might be sucking the life out of you. And dudes everywhere. Yes. Killing your motivation, your relationships, your happiness from just, you know, gooning all the time. And that's why I want to tell you about something really important called Relay. Relay is the first app that actually helps you create quit porn for good. It doesn't just tell you, like, oh, you know, do better. It give you, like, little affirmations every day. It actually gives you tools that work, real accountability and actual encouragement and support to help you succeed. It's not about guilt or moralizing or telling you you're a bad person. It's about helping you grow to be the best person you can be. So if you're tired of feeling stuck, this is your sign to do something about it. So download relay, start your 7 day free trial with the Code Gagnon, and start building some real freedom. There are thousands of guys that are already doing this and getting their lives back through Relay, and you can too. So seriously, stop gooning. Stop being a gooner. All right? At least for like a couple. A couple of weeks, right? Maybe a month, right? To do your best. Okay? We're all in this journey together trying to be better men. So if you're Interested, go to JoinRelay app/camp and become the person that you know you can be. Now let's get back to the this episode is brought to you by Jack Daniels. Jack Daniels and music are made for each other. They share a rhythm in the craft of making something timeless while being a part of legendary nights from Backyard jams to sold out arenas. There's a song in every toast. Please drink responsibly. Responsibility.org Jack Daniels and Old Number 7 are registered trademarks. Tennessee Whiskey, 40% alcohol by volume. Jack Daniel Distillery, Lynchburg, Tennessee. Coca Cola for the big, for the small, the short and the tall. Peacemakers, risk takers for the optimists, pessimists for long distance love. For introverts and extroverts, the thinkers and the doers for old friends and new Coca Cola for everyone. Pick up some Coca Cola at a store near you. Now, what we do know about Black Beard is that before officially becoming a pirate, he worked as a privateer during Queen Anne's War. Now, a privateer in is basically a legal pirate, okay? Like, it was like government sanctioned piracy. Their jobs were basically to control, you know, like a. An armed ship, and they would go around and try to take other ships from enemy nations and steal all their stuff. But it was sanctioned by the government, so it was legal. And that's kind of what he was doing during wartime. So a privateer would pull up on, you know, an enemy ship, and they would take part of the stolen goods, give it to the government. But they got to keep, you know, a little. Little side pot, right? Little. Little side bed, little, you know, wet their beaks a little bit. And. And if the people didn't give it over, then they would just hang them. So now the difference between pirates and privateers is pretty simple, right? Because pirates would just attack anyone that they wanted and keep everything that they stole for themselves. Privateers only attacked enemy ships and then had to share the loot with the government that actually hired them. But when the war ended, many of these privateers just became pirates because, one, it's the hustle that they know, and two, you can make insane money off it. So Blackbeard's pirate career actually started in 1716. Remember, he only got to be a pirate for, like, two years total. Okay? But that's enough time to become one of the most famous, you know, outlaws in world history and certainly American history. So when Queen Anne's war ended in 1713, Blackbeard basically lost his legal right to attack ships. And like many of the other privateers during the time, he turned to piracy. And by 1716, he left Jamaica and went to New Providence island, which became basically like pirate hq. Now, Nassau, the capital of this island, had been abandoned after being attacked during the war. So a lot of pirates kind of moved in and still, you know, they had some infrastructure. There was buildings. So it was literally like, finding a bunch of empty military bases and just kind of, like, making it yours. You know, insert Afghanistan. Current political hot take. Anyway, at one point, over a thousand pirates actually lived in Nassau, making it probably the most dangerous place in the Caribbean, because, again, these people were just bag chasing. They were just like, yeah, we're going to make money however we can. And as a result, a bunch of different pirates would use this as, you know, as their. As their base. And it was here that Blackbeard actually met a man that would shape him into the future pirate that we know now. 17, 16, Blackbeard joins a crew of a man named Captain Benjamin Hornigold. Yes, that is his actual name, Horny Gold. And that's exactly what he was. He was also formerly a privateer. Now, Hornigold was impressed with his, you know, sailing abilities and basically gave Blackbeard command of a small ship that they had captured. And it was just like a, you know, small little. What they call a sloop. This is just like a tiny little boat with, like, two or three masts. I said sloop. Okay.
- [12:55]
David
Oh, no. Now it makes sense. The song Sloop John B. Oh, I thought.
- [12:59]
Mark Gagnon
I thought. You're making a slut joke. No. What is Sloop John B.
- [13:02]
David
You know, the song on Pet Sounds.
- [13:04]
Mark Gagnon
Okay. Anyway, so they basically are taking over these ships, and they have one. He's like, all right, Blackbeard, you take this little boat and see what you can do. Now, Hornigold had a rule. He said, never attack British ships. That was his one job. Don't attack any British ships. Because one. Hornigold still saw himself as, like, a loyal English Englishman. And on top of that, you attack the British Navy, you're probably going to get destroyed. You know, you take over one of their ships, all of a sudden you have the full force of the Brits on your ass. So the crew, on the other hand, did not really care about this. So after about a year of sailing under Captain Hornigold, he and Blackbeard would cross paths with one of the strangest characters in all of pirate history that we honestly probably should do our own episode on. And his name is Stede Bonnet. Now, Bonnet wasn't just any old sailor. He wasn't just. He wasn't a criminal in any, you know, sort of modern sense. He was a wealthy landowner in Barbados. And one day, out of nowhere, he decided that he was just sick of his marriage, sick of his wife, and he wanted adventure. A little bit of a midlife crisis. So instead of buying a Corvette, he bought a ship, hired a crew, and declared himself as a pirate, and he had basically zero nautical experience and even less crime experience. And even his own men admitted that he knew nothing about being a pirate, and they basically had to pretend that he did. Now, nobody knows exactly why he did this. Some authors during the era claim that Bonnet suffered from discomforts in a married state, basically saying that his wife was so crazy, he was like, you know what? Getting murdered by the British would be better than this. Now, if the rumors were true, he basically thought that, you know, this pirate life would be better than hanging out with his dumb wife. That's a nice little rhyme. Write that down. However, when Blackbeard met Bonnet, he immediately recognized this situation, right? This is a rich guy that is playing pirate, and everyone on his ship hated him. Now, Blackbeard quickly figured out that Bonnet was clueless, and with Bond's permission, he just took command over his ship. Now, at this point, Hornigold was still Blackbeard's mentor, but that was about to change, because Hornigold's crew had hit their breaking point. There was British ships full of the best loot, the most wealth, all the treasure, and it kept on passing by completely untouched because Hornigold refused to attack them. So the crew, getting pissed off by this, voted him out. He was literally, like, demoted and kind of, like, mutinied by his own people and, you know, sailed away with a small ship, leaving Blackbeard in command of the remaining fleet. But Hornigal didn't simply just leave, because around this time, the king's pardon had been issued. Now, this is basically a legal doctrine from the British Crown, basically saying, if you stop pirating right now, if you just leave it all behind, we won't kill you. Now, some captains saw this as a lifeline, and others saw it as a trap. However, Captain Hornigold saw this as, you know, his way out. So he sailed to New Providence, accepted the king's pardon, and then flipped sides. And then within months, he was now working for the British as a pirate hunter, literally tracking down the very men that he once mentored and sailed with. So by late 1717, this was a pretty good time for Blackbeard, right? He captured several merchant ships along the American coast. But now he was about to face the biggest battle yet. This was a French slave ship called La Concorde. Now, this wasn't just any ship. This was massive. It was heading to Martinique. It had 16 cannons, 75 crew members, and 500 enslaved people. The French captain, Pierre Dosset, said that they had about 20 pounds of gold dust, which would be worth, you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars in, you know, today's money. Now, the voyage for them had been brutal. The ship was ravaged by disease. Dozens on the crew were dead. I scurvy. It was. It was an awful situation. So the French really couldn't put up much of a fight. And after just two rounds of cannon fire, Captain Doe actually surrendered to Blackbeard. Now here's where Blackbeard made a decision that would make him famous. Instead of sinking the French ship, he just took it. He literally just took it and made it his own. And he renamed it Queen Anne's Revenge, literally, after the war that he had fought in. Now here's the crazy part. He actually turned this French ship into one of the most heavily armed pirate vessels of the era. He actually added more cannons to this already fortified vessel and added all the way up to 40 guns, making it strong enough to fight actual warships. Now, Blackbeard used this ship to terrorize the Caribbean and the American coast. Now, interesting fact, most ships would actually just surrender when they saw Blackbeard and his flag. That's how terrifying he was and how well fortified the ship had become. One of the most famous stories associated with Queen Anne comes out of Barbados when Blackbeard reportedly fought against HMS Scarborough. This was a British warship with 30 cannons. Captain Johnson, the guy we mentioned in the beginning, who allegedly wrote the book about Blackbeard, says that Blackbeard won this battle, though the Navy had, you know, to this day, never really confirmed the details. However, if it really happened, it meant that Blackbeard had literally beaten the Royal British Navy in open combat. Now, the first half of 1718 is when Blackbeard reached his peak power. He captured ship after ship with basically no resistance. And here's the crazy part, he rarely killed anyone during these captures. Blackbeard understood that looking terrifying was more effective than actually being a killer. I mean, physically, he was intimidating. He was this tall dude with broad shoulders. He had that famous long black beard. And he took this scary appearance to the next level. So he would wear these leather straps, cross his chest loaded with pistols. He had six of them just like strapped in John Wick style. And he would do this because reloading during a sea battle is basically impossible. And then he took things to a different level. So before combat, he would actually light slow burning hemp fuses and then weave them into his beard and tuck him under his hat. And this was done so that when he stepped onto the deck, smoke would like literally curl around his head like he had just walked out of hell. So to the sailors who were already, like, hearing myths and sea stories about this dude, they would look at him, and they didn't see a man. They saw, like, this horrifying creature from hell itself. Now, another weird detail is that he braided his beard into, like, these little, like. Like, pigtail ties, and he would put, like, colored ribbons at the end. And it was believed that he would do this to look, like, kind of unpredictable and unhinged, just like this wild man that's been out at sea with nothing to lose. And that was exactly the point. Now, another interesting thing to show how Blackbeard would control his crew. At one point, Blackbeard shot his own first mate, a guy by the name of Israel Hands. Now, he shot him in the knee during a card game just to basically remind everyone that he's the boss and he doesn't really give an f about anyone else. Now, when people asked him why he did this, he supposedly said, if I don't shoot one of you every now and then, you'll forget who I am. Now, out of all the Blackbeard stories, none are as famous as the Charleston blockade. Now, for nearly seven days, Blackbeard's fleet stopped every ship trying to enter or leave the harbor. I mean, literally everyone coming in and out. Merchant vessels, passenger ships, anything that was moving in the water, he wanted it. So by the end of the week, he had seized nine ships, including the Crowley, which was carrying several wealthy Charleston citizens on their way to London. Now, Blackbeard took the passengers hostage and actually sent a message to the governor. He says, literally, meet my demands, or I will send their heads back to you in a basket and burn every ship that I've captured. Now, here's where it gets weird. He doesn't ask for gold. He doesn't ask for weapons or even supplies. What he asks for is kind of interesting. He asks for medicine. Specifically a large chest filled with medical treatments that sailors commonly use to treat, you know, syphilis and scurvy and other infections. The most feared pirate in the world literally just wanted, like, antibiotics. So Blackbeard sent one of the hostages, a man named Mr. Marks, along with two pirates to deliver this demand on shore. And the governor. The governor at the time had two days to comply. Now, when those two days passed and nobody returned, the hostages on Blackbeard's ship assumed that they were about to be dead. But they didn't know Blackbeard well enough because Blackbeard didn't execute anyone. He actually waited. And this wasn't because you know he was soft or scared. It was because he wasn't the mindless killer that people thought he was. He understood how leverage worked. And eventually, Marks finally returned with the medicine chest and revealed why he was late. He claimed the pirates that he brought with him got so drunk in Charleston, they actually disappeared in the city. And that was literally what the excuse was, and Blackbeard accepted it. He then released all the hostages completely unarmed and sailed away with their valuables. It was the perfect example of his strategy. Terrify everyone, look unpredictable and sort of untamed. Tamed. Kill nobody and still get exactly what you want. Now, after Charleston, something really strange happened. At the Buford Inlet in North Carolina, Blackbeard lost his ship. Yeah, the Queen Anne's Revenge. And the weird thing, a lot of historians think that he actually did it on purpose. Now, the official story goes like this. The crew wanted to careen the ships, which is basically when they run a boat onshore during high tides so that they could, you know, clean and repair the bottom of the boat at low tide. And pirates would do this all the time. But during the maneuver, Blackbeard's ship went too far into the sand bar and got stuck. When another ship tried to pull it free, that ship got stuck, too. And just like that, Blackbeard's two largest vessels, the most fortified ships maybe in pirate history up until this time, were ruined beyond repair. Now, here's why this story doesn't really add up. Blackbeard was an extremely skilled navigator. I mean, this dude was a privateer for the British Navy, had fought in numerous wars, had been a pirate in this area for, at this point, almost two years. And this is a guy who could sail through these, you know, shallow Caribbean channels in the dark without ever hitting a reef. So accidentally wrecking one ship would have been embarrassing enough, but wrecking two just seems, like, difficult to even fathom that such a skilled navigator would do this. So some historians think that he didn't lose the ships. He just simply retired them. Now, behind the scenes, Blackbeard had a problem. The crew that he had assembled had gotten too big. Now, after this Charleston blockade, he had hundreds of men, and a lot of people wanted to sail for him because, you know, he was the richest dude. He was getting the most money, and they wanted a piece. But the big cruise means big payrolls and, as we know, more mouths to feed, more people taking cuts to loot, and more potential for mutiny. Now, Blackbeard may have realized that, you know, it was time to scale down and slip away with the best Men and the best loot. And sure enough, right after grounding these ships, he handpicked a small group of his most loyal pirates, loaded the most valuable treasure onto two smaller ships and disappeared, literally, just like in the middle of the night, and left the rest of his crew stranded on the island. Now, some of those abandoned men were later captured and testified that Blackbeard had sabotaged those ships on purpose. Now, whatever the truth is, the effect was the same. Blackbeard went from commanding a four ship pirate fleet to being the captain of two small, you know, vessels with a tight, really elite crew. And it seems like he was just kind of downsizing and preparing for whatever comes next. Now, the coolest part of this whole thing is that in 1996, archaeologists discovered the wreck of Queen Anne's Revenge. It's one of the only pirate ships that were ever found and excavated. And they recovered cannons and anchors, gold dust, beads, medical tools, and thousands of artifacts related to this one specific pirate. Blackbeard may have grounded on purpose, but. But that one wreck literally kept his legend alive. So now with the Queen Anne completely surrendered, his small crew picked, and he loads up all his loot onto these small boats and dips away towards North Carolina. For most people, you know, they would see this as the end, but it wasn't for him. This was more of like a reset. Now, at this point, the Charleston blockade had made Blackbeard, you know, even more famous than he was. Everyone knew about him. And the British Navy was cracking down harder than ever. Pirate crews everywhere were shrinking, scattering. They were getting hung. I mean, these pirate hunters from, you know, the British Navy were actually finding pirates all over the region and taking them out. And Nassau, once a pirate's paradise, was being cleaned out by the new governor, Woods Rogers. Now, Blackbeard understood something that a lot of pirates didn't. This golden age of piracy was coming to an end. However, the king's pardon was still being allowed for any pirate who surrendered by September 5th. So Blackbeard quietly discussed it with Stede Bonnet and kind of used him as a test case to see whether the Governor of North Carolina, Charles Eden, could be trusted. Bonnet agreed and went to North Carolina in one of their sloops to surrender. And it worked. He got a pardon with no trouble. But while he was gone, Blackbeard betrayed him. He stripped Bonnet's ships of all of its valuables, marooned his crew members near Beaufort Inlet, and sailed away with the best men and all the loot. So when Bonnet showed up to retrieve his ships and get his crew which, again, this is part of the king's part, is that you're able to surrender and keep all your money. It's like, kind of the best deal ever. But if someone screws you over, then you kind of, you know, shit out of luck. So he goes back to get his stuff and realizes that he's been screwed over by Blackbeard. But here's the thing. Bonnet, despite having no piracy experience and was just kind of like this wealthy dude, you know, living in Barbados while he was working with Blackbeard, he actually learned some pirate skills. Now, those skills were, you know, how to operate, you know, a small vessel, and, more importantly, that you want revenge. So he actually managed to get his ship working again, this wealthy dude, Bonnet, was like, you know what? I'm gonna go get it back. And he actually went looking for Blackbeard. But he never was successful. Now, this single act drove Bonnet to continue pirating. Despite receiving a pardon literally hours earlier, he was eventually captured by the authorities. And despite begging for mercy and even trying to fake, like, a mental breakdown, he was hung for piracy. How crazy is that? This dude literally was like, I'm gonna turn myself in. I'm gonna keep my money. Realizing he got screwed over, he was like, actually, I gotta keep being a pirate so I can get Blackbeard and recoup all the money. And at this point, you know, the British were like, dude, we just gave you a pardon. And then you went immediately back to crime. You're done for. And they killed him. Now, Blackbeard, on the other hand, was heading straight for North Carolina, a small town called Bath. And this was the perfect place to just disappear in plain sight. Blackbeard arrived with, you know, his charming little pirate swag. He had some money, some political leverage, and he started throwing parties and handing out gifts and just kind of acted like a man ready to change his ways. Blackbeard saw an opportunity to take the king's pardon, clean his record, and keep operating in sort of this gray zone where he could, like, pirate while pretending not to. So he formally applied for the pardon. Governor Eden approved it instantly. And suddenly, Blackbeard went from being one of the most wanted men in the Atlantic, one of the most dangerous and terrifying pirates ever, to being legally free. But here's the twist. Blackbeard wasn't retiring. He was just reorganizing, right? Once a pirate, always a pirate. So within weeks, he was back at sea in smaller vessels, raiding ships under the guise of being a privateer. Now, Eden, the governor, and the corrupt customs officer stamped whatever Paperwork was needed, and eventually everyone got a cut. It was quite literally a sort of colonial version of organized crime. He was working with the governor and sort of the political system at the time to continue stealing from nearby ships. Now, Blackbeard spent the summer of 1718 living like a absolute rock star. I mean, he's drinking, he's sailing, he's throwing these parties, and he's literally smuggling with this government protection. I mean, the locals loved him, the merchants sort of tolerated him because he wasn't screwing them over as much. And as long as Governor Eden got paid, nobody was asking questions. But Virginia's Governor, Alexander Spotswood, saw the scam for what it was. Blackbeard wasn't reformed. He was now just freelancing for the government with protection of the governor. And his presence was still destabilizing the entire coastline. It was the worst of all worlds. So Spotswood made a decision that was technically illegal, but politically necessary. He was going to end Blackbeard himself, despite not having any jurisdiction in North Carolina waters. So Spotswood secretly hired two armed sloops and put Lieutenant Robert Maynard in command, ordering him to find Blackbeard and take him out. On November 22, 1718, Maynard actually tracked Blackbeard to Aquracoat island, where Blackbeard's ship, the Adventure, was anchored in a shallow inlet. Now, what happened next was one of the most brutal close quarters fights in pirate history. Blackbeard opened the battle with a blast of a cannon and musket fire that tore through Maynard's ships, killing and wounding dozens. The deck of Maynard's vessel was now littered with dead bodies. And from a distance, it looked like the fight was done. So thinking that he won, Blackbeard boarded Maynard's ships to finish off all the survivors. But it was a trap. Before the battle, Maynard had ordered his remaining men to hide below deck, leaving only a few sailors actually standing in sight. So when Blackbeard and his pirates climbed aboard, expecting, you know, an easy kill and everyone else to surrender like they always had, the hidden soldiers actually came out of the hatches and surrounded them. Now, according to Maynard's official report, the final clash only lasted six minutes, literally six minutes of knives, pistols, smoke, hand to hand combat in these close quarters. And it's said that Blackbeard fought with an insane amount of strength, even snapping Maynard's sword with his bare hands. But even legends have their limits. So by the end of the fight, Blackbeard had been shot five times, cut at least 20 times before he eventually fell into the deck and died. But Even in his death, his legend continued to grow. Now, the legend claims that Maynard cut off Blackbeard's head and hung it from the ship's bow as proof of the kill. And then he tossed the headless body into the water. Now, according to local folklore, it's almost obviously a myth, but it's just too good to not bring up. Maynard's corpse swam around the ship three full times before sinking. So even in death, people believe that Blackbeard was supernatural or just, you know, greater than any human had been. Now, over the next three centuries, towns, sailors, storytellers added their own little pieces to the myth of Blackbeard until it became impossible to separate fact from folklore. According to old coastal traditions, Blackbeard was married several times. Some of the stories claim as many as 14 wives throughout his life. Not all at once, but still, 14 different women supposedly, you know, agreed to marry the most feared man on the American coast, which is not that hard to believe, right? I mean, criminals and, you know, gangsters, mob guys, they all have a bunch of wives and mistresses. But local stories say that his final wife was just, you know, a young woman, probably around 16 at the time when he married just months before he died. And there aren't surviving records to prove much of this, but many historians think that he married her as a part of his plan to look sort of respectable and, you know, retire from piracy under the king's pardon. But then there's the legend that refuses to die, the buried treasure conspiracy. Now, again, I just want to point out there's no strong, you know, perfect historical evidence that Blackbeard actually buried treasure. You know, pirates usually spent their loot pretty quickly, but Blackbeard loved creating mystery. And rumor says that before his final battle, he told his men only he and the devil know where the treasure was, adding that the longest liver should take all literally. The person that lived the longest should be allowed to have it. And since he didn't survive the day, the secret allegedly died with him. So for over 300 years, treasure hunters have searched the Carolinas, hoping to uncover Blackbeard's lost fortune. And to this day, no one ever has, which only keeps the myth even more alive. Another popular legend claims that Blackbeard's severed head was eventually turned into a silver lined drinking cup and was passed around kind of like a war trophy. Again, there's no proof of this, but like all great pirate stories, people continue to tell it because it's just too good to let go. Now, one of the most famous legends is actually a Mystery that people still argue about today. What was Blackbeard's flag? There's one design that shows a skeleton with horns holding like an hourglass and a spear piercing a heart, which looks pretty sick, to be honest. But the famous devil horn skeleton flag is almost certainly not authentic. It was likely invented in 1912, almost 200 years after Blackbeard died. The only real description we have from Blackbeard's time appeared in a newspaper describing an attack by his fleet. It said that there were five pirate ships total. Two had black flags with skulls and three had solid red flags. Red flags would typically mean no quarter. This basically means that, you know, surrender now or everybody dies. So Blackbeard probably used the classic skull and crossbones, but we will never know for sure. Now, why is Blackbeard more famous than these other pirates that are more successful or more prominent? And it really comes down to perfect timing and brilliant self promotion. Once again, he is a master of psychological warfare. He understood that the reputation of a pirate is actually more powerful than the cannons. His wild appearance and theatrical behavior made people surrender without fighting, which actually saved a lot of lives on both sides and made his job as a pirate much easier. He was probably one of the first people to understand this power of personal branding when it came to executing a military operation. Secondly, he died at exactly the right moment. His death came right at the end of the golden age of piracy, making him sort of this symbol, or almost like an anti hero of the era. You know, dying in battle instead of being hung like a lot of pirates made him seem more heroic and kind of romanticized his story. And finally, his story had everything that people love in a legend, right? There's mystery about this treasure. There's violence, there's looting, there's, you know, crime. There's this dramatic ending in this close quarter shootout. Writers have been retelling and adding to the story for 300 years, making the legend bigger and bigger than the man ever was. I think it's also worth adding that the fact that this was happening in the Atlantic, off the coast of the United States, with sort of the colonial government, I think, also really adds to the lore that this is imbued with American history. And like most of the history that gets exported around the world, the American story gets aggrandized. I mean, even today, Blackbeard is built into the landscape of North Carolina. You can actually walk through the town where he lived after taking the king's pardon. You can visit a place known as the, the Bonner House, which sits on the land where Blackbeard is believed to have stayed. And just down the road from the house is St. Thomas Episcopal Church, the oldest church in the state. Now, the current building wasn't finished until 1734, 16 years after Blackbeard had died. But the parish its existed while he was living in Bath in North Carolina. And local tradition says that he actually attended early services while he was, you know, sort of pretending that his life had changed. And if you head out to the coast, you can stand on Aquacote island right by what is known as Teaches Hole, which is the exact waters where he is thought to have fought his final battle. So 300 years after his death, Blackbeard is still drawing crowds, still generating money for North Carolina, and still growing as a legend. And honestly, I mean, that just might be the most fitting end for a pirate ever. And ladies and gentlemen, that is the abridged legend of Blackbeard the pirate. I mean, pretty wild. I mean, it's kind of a sick life, right? Like, there's so many comparisons I feel you could draw with other historical figures. The first one that sticks out my mind. Rasputin, right? No, the wandering holy man of, like, you know, early 1900s of Russian history, right before the revolution. I mean, if you look at Rasputin's legend, he was literally this traveling, you know, holy dude that was going through Siberia and Russia. And he had this sort of, like, crazy sort of mangled kind of appearance that he intentionally sort of leaned into to give himself this more mystical aura. And he's able to get in with sort of the government at the time. He gets close with, you know, Tsar Peter and Tsarina, and I think it's Catherine. Tsarina. Catherine, Catherine. And he gets close with them and, you know, cures their kid with the hemophilia thing. All that says that, you know, he becomes sort of like this mystical, wandering holy man that everyone is going to for information. And then when they try to kill him, they apparently have to kill him three times. They stab him. Once they shoot him, they try to poison him. None of it works. They throw his body into the river. And then even then, people are like, you know, he refused to die. So, like, there's the same sort of like, mystique around his character. The way he looked. And then, you know, this infamous death story. The man who refused to be killed and Blackbeard kind of has those same sort of legendary elements, right? He, like, leaned into this look. He put this hemp in his beard that burned and smoked while he was fighting and really created an aura that, you know, he was not of this Earth. And granted, he used a lot of his, you know, abilities and skills for piracy and looting, whereas Rasputin was using it for, you know, getting close to, you know, the Tsarina and stuff like that. But to me, I think there's some obvious parallels. I'm trying to think. I'm like, there's. I feel like there's been other people like this in history who's. The lore around them and sort of the aura kind of precede their whole. Their whole vibe. Jack the Ripper is another one right. Where he's tricky, though, because, like, they try to solve it in the time, you know, like, they try to, like, figure out who he was. Which apparently people think that they did figure it out.
- [38:52]
David
That was a recent story, right?
- [38:53]
Mark Gagnon
It's, like, recent. Ish. But even that, like, the data is, like, not great because it was like, okay, they tested the. One of the. The people that they suspected was Jack the Ripper was this dude. I forget his name, but he was sort of like this crazy, like, Polish immigrant that was living in London at the time. And they traced the DNA of his, like, great, great, great, great, great grandson. And they also tested one of the pieces of evidence, a scarf that was found at the crime scene from one of the women. And they tested it, and they found that there was, like, a DNA match. But other people are like, well, this was not found in Aaron Kaminsky. That was the name Kosminski. And they're like, okay, well, you know, this wasn't actually, like, held in, like, evidence. This was, like, passed around, like road shows and, like, sold at, like, antique shops and. Or, like, auctions and stuff like that as a piece of history. So it wasn't super credible. And then on top of that, the DNA analysis doesn't say, like, oh, the DNA found on this scarf was Jack the Rippers. It just says, like, the DNA on the scarf has a match to someone in Jack the Ripper's family line. Okay. Which would, you know, be enough to be, like, it's probably him, but it's not enough to be like, it was absolutely this dude. But I think it was probably Kaminsky. Right.
- [40:06]
David
What year was Blackbeard doing his thing?
- [40:08]
Mark Gagnon
Blackbeard was basically, like, 1717 was, like, his heyday. 17, 17, 17, 18.
- [40:14]
David
What a time.
- [40:15]
Mark Gagnon
Yeah. Be kind of a sick time, right?
- [40:18]
David
If everyone wasn't so gross, I would have been loved. Would have loved to be a pirate.
- [40:21]
Mark Gagnon
Being a pirate.
- [40:23]
David
Would you, though, go to the Caribbean.
- [40:25]
Mark Gagnon
Cool vibes, warm weather. Yep.
- [40:29]
David
Steal stuff.
- [40:30]
Mark Gagnon
Yep.
- [40:30]
David
Break stuff.
- [40:33]
Mark Gagnon
I mean it would be cool, but at the same time it's like being a pirate is nasty work. Like, it's just like gross. Everyone sick Gold teeth. You are getting sick gold teeth. Okay, you're basically a pirate now. But like, I don't know, I don't know if you'd actually to want to be a pirate though. Like, sure, there's upside.
- [40:50]
David
I think I'm just, I like, I'm jealous of back then where you can just like seek adventure that way.
- [40:54]
Mark Gagnon
Yeah, that's true. You know, that part is kind of true. Cuz now if you're trying to like be an organized criminal, you're just like, you get stopped by the law DNA.
- [41:05]
David
You literally have to steal jewels from like the best museum in the world to get a thrill.
- [41:09]
Mark Gagnon
And then even that, it's like, oh, you get caught three days later. There's no like two year period where it's like, oh, the greatest heist of all time. This guy's just robbing museums left and.
- [41:16]
David
Right to shoot a healthcare CEO.
- [41:18]
Mark Gagnon
Just, just feel something one time. You know what I mean? It's just crazy. But yeah, dude, I don't know. The life of a pirate is. It is interesting how romanticized it is, right? Like people have made this joke before but like it is true that like kids will dress up as pirates now. And it's like they were literally like robbing, graping. Just remembered YouTube monetization policy. Robbing non consensually interacting and also just like terrorizing innocent people all the time. But then kids will be like, I want to be a pirate. Yeah, like really sounds sick as hell. In 300 years, what are kids going to be dressing up as now? Why did you cover the mic? Okay, we don't know what David just said, but it was surely not racially attacked. Sensitive. I mean, what, January 6th protesters.
- [42:14]
David
Yeah, yeah, that's exact. For all intensive purposes.
- [42:17]
Mark Gagnon
Yeah, I mean I'm gonna make my kid dress up as a J6 or for sure, dude. Maybe that's too close. What are we gonna say, Christos? People like kids are going to be dressing up as comedians. Oh, oh, he did it.
- [42:29]
David
Give your kid a zero fade. Make them Schultz. Could be fire, but you know, but like people romance. Like the movies about Jack Spur Pharaoh and he was sick as hell. That's why people like romanticize being a pirates. Like this guy doesn't live under any rules. He does what he wants. He did, he goes on adventures.
- [42:46]
Mark Gagnon
Like I think cowboys also kind of took That a little bit, like, American history is just sort of, like, imbued with this, like, romantic criminal mindset. Mindset was. Rachel. Cowboys were the exact same thing, right? Like, they would go around, no rules. They would get in fights. They were drunk all the time. Yeah.
- [43:02]
David
Gamble.
- [43:03]
Mark Gagnon
Which hot. Take. This is why I've always felt the like. Like, a specific era of, like, rap music also epitomized that same feeling. So, like, Tay K. Oh, dude, can we talk about take. I've made this point. I've made this point before. Okay? So Tay K is, I think, the quintessential example of this. Okay. That, like. All right, what are pirates? They're criminals. They're on the run. They're trying to get hunted by the government, but they're going around and they're stealing and they're doing what they want because they're pirates. Right. And then cowboys do the same thing, and people are just, like, obsessed with these guys. They're just, like, taking the law in their own hands. And Tay K, specifically, is sort of doing the same thing. All right? He's on the run for murder. He's getting. He's rapping in front of his own wanted sign.
- [43:45]
David
I don't want to split hairs, but I think he didn't physically kill someone. He was just involved in an armed robbery. Like, he might.
- [43:50]
Mark Gagnon
Are you part of the. The council?
- [43:53]
David
No, I just love Take A. So I know every detail about the trial.
- [43:55]
Mark Gagnon
Was he sentenced?
- [43:56]
David
Oh, yeah.
- [43:56]
Mark Gagnon
He's.
- [43:57]
David
He's in jail for 55 years, I think.
- [43:58]
Mark Gagnon
Oof. All right, pour one out. Free Tay K. Unless actually, maybe keep him there for a little bit. No. Did you hear.
- [44:05]
David
Have you ever listened to Santana World?
- [44:07]
Mark Gagnon
No.
- [44:08]
David
It's might be, like, one of the best rap albums of the 21st century.
- [44:11]
Mark Gagnon
Oh, he's connected to two murders. Whoops. All that to say, though. I mean, again, I'm not saying that, you know, pirates are the greatest people ever in the same way that, you know, Tay K is not the greatest. But I'm just saying, like, this guy does a crime, he's on the run, he's, like, making music and, like, putting out content, and, like, the. The aura and the legend of him is getting put out over beats. Yeah. And people. And people are, like, wanting to see. They want to be a part of this. And so as a result, they're like, you know, he's literally in front of, like, a wanted sign. You could imagine, like, a cowboy doing that. Yeah, yeah. And instead of. And, like, literally sea shanties and, like, country music, Is like born from this era of like cowboys doing whatever they want. Like these ballads of like the greatest shootout ever. You know, what is it? Wyatt Earp and like you know, Doc Holliday. Like that whole mystique is built out of like this cowboy era. And I think rappers, the ones that are like actually like living their raps I think are the modern day version of cowboys and pirates.
- [45:08]
David
Ynw Melly.
- [45:09]
Mark Gagnon
Exactly. It's like that's a great analogy. I get to watch and be a part of this crazy like moment. Crime drama, money, women, violence all by proxy through this type of art form. And then you get to live it on social media. It. Yeah, it's insane. Is that a crazy take?
- [45:25]
David
I feel like that's kk modern day pirate.
- [45:26]
Mark Gagnon
I think he's a modern day pirate. Old black hair, a beat. What is take's pirate name? Oh God, don't be racist.
- [45:36]
David
I'm not going to be racist. I'm just trying to think of something funny.
- [45:38]
Mark Gagnon
Did, did he have dreads at the time?
- [45:40]
David
No, he. He's always kept it clean. He's never had dreads.
- [45:45]
Mark Gagnon
They should have a sick name. It also is funny to me that like they're still modern day pirates but we just like aren't stoked on them because they're Somali. Like that's kind of racist that we loved pirates as Americans when they were like British guys. But now there's, there's literal pirates to this day that are sailing the old.
- [46:02]
David
Seven seas that run for Senate in Minnesota.
- [46:05]
Mark Gagnon
You can't say that. But like we have pirates today. They should make a new Jack Sparrow. But he's just a Somali guy. It's all Somalis. How fire would that be?
- [46:18]
David
Oh God, that'd be. Also there's.
- [46:21]
Mark Gagnon
I am Blackbeard the clit cutter. Argh. Is that too far? I'm sorry Somalis. Look, that was just an insensitive joke. But it is funny.
- [46:31]
David
There are drug smugglers and pirates in the like smuggling drugs in Saudi Arabia.
- [46:35]
Mark Gagnon
Read this article. Really?
- [46:37]
David
Yeah. Like basically like poor immigrants from like Egypt and Northern Africa. These pirates will be like, hey, we'll give you $3,000 if you smuggle like a million dollars worth of pills into Saudi Arabia.
- [46:48]
Mark Gagnon
They get caugh great deal.
- [46:49]
David
Arabia has a pretty harsh penalty for drug smugglers.
- [46:53]
Mark Gagnon
I can imagine.
- [46:53]
David
Chop their heads off.
- [46:54]
Mark Gagnon
Just. I mean for the record, so does America.
- [46:57]
David
Not really for, for drug smugglers.
- [47:02]
Mark Gagnon
Yeah.
- [47:02]
David
For some reason I thought of drug dealers.
- [47:04]
Mark Gagnon
No, drug smugglers.
- [47:06]
David
What do we do to them?
- [47:07]
Mark Gagnon
You might get a hellfire Missile from a giant bird in the sky that blows you up.
- [47:11]
David
I'm all for stopping drug trafficking.
- [47:16]
Mark Gagnon
Yeah.
- [47:16]
David
Honestly, dude. All to all of them.
- [47:18]
Mark Gagnon
But the thing is.
- [47:19]
David
But not the one that gets me a bag every Saturday night.
- [47:21]
Mark Gagnon
What the heck? Yeah, I mean, it's crazy. Like, we have modern day we. That's the thing. If these guys could just learn how to drop a beat, I think they would be like, world renowned, famous.
- [47:34]
David
What is this Somali rapper called?
- [47:37]
Mark Gagnon
That's the only thing they're missing. That's the only thing they're missing. I mean, think about it. Corridos, literally, like Mexican music about cartel leaders is like the same with, like these sea shanties of these famous pirates. It's the same as rap music of these famous bandits on the run.
- [47:52]
David
Old western country songs.
- [47:53]
Mark Gagnon
So I'm saying ballads about this crazy shootout.
- [47:56]
David
Rocky raccoon.
- [47:58]
Mark Gagnon
Rocky Raccoon. Yeah. Anyway, I think we solved the case. This is an interesting cultural analysis between pirates and all the other criminals of our time. Anyway, I appreciate y'. All. If there's anything I missed about Blackbeard or any other details you think are important, if you're a historian or a scholar on the legend of. Of old Robert Teach, please drop a comment. I read all of them. And the top comment on this video and all future videos will be getting free merchandise. That is right. We will send you some loot. All right. We will find you. We'll find you somehow. We'll get your address probably through an email, but if that doesn't work, I'm going to hand deliver this to your apartment or house. Okay. I'll show up in the night and give you your hoodie. Okay? Exactly. Anyway, thank you guys so much for tuning into another episode of History Camp. I will see you guys in the future to talk about the past. Thank you so much. I'll see you next time. The world moves fast. Your workday even faster. Pitching products, drafting reports, analyzing data. Microsoft 365 Copilot is your AI assistant for work built into Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and other Microsoft 365 apps you use, helping you quickly write, analyze, create, and summarize so you can cut through, click clutter, and clear a path to your best work. Learn more@Microsoft.com M365 copilot.