Unit Study: The Legend of Blackbeard

The notorious English pirate was captured and killed by the forces of the Governor of Virginia more than 300 years ago this November, but his story is as fascinating as ever.

Canons and gunfire broke the silence of Ocracoke Island in the early morning hours of November 18, 1718. The pirate Blackbeard’s ship had been ambushed unawares, but pirates are always ready for a fight, and for several hours, it seemed that the battle could go either way. In the end, though, the sloop Adventure couldn’t maneuver around the British fleet that surrounded it, and the notorious Blackbeard was dead. Royal Navy lieutenant Robert Maynard returned to port in triumph, with the  pirate’s decapitated head swinging from his ship’s bowsprit.

Believe it or not, this story is only the tip of the iceberg: Blackbeard — who was probably originally christened  Edward Thach or Teach — lived a life of drama befitting a, well, pirate. Likely, the man who would become Blackbeard — so called because of his long black beard — started out as a privateer, essentially a pirate who answered to the British government, but like many privateers, Thach realized that being his own master would be more lucrative than working for the royal government. Some of the stories you’ve heard about the infamous criminal are true — he really did light matches under his hat to give him a demonic appearance in battle, and he successfully blockaded the port of Charleston to get a chest of medical supplies — but the real-life  history of Blackbeard is as interesting as any invention.

Read This

ELEMENTARY AND MIDDLE

• For a simple, concise introduction to Blackbeard’s life and times, pick up Who Was Blackbeard? by James Buckley. 

• OK, there’s actually no evidence that Blackbeard (or, indeed, the majority of pirates) ever buried treasure — the event that pulls three time-traveling boys into Blackbeard’s wake in The Not-So-Jolly Roger by Jon Scieszka — but it’s easy to give a little suspension of disbelief to this wickedly funny pirate adventure.

• The snappy, infographic-filled Pirates by Brian Williams is designed for flip-and-dip readers — you can learn a lot just scanning the pages for the bits that interest you.

HIGH SCHOOL

• The captivating The Republic of Pirates: Being the True and Surprising Story of the Caribbean Pirates and the Man Who Brought Them Down by Colin Woodard is a great place to start a more engaged study of Blackbeard. Woodard focuses on the Golden Age of Piracy, in which Blackbeard and peers established organized government, and on former privateer Woodes Rogers, who helps bring down the developing pirate empire.

• Maritime historian Baylus C. Brooks used DNA databases like Ancestry.com to trace the history of Edward Thrace in Quest for Blackbeard: The True Story of Edward Thache and His World, making a fairly convincing argument that the Jamaican resident — son of Capt. Edward and Elizabeth Thache — is the historical Blackbeard. Brooks turns a critical eye on pirate legend, trying to objectively recreate the world of colonial piracy.

• If you want a gung-ho history of Blackbeard that paints the pirate as the first real American revolutionary, pick up Blackbeard: The Birth of America by Samuel Marquis. It’s a pro-pirate narrative that wears its biases on its sleeve —  which might not be surprising since it’s penned by a descendant of another infamous pirate, Captain Kidd — but it can lend a little perspective to your reading list if you’re planning to read a few books. (Don’t make this your only book, though.)

Watch This

If you want to get a taste of the stereotypical version of Blackbeard, 1952’s Blackbeard the Pirate is a swashbuckling package of pirate nonsense tied up in an entertaining bow. It’s historically  accurate only in the sense that it portrays historically hilarious stereotypes about the villains of the high seas.

The 2008 docu-series Real Pirates features Blackbeard along with some of his contemporaries — Captain Kidd, Captain Morgan, Mary Reed, and Anne Bonny — for an interesting look at the wider world of colonial-era piracy.

Do This

• Listen to Horrible Histories’ “Blackbeard the Pirate” ditty, which includes verses like:

What my enemies feared 

Was my thick, black beard 

Which I always enjoyed

setting light to, oh

• Play Merchants and Marauders, a board game that lets you choose between a career as a law-abiding merchant or a dastardly buccaneer. Make your fortune through savvy trade, carefully chosen missions, a little risk-taking, and the occasional plunder. (If your clan loves this game, it’s worth springing for the Seas of Glory expansion pack.)

This unit study was originally published in the fall 2018 issue of HSL.

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