Pirates: Behind the Legends (2024) s01e06 Episode Script

1
[Narrator] Of all the captains
who sailed
during the Golden Age
of Piracy,
few were as feared
as Blackbeard.
[Professor] When you think
of Blackbeard,
you just think
of this towering man
with a huge black beard
and brace of pistols
inspiring terror.
[Narrator] Blackbeard
spent his career at sea
building a powerful notoriety
for merciless violence.
[Historian]
A lot of his reputation
was built on his image.
[Narrator] He takes the helm
of the Queen Anne's Revenge,
transforming it into one
of the world's
most infamous pirate ships
and fills it with a brutal
and bloodthirsty crew.
[Historian] He was happy
to go around plundering ships,
taking treasure,
evading capture,
doing some really
quite daring things.
[Narrator]
Could his fearsome image
have been carefully fashioned
by the man himself?
Or by a Royal Navy
desperate to portray him
as a worthy adversary?
♪
Blackbeard's short career
triggers drastic change
and marks the beginning
of the end
of the Golden Age of Piracy.
♪
♪
[Hannah Cusworth] One of
the really fascinating things
about Blackbeard
is that we actually really
don't know that much
about his beginnings.
There are lots of
kind of myths and ideas.
With a lot of these pirates,
we are never going
to necessarily know.
♪
[Narrator] Before he became one
of the most notorious outlaws
in America,
Blackbeard was a common sailor
named Edward Teach
who is believed
to have been born in 1680
in Bristol, England.
Like many others at the time,
growing up in a port town,
he joins a merchant vessel
at a young age
and then serves as a privateer
in a career that takes him
across the Atlantic Ocean
to the Americas.
♪
[David Wilson] From 1716,
piracy is really operating
from New Providence
in the Bahamas.
There is a group of pirate crews
operating from there
which at this point
didn't really have
any form of governance,
so the pirates utilized it
as a key outpost.
[Charles Ewan] It was
a good time to be a pirate
because there wasn't a lot
of real military
or governmental power
in the Caribbean
or the southeastern US
or any of the colonies
at that time.
So, you didn't have
a large naval presence,
so you could be
a successful pirate.
Piracy flourishes
where there are weak
governmental structures.
[Narrator] Edward Teach
has found himself
aboard one of the numerous
privateering ships
of the Caribbean.
His captain
is Benjamin Hornigold,
who preys on Spanish shipping
throughout the Atlantic.
[Ewan] It's important
to know the difference
between being a privateer
and being a pirate.
Hornigold had a license
to prey on Spanish shipping.
Then, when hostilities cease,
that goes away,
and you become a pirate.
[Narrator] Benjamin Hornigold
is the unofficial pirate king
of Nassau in the Bahamas,
a lawless settlement ruled
not by European empires
but by a brotherhood
of cutthroat pirates.
The island becomes his base
for a series of raids.
Edward Teach,
now in his late 30s,
rises through the ranks,
becoming ever more valuable
to Hornigold's crew,
but his ambitions are starting
to outgrow his captain.
He adopts a fearsome new
nickname: Blackbeard.
[Wilson] Benjamin Hornigold
wants to continue
just attacking the Spanish,
and then members of his crew
want to continue and attack
anyone that they come across.
[Ewan] Blackbeard said,
"I think we can really increase
our wealth
if we go after everybody,"
and is able to convince
the majority of the crew
that that is the way to go.
That's how he becomes
the lead pirate, if you will,
of this small flotilla.
[Narrator] When Hornigold
refuses to attack
a vulnerable group
of British merchantmen,
there's a mutiny.
Blackbeard and the crew
depose Hornigold as captain
and strike out on their own.
♪
Now Blackbeard is in charge,
any vessel is fair game,
those belonging
to fellow countrymen
and even rival pirates.
He wants them all.
♪
A tempting prize
sails into view.
It's a well-armed 10-gun sloop
named The Revenge,
led by 29-year-old
Stede Bonnet,
a wealthy gentleman pirate.
[Kevin Dawson] Stede Bonnet
was a Barbadian sugar planter
who was actually wealthy.
And for some reason he decides
to become a pirate.
And so unlike other pirates
who steal their ships,
who capture their ships,
Bonnet ends up buying a ship.
He hires a crew,
he goes off to the coast
of North America.
He has some success
at capturing merchant ships
off the North American coast,
but he has no maritime skill.
[Narrator] To embark
on ambitious raids,
Blackbeard needs to build
his fleet and crew
by any means possible.
Blackbeard sees an opportunity
to take advantage
of Bonnet's naivety
and persuades him
into a partnership.
Bonnet believes he is
the captain of his ship,
but, in reality, he's
little more than a prisoner,
a pawn, to build
Blackbeard's pirate fleet
and give his growing army
the firepower
to attack bigger,
bolder targets.
[Ewan]
After Blackbeard takes over,
we see that he terrorizes
the Caribbean.
[Wilson]
From there, he then moves
to the North American coast
and he's one of
the first individuals
that starts operating
off the coast of North America.
What they're attacking
is mostly English shipping.
[Narrator] Blackbeard
spots an opportunity
to plunder the British colonies
dotted along the eastern coast
of North America.
There's only one problem.
If threatened,
the colonists can summon
the mighty Royal Navy
for protection.
Blackbeard and his crew will
never have a fighting force
strong enough to challenge
the British Crown.
However, the cunning captain
has already begun cultivating
his own image,
allowing tales to spread
of a supernatural, immortal,
unstoppable pirate
in league with the devil.
It's the greatest,
most powerful weapon
in Blackbeard's arsenal:
terror.
[Wilson]
So pirates at this point
are employing fear as a weapon,
and part of that is
by making yourself recognizable,
by ensuring that people
know who you are
and your sort of notoriety.
[Margarette Lincoln] When they
were chasing merchant ships,
he would put lighted matches,
which were essentially
lengths of rope
that you would set a cannon
alight with, into his hat
so that he did really look
like the devil incarnate.
[Wilson] His victims,
they were often tortured
to reveal where their
sort of stashes of treasure are.
They're tortured
to reveal more information
of other vessels
that might be nearby.
[Narrator] Blackbeard's
horrifying legend swells
as he sails from the Caribbean
to North America,
terrifying stories
from survivors
spreading through the colonies.
His plan is working.
Those who cross his path
almost always opt
for a swift surrender
over a violent death at
the hand of the devil's pirate.
But now he's using
the same tactics
to rule over his own crew,
controlling them
with fear and theatrics,
with little regard
for their lives.
[Ewan] He says, let us make
a hell ourselves
by lighting pots of brimstone
and putting them in the hold
and staying in there
with the sulfur burning
until they couldn't
stand it anymore
and see which of us
could last the longest.
[Lincoln] One drunken bout,
Blackbeard loaded his pistol
and fired at random
under a table
where he and two others
were playing cards,
and he kneecapped his
second in command, Isaac Hands,
who was lame
for the rest of his life.
[Narrator] Fear has become
Blackbeard's greatest ally.
By October 1717,
Blackbeard takes control
of Stede Bonnet's ship,
The Revenge,
and plunders his way
from Nassau
to the coast of North America.
He sails as far north
as Virginia, Philadelphia
and New York,
attacking and seizing ships
as he goes.
In a two-week spree,
he captures 15 vessels,
ransacking their valuables
and dumping everything else
into the sea.
His men dismantle and sink
some of the ill-gotten ships.
His plan has worked;
Blackbeard is now the most
infamous pirate in America.
But Blackbeard is
only getting started.
Although they're strong enough
to tackle merchant
and fishing vessels,
to take on
the Royal Navy frigates
patrolling these waters,
he needs a formidable ship.
As they continue south
towards the Caribbean,
where transatlantic
shipping lanes converge,
he spots the ideal prize:
a huge 250-ton French
slave ship named La Concorde.
[Wilson] Pirates often targeted
these larger slaving vessels
because they were so large,
which meant they could have
larger manpower on board.
But they could also mount
more cannons on board as well,
which meant they had
more firepower
and they could attack bigger
and more lucrative prizes.
[Narrator] Blackbeard closes in.
When La Concorde's crew
recognize their attacker,
they surrender immediately.
Blackbeard seizes control
of their vast ship, crew
and its cargo of almost
500 enslaved Africans.
[Ewan] The point is that you
didn't want to have a big battle
with the ship
you were trying to take.
You wanted to scare it.
When you came in contact
with a vessel
that you wanted to capture,
you would have your cannons
all run out,
and then you would pull up
a skull and crossbones
or a skeleton with an hourglass
saying your time is up.
You wanted to scare them
into just giving up.
That way you didn't have
to fight or damage the vessel,
and you could take all their
stuff relatively unharmed.
♪
[Narrator] Blackbeard takes
his new prize, La Concorde,
to Bequia, a secluded island
in the Grenadines.
Here he sets to work
adapting the former slave ship
for all-out war.
He names her
the Queen Anne's Revenge,
the pride of his fleet.
[Ewan] Queen Anne's Revenge
was a bit over 100 feet long,
30 feet wide, had several decks.
We think it had
at least 40 cannon.
[Lincoln]
And that he used this ship
as part of a big fleet
that he was building up.
At which point he called himself
a commodore.
[Narrator] Blackbeard
now has control
of seven heavily armed ships.
He's building
his vast pirate army
and has established
his reputation
in a matter of months
as the world's
most dangerous pirate.
[Narrator] To operate
the Queen Anne's Revenge,
Blackbeard needs more men.
He turns to the captured crew
of La Concorde,
forces the strongest 61
enslaved Africans
and 10 French captives
to join his crew
and banishes the rest.
[Mark Hanna]
During this time period,
a large percentage of the crews
were forced men, they did not
want to be on these ships.
So how do you force someone
on board a ship?
What do you do when you
attack another vessel?
That creates
a really tricky problem
for someone like Blackbeard,
because he might have
a majority of his crew
don't really want to be there
and he needs them to fight.
So one way of doing this
is to get them to sign
some sort of document.
What they're typically known
as, articles.
And the articles could be
rules of how to live.
A lot of historians
have depicted pirate articles
as being very forward-looking,
brilliant ways
of getting societies
to sort of come together.
But in fact, you could see it
the opposite.
Pirate articles could be
perceived instead
as ways of getting
a forced crew member to fight.
Because if you sign your name
on those articles,
it means legally you've said
that you are joining this crew,
and if you're captured
by the Royal Navy,
you'll be executed.
You signed your name
to that document
saying you're part
of Blackbeard's crew.
That means that,
no matter how happy you are
to be part of the crew or not,
you better fight or die.
[Lincoln] By this period,
the crew was highly diverse.
[Mélanie Lamotte]
Probably a majority of pirates
sailing across the Pacific,
the Indian Ocean
and the Atlantic
were not white European men.
A lot of them
were actually African
or of African ancestry
in this time period.
Some of them were
formerly enslaved.
Others were actually
marooned slaves,
so basically they had run away
from their plantation.
I have read that a significant
proportion of Blackbeard's crew
was actually Black.
[Narrator] History speaks of
a pirate on Blackbeard's crew
who goes by the name
Black Caesar.
[Cusworth] We definitely know
that there was
a Black person called Caesar
who was with Blackbeard.
That is
in the historical record.
It seems like it's actually
maybe a conglomeration
of a lot of different
Black pirates
from across that time period.
So sometimes we have him
in Florida,
sometimes we--
he's described
as having this kind of harem
of women on some island.
He's described as then having
an alliance with Blackbeard.
What is really fascinating
for me about Black Caesar,
it's clear that at this time
being a Black pirate
wasn't incredibly rare,
and that we have a huge number
of different people
whose lives and stories
have all come together
into this larger-than-life
character of Black Caesar.
[Narrator] To Blackbeard
it doesn't matter
where his pirates come from,
so long as they're able,
strong and fierce.
Within a single year
he has assembled
the wildest men at sea
and transformed them
into a pirate army
ferocious enough to operate
in the same seas
as the mighty Royal Navy.
♪
Months of raiding
in tropical waters
and fortifying their ships
has taken its toll
on Blackbeard's growing crew.
Life at sea is treacherous.
♪
[Lincoln] They did suffer
ill health.
They did suffer malnutrition.
They did suffer a life
where they were exposed
to the elements and to shipwreck
and running out of supplies.
This is one of the things that
you don't really think about
on pirate voyages,
how awful it must have been.
[Narrator] For a pirate
on the open oceans,
the hunt for food, water
and other supplies
can eclipse their appetite
for silver and gold.
♪
Blackbeard and his crew
are suffering--
hungry, thirsty,
and riddled with disease
from the brothels of Nassau.
They're in dire need
of medical supplies.
[Wilson] Whereas the pirates
of the 17th century
would have been able to sail
to colonial ports
that supported them
and gain access
to these supplies,
the pirates of the 18th century
are now isolated
from those markets,
from those colonial ports.
So they have to find
more inventive ways
to gain access
to the supplies they need.
[Narrator]
Desperate for medical supplies,
Blackbeard and his ailing crew
are about to embark
on their most daring
mission yet.
They set sail
for South Carolina,
a rapidly expanding
British colony
on the American East Coast.
Their target: the well-stocked,
developing port city
of Charles Town.
It's heavily fortified,
with walls making the city
impenetrable by land,
but it's vulnerable
to a blockade by sea.
With the Queen Anne's Revenge
leading his mighty flotilla,
Blackbeard and his men are
strong enough to wreak havoc,
but the captain hopes
his devilish reputation
will lead the city
to give in without a fight.
Pirates sail through
the narrow mouth of the harbor,
making it impossible for anyone
to enter or exit the port.
This is a nightmare
for a port city
reliant on trade.
Blackbeard's plan is designed
to get the governor's
attention.
♪
[Wilson] Blackbeard
blockades this harbor
for around one to two weeks,
taking all vessels
that are trying to come in
and trying to get out.
[Narrator]
Strategically positioned,
Blackbeard draws a net
around Charles Town harbor.
Boats immediately begin
to fall into his trap.
He captures his first ship
before it can raise the alarm.
♪
He seizes another five vessels,
taking their passengers
as prisoners.
[shouting]
♪
[Ewan] He has the most
formidable naval force
in the vicinity.
His Queen Anne's Revenge
had 40 cannon,
his smaller vessels probably had
10 to 12 cannon a piece.
He captures some
of the more prominent citizens.
He demands ransom from the port.
[Narrator] Blackbeard has
a powerful bargaining chip--
many of these captives
are wealthy residents
of Charles Town.
[Wilson]
What he's really wanting
is an exchange
of prisoners that he's taken
for medical supplies.
[Narrator] If the governor
fails to provide them,
he threatens to execute
all 80 hostages,
sink every last ship
in the harbor
and even attack
the town itself.
[Lincoln] And he sent two
of his crew off to Charleston
with the list of medicines
to get the chest.
[Narrator]
Several long days pass.
Blackbeard still hasn't
received a response.
He prepares to attack the city
and murder the hostages.
[Lincoln] Two crew members
he sent off to Charleston
immediately got drunk.
So although citizens
rustled up the medicines
as fast as they could
to send out,
they couldn't find
the two drunken crew members
to go back with them.
And they knew they couldn't
just send the chest,
because Blackbeard
would think it was a trap.
[Narrator] Eventually
the drunken crew members
are located,
and the medicine is delivered.
Blackbeard calls off
his assault on Charles Town
and releases the hostages,
but not before stealing
their valuables.
Nobody has been injured
or killed.
But for an entire week,
one of the wealthiest ports
in North America
has been brought
to a total standstill
by the fearsome reputation
of a single man.
His plan has worked flawlessly.
[Wilson] It shows what impact
even a small number of pirates,
even a small number
of pirate vessels,
can cause for colonial shipping
throughout the Americas.
[Narrator]
Blackbeard slips away,
his legend spreading
across the East Coast.
[Wilson] At this point,
because of the way
the colonial governments worked,
there were individual colonial
governments per colony,
so they're all responding in
their own ways to these attacks.
Sometimes they collaborate,
sometimes they don't,
but what that means
is that the responses
to these individuals
is pretty fragmented
and detached
depending on when and where
they're operating.
[Ewan] And it doesn't get
under control
until the merchants go
to the Crown and say, look,
you are losing a lot
of tax money, a lot of revenue.
And that's really
what gets the government
to kind of step in
and declare a war on pirates.
[Narrator] Blackbeard must move
on from South Carolina quickly.
Whilst the blockade
of Charles Town
was a great success
for Blackbeard,
its repercussions
will make the future harder,
not only for him,
but for every pirate.
[Lincoln]
There was a huge movement
to clean up the islands,
the Bahamas and piracy.
[Narrator] Blackbeard
has nowhere to hide.
Even his former base,
the lawless city of Nassau,
is no longer safe.
The new governor,
Woodes Rogers,
is a formidable pirate hunter,
sent by the British Crown
with a mission
to clean up the island
and capture outlaws
like Blackbeard.
[Lincoln]
Pirate hunter Woodes Rogers,
who had himself been
a privateer,
got a commission to do this.
He arranged that he would get
some kind of payment
for putting down piracy
in this pirate lair.
[Ewan] One of the ways
they try to stop this
is by saying, look,
if we catch you, you're dead.
It's a death sentence
if you're convicted of piracy.
♪
We'll put your body in a cage
and we'll hang it
out in front of a harbor
to show what happens to pirates.
If you give up being a pirate,
we will give you amnesty;
we'll forgive all
your past transgressions.
Clean slate.
You can move forward.
[Lincoln] Then he went armed
with a pardon
so that anybody, any pirate
who gave himself up
would be pardoned,
get the royal pardon.
And then he used the pirates
who surrendered, effectively,
to chase other pirates.
[Narrator] Blackbeard
has escaped Charles Town,
and without the safety
of Nassau,
he scours the East Coast,
seeking a new hideout.
But then his flagship,
the Queen Anne's Revenge,
suddenly runs aground.
It is completely destroyed,
just as the pirate hunters
are closing in.
[Narrator]
Blackbeard's flagship,
the Queen Anne's Revenge,
is stranded,
run aground
in the shallow sands
of the Topsail Inlet
on the coast of North Carolina.
For almost three centuries
little has been known
of his fate,
following the Charles Town
blockade.
But in 1996, archaeologists
made a remarkable discovery:
the wreckage of
the Queen Anne's Revenge.
[Ewan] They found a number
of cannon that were down there,
coin weight that had
Queen Anne on it.
It was clearly from her reign.
It was a couple of years
before the archaeologist,
before our team,
was able to say, yeah,
we're pretty sure this
is the Queen Anne's Revenge.
[Narrator] It is one of only
a few confirmed pirate wrecks
ever to be found.
This incredible discovery
offered archaeologists
a unique window
into Blackbeard's life at sea
and an opportunity to see
if the tales of old
matched their findings.
[Lamotte] Thousands of artifacts
were actually excavated
from this ship.
One of those artifacts
was actually a book
which was a travel narrative
written in the early
18th century
which could be a confirmation
that Blackbeard
was actually educated
and that he was literate.
[Ewan] The Queen Anne's Revenge
is a treasure trove
of early 18th century artifacts.
There's pewter plates, weights
for weighing gold dust.
In fact, about 20 grams
of gold dust
have actually been recovered.
We knew that there had been
20 pounds of gold dust on it.
We assume that Blackbeard took
most of that when he left.
Interesting things
that distinguishes a pirate ship
from, say, a merchant vessel
is when we were excavating
in the forward part of the ship
where the crew was,
you find a lot nicer things
than you might expect.
There was this crystal stemware.
What's a pirate doing
with crystalware?
They should be drinking
out of pewter
or, or just out of the bottle.
Well, this was stuff
that was stolen.
There were a number
of navigation instruments
which kind of helped us
identify this as a pirate ship.
One of the things that you did
when you robbed a ship
is you took things of value,
and part of that was
navigation instruments.
There were medical instruments
that were found.
One of the things
that Blackbeard demanded
when he besieged Charleston
was a chest of medicine.
There was a urethral syringe
used for treating
venereal disease.
It still had traces of mercury
that would have been used.
There were shackles
that were found
that we might be able
to trace back
to when this was a slave ship.
It was a slave ship
for about seven years;
it was only a pirate ship
for about six months.
It's unknown how much treasure
was actually
on the Queen Anne's Revenge
when it ran aground.
I would imagine that Blackbeard
would have taken anything
of any real value with him.
The question becomes, was it
an accidental running aground
or did Blackbeard
do this on purpose?
The archaeology of it suggests
that it did run aground,
that it wasn't lost in a storm
or any other mishap like that.
Looking at the surviving parts
of the hull
suggests that there were a lot
of lead patches on there,
that the ship was not
in terribly good shape,
that it was getting pretty leaky
from being
in the tropical waters.
And Blackbeard had up to 300
pirates under his command.
This was a way of sort
of reducing his crew size,
corporate downsizing,
if you will,
by running his ship aground,
perhaps on purpose,
accidentally on purpose.
♪
[Wilson] At this point in time,
King George I has issued
a royal proclamation
of pardon for pirates.
[Narrator]
The offer of a royal pardon
is attractive to Blackbeard;
his actions have made him
a prized target
for pirate hunters
and the Royal Navy.
By choosing to run
the Queen Anne's Revenge
aground himself,
sacrificing his own flagship
and most of his pirates,
Blackbeard slips away with
as much plunder as possible
and a smaller, elite crew.
[Wilson] The problem is so large
and so vast and so impactful
that a pardon is seen
as really one of the main ways
to deal with piracy.
It's expected that if pirates
are allowed to return
to colonial society
without repercussion,
then they'll do so, and that
will end the pirate threat.
[Narrator] Seeking this pardon
from South Carolina
would be unwise,
the governor still reeling
from the humiliation
of Blackbeard's blockade
of Charles Town.
His best bet is Charles Eden,
the governor of neighboring
North Carolina,
one of the poorest colonies
in British North America.
But Blackbeard must be careful.
The offer could be a trap.
He sends Stede Bonnet
to the town of Bath
in North Carolina
to claim a pardon as a test
of the governor's sincerity.
[Ewan] Blackbeard, I think,
really is a calculating person.
Certainly in it for himself.
[Narrator]
Bonnet's mission is a success;
he secures a pardon
for himself.
News soon reaches Blackbeard;
the offer is legitimate.
But for Bonnet,
the good news is short-lived.
He returns to find
his ship ransacked
and his crew marooned.
Blackbeard has betrayed him.
Blackbeard selected
a small group of loyal pirates,
took most of the valuables
and vanished.
Those who remain--
250 men--
are left stranded
with little to survive on.
Blackbeard and those
lucky enough to join him
receive their own pardon
from Governor Eden
and a commission making them
legitimate privateers.
[Hanna] Privateering becomes
an acceptable act.
It becomes regulated, formally,
there's rules
that are administered.
So that means
that plundering at sea
is a thing that one can do,
but they can do it legally.
[Narrator]
Blackbeard splits his time
between the town of Bath,
Ocracoke Island,
and the high seas.
But it doesn't take long for
concerning reports to circulate
which suggest
the former pirate captain
may not be so reformed
after all.
[Wilson] He seems to be
going to traders
and taking whatever goods
he wants
and giving them whatever money
he expects to give them.
So sort of give them
a little bit of money,
but not as much
as the goods are worth,
sort of committing piracy
by other means,
basically abusing
the traders of that region.
[Ewan] For the inhabitants
of South Carolina and Virginia,
they hated him because preyed
on their shipping,
but North Carolina
was a different story.
North Carolina
was this backwater
between these two
vibrant economies
in South Carolina and Virginia.
So, when Blackbeard shows up
with a lot of stolen goods
that were available
at a decent price,
well, of course we liked him.
What's not to like?
There's someone
bringing you goods
at a price you can afford.
[Wilson]
The governor of Virginia,
as well as the naval officers
in Virginia,
are gathering intelligence
on Blackbeard.
They know about the blockade
of South Carolina.
They're not that enthused
that right next door
is this notorious pirate
who may have taken a pardon,
but they don't really
accept that.
One of the naval captains
employs agents
in North Carolina,
basically to keep track
of Blackbeard and his movements.
[Narrator] Blackbeard is unaware
the governor of Virginia
has dispatched naval officers
to track him down.
♪
Blackbeard spots
two French merchant ships
bound for the Caribbean.
He scans the horizon;
there are no witnesses.
He cannot resist.
Blackbeard captures
the merchant ships,
crew and cargo,
a clear act of piracy.
He takes one ship for himself,
transfers the prisoners
to the second
and orders them to sail away.
When Blackbeard arrives
back in North Carolina,
he claims to Governor Eden
that the ship was found at sea,
drifting aimlessly
without a crew,
making it a legitimate prize.
[Ewan] The governor says, huh?
Well, that's pretty amazing.
I guess you can sell the cargo
and give us our share of it.
[Wilson] There were members
of the North Carolina government
who seemed to support
Blackbeard.
[Narrator] With word of
Blackbeard's piracy spreading,
naval officers from Virginia
arrive in Bath,
seeking evidence
of stolen goods.
[Wilson] They find the goods
of that vessel
within the barn of
the chief justice of the colony.
So the very person that should
be cracking down on piracy
has the goods of the pirate
stashed in his barn.
And it's really
from this point on
that the Virginian governor
and the naval officers
start to move against Blackbeard
because they see the fact
that he is intending
to continue piracy.
[Narrator] Blackbeard thrives
in his new career
as a not-so-secret pirate
enjoying the protection
of North Carolina's governor
as he builds up his base
on Ocracoke Island.
Blackbeard hosts
a raucous celebration
for his crew and
some visiting merchants.
They drink and gorge
themselves,
unaware that powerful forces
in neighboring Virginia
are already moving
against them.
Virginia's governor,
outraged by Blackbeard's
unrepentant piracy,
sends two sloops led
by Lieutenant Robert Maynard
to invade Blackbeard's hideout.
[Lincoln]
Maynard sailed very cautiously
up to the mouth of this creek,
where he had intelligence
that Blackbeard
had anchored his ship.
[Wilson] What's important
is that on these two sloops,
there are no mounted cannons,
so they are going into this
battle purely with small arms,
without any ability to fire
broadsides into Blackbeard.
[Lincoln] Blackbeard,
who was already quite drunk
by the time that he got news
of Maynard's coming,
was alerted to the fact
and suddenly realized
he'd have to shoot it out.
♪
[Wilson] The first sloop starts
to sail into Ocracoke Inlet
but is then beached.
So the second sloop proceeds
and is engaged by Blackbeard.
[shouting and gunfire]
[Lincoln] Maynard's sloop
and Blackbeard's ship
exchanged fire.
And at close range, of course,
this was just terrible.
A great proportion of Maynard's
crew were just mown down.
He was very sensible, though;
he kept the rest out of sight.
[Man] Surrender!
[Ewan] They finally
get close enough
that they can grapple
with one another.
[Lincoln] Blackbeard thought
that actually he had
a clear way,
that Maynard didn't have
very many men left,
and so he jumped onto the ship,
and at which point, of course,
Maynard's men jumped up,
and Blackbeard found
that he had many more to fight
than he thought he had to.
[shouting]
[Ewan] The crews
fight hand to hand.
[shouting]
[gunshot]
Blackbeard is shot by Maynard
but keeps fighting.
He suffers 25 sword cuts
and shots.
[Lincoln] And he was just about
to mow Maynard down
when somebody jumped behind him
and slit his throat.
[shouts echoing]
[Wilson] Blackbeard's head
is then taken from his body
and hanged from the bowsprit
of the sloop.
[Ewan] Depending on which legend
you want to believe,
at that point, Blackbeard's body
is thrown overboard
and it swims around the ship
five to seven times.
[Narrator] Maynard,
an officer of the Royal Navy,
has defeated
the infamous Blackbeard.
[Narrator]
It had only taken two years
for Edward Teach to evolve
from a common privateer
to Blackbeard, the most feared
pirate on Earth.
But now he's met
his bloody fate
at the hands of the Royal Navy.
So how did his legend
continue to grow,
his brutal reputation
gripping the world's
collective imagination
for centuries to come?
♪
[Wilson] What happens after the
battle and after the skirmish
is that the accounts
of this attack
are then printed
and widely disseminated
in Europe and London
and in the Americas,
really to show the formidity
of the Royal Navy,
really to show
that if you are a pirate,
the Navy will come
and hunt you down.
It's to show the successes
against piracy.
That starts to build up
the myth of Blackbeard.
[Narrator] The Royal Navy
had a lot to gain
by encouraging
Blackbeard's reputation,
building him up
as a brutal adversary
that only the fiercest
naval officers could take down.
The more ferocious he sounded,
the better the Navy looked
for defeating him.
[Lincoln]
The myth of Blackbeard,
which is this huge man,
devil-like, that you
couldn't really kill,
who was able to withstand
numerous wounds
before he finally keeled over
onto the deck.
This could have been done just
to big-up Maynard's reputation,
because at this point
in the pirate wars
it was very important
that naval officers
came out of it
looking as heroes.
[Wilson]
They sort of want Blackbeard
to seem like a notorious pirate
that they have managed to
suppress through the Royal Navy.
They're quite lucky
to encounter him
with such a reduced number
of individuals.
If they had encountered
Blackbeard
on the Queen Anne's Revenge,
for example,
with the 40 cannon
and with this full crew,
these two sloops would not have
been able to match him at all.
It's only the fact
that they are able to engage him
in this small inlet
and catch him by surprise
that it seems
that they find success.
♪
[Narrator] Blackbeard also
had known the strength
of his own terrifying legend.
He'd mastered
shock-and-awe tactics
which allowed him to spread
frightening rumors
of his hellish mystical powers,
aware that these would haunt
God-fearing men.
The wilder the tale, the more
effective his use of fear.
[Ewan] A lot of the lives
of pirates was sensationalized,
and that's what we get
from Blackbeard.
[Cusworth] Often it was
about inspiring fear
in the heart of your enemy.
If you think about pirate ships,
they actually didn't always have
the best record
against the Royal Navy when
they actually went head to head,
and so it was much more
about your kind of image
and rumor and reputation.
[Ewan]
The most interesting things
about Blackbeard and his legend
is that we have no record
of him killing anyone
until the final battle.
I find that curious.
[Wilson]
He tortures individuals,
he does attack them, he does
seem quite brutal in doing so.
There was no real justifications
for what he was doing.
But really I don't think
he's any more brutal
than any of the other pirates
at this point in time.
[Ewan] I think he
certainly was self-serving
and had an agenda
to enrich himself.
If you could help him do that,
like the governor
of North Carolina,
well, then, that was great.
[Cusworth] People are very
interested in Blackbeard's tales
because of this
romantic side of it,
of the adventure, of the drama,
and people are really drawn
to those kind of stories,
and I think for all
of those reasons
he is that kind
of quintessential pirate.
[gunshot]
[Narrator] Blackbeard's
piratical career
may have been short-lived,
but his name carries weight
to this day,
his legacy steering the myth
that pirates were
mystical beings,
spreading the fallacy that
sailors could be cursed at sea.
Blackbeard understood
the power of fear;
he built his reputation on it.
But when the Royal Navy
finally defeated him,
they used the same stories
to prove their strength,
bolstering their own image.
In doing so,
they verified legend,
securing Blackbeard's legacy.
[Ewan] You wanted to be
as terrifying as you could,
just made you more successful.
I'm sure had Blackbeard
had been alive,
he would have reveled in it.
[Narrator] In only two years,
Blackbeard had stirred
enough chaos
throughout the Caribbean
and the Americas
to push the Royal Navy
to secure their waters,
forcing other pirates
to look east,
across the Atlantic
to unprotected shores.