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Publications: CW Journal: Past Issues: Autumn 1992
Governor Spotswood warred against him. His skull became a drinking cup.
by George Humphrey Yetter,
Associate Curator, Architectural Drawings
Come all you jolly sailors
You all so stout and brave;
Come hearken and I'll tell you
What happen'd on the wave.
Oh! 'tis of that bloody Blackbeard
I'm going now for to tell;
And as how by gallant Maynard
He soon was sent to hell.
-Benjamin Franklin (attributed)
Williamsburg in the summer of 1718 was rife with unrest. Alexander Spotswood,
the Virginia colony's governor, was in the midst of a quarrel with influential members
of the local gentry. Eight members of the Council had declined to attend his elegant
annual entertainment in honor of the king's birthday in May of that year. Instead, as
the governor himself observed, they "got together all the turbulent and disaffected
Burgesses, had an entertainment of their own in the Burgesses House and invited the
mobb to a bonfire where they were plentifully supplied with liquors."
Stung by the largely unmerited volley of acrimonious accusations and resulting
recriminations leveled at him by such well-connected colonial figures as William Byrd
and Philip Ludwell--both the second of that name--Spotswood recognized an
opportunity for succoring a popular cause to aid in restoration of his personal standing,
and so was sympathetic when merchants from North Carolina presented a plea for
relief from sea attack. Many of them attested to collusion between their own Governor
Charles Eden and pirates. William Howard, who served as quartermaster under
Blackbeard, was captured in Virginia and charged for serving with "one Edward Tach
and other Wickid and desolute Persons." In the interim, it was learned that the sea
rovers were planning to fortify Ocracoke Island as their haven.
Time was of the essence in order to dispatch an expedition before the sanctuary
became impregnable. Governor Spotswood himself provided funds for the hire of two
light, fast sloops, which slipped stealthily out of the Chesapeake Bay into the Atlantic
on a course set for Ocracoke Inlet on November 17. Spotswood inveighed the burgesses
at Williamsburg for "speedy and Effectual Measures for breaking up that Knott of
Robbers." On November 24, an "Act to Encourage the Apprehending and Destroying of
Pyrates" was passed, and £100 for the death or capture of Blackbeard.
Unknown to them was the climactic battle off Ocracoke Island fought two days earlier.
The two vessels sent by Spotswood had arrived off North Carolina's Outer Banks on
November 21. One boat became disabled, so that the Ranger, under command of
Lieutenant Robert Maynard, entered the inlet that evening and sighted Blackbeard's
Adventure anchored in open water. Battle was joined at daybreak, after the English
mariners jettisoned much of their ballast.
Maynard had the Union Jack run up on his previously unidentified vessel. Blackbeard
raised his personal black ensign with a horned skeleton. After receiving cannon fire,
Maynard's crew, not equipped with artillery, answered with musket volleys and then
hid below decks in a ruse to lure the pirates aboard the English vessel. Maynard later
wrote of his adversary that "at our first Salutation, he drank Damnation to me and my
Men, whom he stil'd Cowardly Puppies, saying, He would neither give or take
Quarter."
Deceived by the seamen's stratagem, Blackbeard and his crew clambered aboard the
Ranger and were immediately surrounded and ultimately vanquished by Maynard's
men emerging from the hold. In the ensuing chaos, during which a contemporary
describes the sea around the vessel as "tinctur'd with Blood," Maynard and Blackbeard
came face to face. The pirate received a pistol shot while swinging his heavy cutlass,
snapping his adversary's sword like a twig. As Blackbeard was about to deliver the
death blow, his throat was slashed by a stout Scot among Maynard's crew. Much as the
wily Russian monk Rasputin in a later era, Blackbeard continued to struggle on until,
while cocking a pistol, he fell dead. Later it was discovered that he had sustained 25
wounds, five of which were from pistol balls. "Here," remarked a contemporary, "was
an end to that courageous brute, who might have passed in the world for a hero had he
been employed in a good cause."
Almost immediately, Maynard had the pirate's head severed and hung the grisly
trophy from the bowsprit of the Ranger. The corpse was thrown overboard after which,
legend says, it swam defiantly several times around the sloop. Stopping first at Bath,
North Carolina, Maynard discovered much of the pirates' booty in the barn of Tobias
Knight, Governor Eden's secretary. With the recovered goods on board and
Blackbeard's skull swinging from the bowsprit, the expedition returned to Virginia.
Bristol, England, is generally believed to have been the home of the pirate Edward
Teach-better known to history as Blackbeard. It appears that his surname may
originally have been Drummond, and that he began his career as a youthful merchant
seaman. His first taste of adventure came during Queen Anne's War, when he served
on a privateer sailing out of Kingston, Jamaica, to prey on French shipping. The
ensuing era of peace created a restlessness of spirit that led him to sign on as a crew
member of the pirate Captain Benjamin Hornigold, whose base of operations was New
Providence in the Bahamas. Teach quickly distinguished himself by his strength,
courage, and devil-may-care attitude.
Following the capture of a French merchantman plying between Martinique and the
African coast, Teach's energy and leadership led to his appointment as captain of the
prize. Hornigold, with wealth laid by, accepted the offer of George I to pardon pirates
promising to reform and left Teach, his lieutenant, in charge. With 40 cannon mounted
at her gun ports and a crew adept at manning them, the rechristened Queen Anne's
Revenge--its name reflecting the dark glamour of the earlier Elizabethan piratical
era--was soon besting warships of the British Royal Navy.
It was during this period that Teach cultivated a fearsome reputation as Blackbeard.
This evil fame was intentionally developed as an aid in encouraging prompt surrender
with minimal resistance of his prey at sea. His tall frame and powerful physique
contributed to a dreadful physiognomy, including a lengthy, coal-black beard which,
before action, he plaited into small pigtails tied with colored ribbons. Into these he
lighted and placed long, slow-burning matches ordinarily used to touch off cannon. The
wisps of smoke curling out from beneath his cocked hat and around his face greatly
increased a devilish appearance. Pistols, daggers, and a cutlass were in his belt. Across
his chest he wore a bandolier in which he usually carried six primed, cocked,
ready-to-fire pistols.
Obviously a believer in the importance of first impressions, he ordinarily dressed
completely in black to create an appearance as horrifying as his deeds. It is said that
Blackbeard in battle array was an awesome sight and, to sailors of the day, as feared
as the devil himself, to which many believed him akin. This fearsome demeanor,
together with a reputation for ruthlessness in battle, effected instant surrender in
many instances.
Meeting the "gentleman pirate" Stede Bonnet--a former resident of good reputation
and estate in the Barbados, who had taken up the nefarious profession in part to
escape some discomforts he found in the married state--Blackbeard formed an instant
friendship and announced that henceforward they would sail together. Unfortunately
for Bonnet, his ineptitude as a mariner soon led to his virtual imprisonment on board
his companion's flagship, where the latter said he could now "live easy and at his
pleasure." During this period, a successful hunt by the pirates in the sea lanes between
the Bahamas and South Carolina led to the taking of at least 12 ships. Some of the
captured sailors signed on with Blackbeard's crew.
Following this, Blackbeard sailed for North Carolina's Pamlico Sound as the admiral of
a flotilla of four ships and at least 140 seamen under his command. Protected by the
Outer Banks, the shallow sounds provided a number of hiding places. One retreat was
up the Chowan River near Holiday's Island. The favorite refuge, however, was
Ocracoke Island, where a house known as Blackbeard's Castle used to stand in the
village. An inlet not far from the present town of Ocracoke is known today as "Teach's
Hole." Here, tradition has it, he careened his ships for repair.
Blackbeard's mercurial personality craved excitement tinged with cruelty and terror;
he felt occasional barbarous displays necessary in order to maintain discipline and
discourage mutiny. During one meeting with his men between decks he extinguished
the lantern and fired his pistol randomly under the table, crippling a crewman.
Another time, he closeted himself in the hold with several others and directed that pots
of brimstone, or sulfur, be lit. Soon, clouds of smoking fumes forced the others to flee;
Blackbeard held out the longest.
Another side of his complex psyche caused the pirate to crave a quiet life ashore. In
1717 he appeared before Governor Charles Eden of North Carolina with 20 of his men
and received the king's pardon. Blackbeard appears to have been no stranger to the
governor. A contemporary described portions of stolen pirate loot being carried to Eden
House and observed that "Governors are but Men." Blackbeard proceeded to acquire a
fine home near Bath, North Carolina--an area where frontier morality still
prevailed--and was married by Governor Eden to a 16-year-old bride who,
unbeknownst to her, was his 14th wife. Ten among her predecessors were still living.
A time of merrymaking and dissipation followed during which the pirate, though a
swaggering braggart, won over most of the neighboring planters through gifts of rum
and sugar as well as lavish entertainments in his home.
After awhile the call of the open sea became irresistible, and Blackbeard returned to
piracy along the southeastern coast, ranging as far north as Pennsylvania in the
eight-gun sloop Adventure. Tradition in the James River region maintains that he
eluded British naval vessels by disappearing up Pagan Creek in the neighborhood of
Smithfield, Virginia. Blackbeard's Hill still dominates Lynnhaven Bay near Cape
Henry. From its summit, pirate sentinels could scan the Chesapeake Bay entrance
through the Virginia Capes.
Ultimately, the endurance of all was pushed to the limit by his insolence and insults.
Because valuable cargoes traveled through the Chesapeake Bay, trade in Virginia
often came to a standstill when pirates patrolled sea lanes and threatened vessels
could not leave the safety of ports. During one six-week period, not a single ship dared
to leave the safety of Virginia shores.
Pirates had long held a dark fascination for Englishmen stemming, perhaps, from their
dimly remembered experiences with Viking plunderers. This notoriety was not always
stained with dishonor. The navigator Francis Drake began his career being called the
"master thief of the known world," yet was knighted by Elizabeth I. So also was the
notorious Henry Morgan, by Charles II. Such encouragement bred a race of hardened
seamen who contributed to England's position as mistress of the seas. Since the days
ofthe Spanish Armada, privateering, or government approved plundering of enemy
commerce, assisted in establishing some of the country's greatest fortunes. With the
colonization of America and a change of venue-largely from the English Channel to
the Caribbean-these former privateers evolved from buccaneers and pirates into what
was euphemistically known along the American and Spanish mains as "Brethren of
the Coast."
William Berkeley, governor of the Virginia colony in 1660, complained that the "Seas
are soe full of Pyrates that it is almost impossible for any Ships to goe home [to
England] in safety." Merchantmen and trading vessels often sought to thwart pirates
by assembling in fleets and sailing under convoy of guardships, English naval vessels
that superintended harbors and protected shipping.
Writing to the Board of Trade in 1724, Governor Spotswood lamented his lack of "some
safe opportunity to get home" to London and insisted that he would travel only in a
well-armed man-of-war.
Your Lordships will easily conceive my Meaning when you reflect on the Vigorous part
I've acted to suppress Pirates; and if those barbarous Wretches can be moved to cut off
the Nose & Ears of a Master for but correcting his own Sailors, what inhuman
treatment must I expect, should I fall within their power, who have been markt as the
principle object of their vengeance, for cutting off their arch Pirate Thatch, with all his
grand Designs, & making so many of their Fraternity to swing in the open air of
Virginia.
The legend of Blackbeard proliferated following the end of what has been termed the
"Golden Age of Piracy." A youthful Ben Franklin--then a printer's devil or apprentice
in Boston--wrote what he termed "a sailor's song on the taking of Teach." A series of
theatrical dramas ensued and, for a time, pirates and rumors of pirates continued to
haunt the southern coast. The image Blackbeard created lingered and was colorfully
portrayed by Robert Louis Stevenson in Treasure Island. Today his memory is kept
alive in Williamsburg through interpretive programs at the Capitol and Gaol.
Williamsburg's connection with pirates dates to 1693. Account books of the College of
William and Mary show £300 received from three buccaneers named Edward Davis,
Lionel Delawafer, and Andrew Hinson, who thus obtained their release from the
Jamestown jail. Blackbeard quartermaster William Howard, while incarcerated in
Williamsburg, was defended in court by the town's first mayor, John Holloway,
characterized by Spotswood as "a constant patron and advocate of pirates." Nine of Blackbeard's crew survived to be captured and, with six others seized in Bath,
were brought to Virginia's colonial capital for trial, probably held in the General
Courtroom on the first floor of the Capitol. March 1719 saw 13 pirates meet their end
on the gallows along Williamsburg's present Capitol Landing Road.
During the 17th and 18th centuries in England and America, the bodies of executed
pirates were often later hanged in chains near harbor entrances and left for years as a
warning to would-be pirates. It is recorded that Spotswood required this action to be
taken, with four "profligate wretches" hanged by twos at Tindall's Point on the York
and at Urbanna on the Rappahannock. Blackbeard's skull hung for many years from a
pole at the confluence of the Hampton and James rivers. The site is still known as
Blackbeard's Point.
Reputable sources declare that the relic was later taken down and fashioned into a
silver-mounted drinking cup. Antiquarian and publisher John F. Watson states that
the "skull was made into the bottom part of a very large punch bowl, called the infant,
which was long used as a drinking vessel at the Raleigh Tavern in Williamsburg. It
was enlarged with silver, or silver plated; and I have seen those whose forefathers
have spoken of their drinking punch from it, with a silver ladle appurtenant to that
bowl." Historian and author John Esten Cooke, in his Virginia, states that the cup was
still preserved in the state in 1903. The usage of skulls as drinking cups is an ancient
practice. The Roman historian Livy makes reference to northern Italians cleaning and
gilding crania for use as drinking goblets; Plutarch and Herodotus record similar
rituals practiced by the Teutons, Scythians, and Tibetans.
As recently as 1989, Charles H. Whedbee, a lawyer and state legislator in North
Carolina, wrote a volume of reminiscences describing an event of the early 1930s when
he visited a law school friend from the University of North Carolina at his home on the
coast. Touring Ocracoke, they stopped at Blackbeard's Castle near Silver Lake. It was
an odd but convivial evening, spent among rough seamen speaking with the
Elizabethan inflection familiar to the area. They drank from what was purported to be
Blackbeard's silver-plated skull. Incised around the outer circumference were the
words: "Deth to Spotswoode."
"In the commonwealth of Pirates," concluded novelist Daniel Defoe writing under the
nom de plume of Captain Charles Johnson in 1724, "who goes the greatest length for
wickedness is looked upon with a kind of envy amongst them, as a person of a more
extraordinary gallantry, and is thereby entitled to be distinguished by some post. And
if such a one has but courage, he must certainly be a great man." Blackbeard has been described as "the embodiment of impregnable wickedness, of
reckless daring, a nightmarish villain so lacking in any human kindness that no crime
was above him. . . the living picture of an ogre who roamed the seas and withered all
before him with his very presence." He was, an 18th-century writer said, like "a
frightful meteor" that "frightened America more than any comet that has appeared
there in a long time."
Colonial Williamsburg Journal, Vol. 15, No. 1 (Autumn 1992), pp. 22-28.
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Historic Triangle