Brutal Blackbeard
Edward Teach, or Blackbeard as he was better known, was one of the most famous and scariest pirates to ever sail the seas of the Caribbean. We don’t know much about his early life, but he was a privateer during the War of the Spanish Succession. Privateers were people who had permission from the monarch to attack and rob enemy ships — so long as they split some of the treasure with them! Teach soon got fed up with this deal though, and around 1716 he decided to become a pirate, reporting to no one but himself.
Blackbeard was a very intimidating pirate and tried to look as terrifying as possible. He wore his giant beard in plaits so they looked like snakes slithering all over his face, and he even put smoking lengths of rope in his hair so that he seemed to be on fire. Often, his enemies were so frightened that they surrendered without any fighting, and even if they didn’t, Blackbeard’s ship was the biggest of any pirate’s. It was called the Queen Anne’s Revenge and it had 40 cannons, so when Teach and his crew did have to fight, they could blast most of their opponents to smithereens.
For two years Blackbeard terrorised merchants, plundering wherever he went. In May 1718, he and his crew journeyed up the South Carolina coast and blockaded the port of Charleston for a week. They captured several ships there and held the passengers hostage, threatening to kill them all, unless the Governor gave Blackbeard a chest of medicine that he wanted.
Unfortunately for Blackbeard, actions always have consequences, and soon enough the legendary pirate’s crimes caught up with him. After lots of people had complained about Teach stealing from them, the Governor of Virginia decided to do something about it and offered a £100 bounty to anyone could capture or kill him. Tempted by such a reward, Lieutenant Robert Maynard led an expedition to take down Blackbeard, who was lurking nearby. Because of the shallow waters, Maynard had to use smaller boats called sloops, which did not have any cannons. The crew would have to rely on their rifles, pistols, and swords instead.
When they found where Blackbeard was anchored, he fired on them with his cannons, killing six and injuring ten more. The pirates then tried to sail away to safety, but Maynard’s men returned fire and managed to disable the ship. The battle was not over though, as Blackbeard’s cannons were far too strong for the bounty hunters. Thinking quickly, Maynard ordered his men to hide below deck, to try and fool the pirates. As they sailed closer, Blackbeard saw that the deck of the ship was almost deserted and assumed that he had succeeded in killing most of the crew. With a petrifying roar, he commanded the pirates to board the enemy ships and finish off the few survivors. But Blackbeard was in for a nasty surprise…
Suddenly, the hidden sailors leapt out of hiding and started fighting the pirates, with Maynard facing Blackbeard himself in a fierce hand-to-hand duel. They danced around each other, swords clashing, until Teach managed to break his opponents weapon with a well placed strike. Maynard reached for his pistol and shot Blackbeard, but he hardly seemed to feel it. The battle continued until, emerging from the fray, one of the crew jumped between them and slashed Teach with his sword. Again, Blackbeard stood strong, and turned to congratulate the sailor who had wounded him. “Well done lad!” he boomed. The sailor was not put off though. He swung his blade at the pirate captain once again, only this time, Teach was not so lucky. The sailor cut his head clean off, and his body hit the deck. Blackbeard was dead.
With the battle won, Maynard and his crew celebrated their victory. To prove they had really killed the infamous Blackbeard, they tied his head to the front of their ship. As for his body, they threw it overboard, and that was that.
Painting of Blackbeard and Maynard in battle.
THE END.
Illustration of Blackbeard. Scary stuff!
Painting of Blackbeard. In the early 1700s, pistols were unreliable and slow to reload. Blackbeard carried lots of them to make up for this - one would fire eventually!
