Blackbeard: America's Most Notorious Pirate

 
(from Amazon.com)

The definitive biography of history's most fearsome and famous pirate.

Of all the colorful cutthroats who scoured the seas in search of plunder during the Golden Age of Piracy in the early eighteenth century, none was more ferocious or notorious than Blackbeard. As unforgettable as his savage career was, much of Blackbeard's life has been shrouded in mystery--until now.

Drawing on vivid descriptions of Blackbeard's attacks from his rare surviving victims, pirate expert Angus Konstam traces Blackbeard's career from its beginnings to his final defeat in a tremendous sea battle near his base at Ocracoke Island. Presenting dramatic accounts of the pirate's very effective tactics and his reputation for cruelty, Konstam offers a fascinating examination of the life and business of piracy and the lure of this brutal and bloody trade.

https://www.amazon.com/Blackbeard-Americas-Most-Notorious-Pirate/dp/047175885X/ref=sr_1_7_sspa?crid=257VJ2FHGZNWT&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.-gxJYoYtE6STLGF-UUyYLaO7wFmpx9Etgnb8ns4AbK8ApIaRX4pX1wxF1Ycun7yYQz9yknDinCscCumV3F3To0Gn9yQWt5zWbtDb-7cJOSwCy8YT1lOeQU6BcwgX1zxB3SKzmS2FCyOYAlsrWyto6AcfM1jnP46tPl2t3UZyPfaoQGBnlPft16c_olDzQS-ZGKonkgq7nw7HAHPgKC_n-PpJHLy0LNmo_l3_KAm6H4c.4F3V3L0caU3dFIdvbjU6SN-XWtR6jwPJ_mB_7Fhd7V0&dib_tag=se&keywords=blackbeard&qid=1736399396&s=books&sprefix=blackbeard%2Cstripbooks%2C167&sr=1-7-spons&sp_csd=d2lkZ2V0TmFtZT1zcF9tdGY&psc=1

About the author

With over 50 history books in print, Angus is a widely recognised and much-published historian. While he specialises in military and naval history he has also written numerous more general history books, designed to make the subject more accessible to a wider audience. Uniquely he has been able to draw on his expertise as a senior museum curator who has worked on both sides of the Atlantic, as well as on his academic training as a historian and as a maritime archaeologist. 

His latest book is a full-length biography: Blackbeard: America's Most Notorious Pirate, which is published by Wiley & Sons. of New York (June 2006)

Angus is also just finished writing a history of the Allied landings at Salerno in September 1943 for the British publisher Pen & Sword, and he is currently working on a new project, with the working title of Supership: The Quest for the Renaissance Battleship. 

Angus lives in Edinburgh, in Scotland.

From the Inside Flap

"Imagination cannot form an idea of a Fury, from hell, to look more frightful."

--Captain Charles Johnson

Six loaded pistols dangled from his shoulder sling. Beneath a cocked fur cap, lighted candles sprouted from a bramble of whiskers the color of midnight. And the eyes. Wild, fierce, and malevolent, they haunted the memories of those few who were lucky enough to survive their piercing gaze.

Of all the colorful cutthroats who scoured the seas in search of plunder during the Golden Age of Piracy in the early eighteenth century, none was more ferocious or notorious than Blackbeard (who probably went by the name of Edward Teach). Nearly three centuries after his death his name is still synonymous with piracy. Not content with becoming the scourge of the Caribbean, this brutal and fearless hell-raiser then sailed north to strike terror in the hearts of American colonists from New York to the Carolinas.

As unforgettable as his savage career was, much of Blackbeard's life has been shrouded in mystery--until now. Who was this remarkable sea dog? Did he hail from Bristol, in England, or were his roots in colonial America? How did he rise from being an ordinary seaman to become the archetypal pirate? At a time when captured pirates were either hanged by the cartload or offered full pardons by colonial governors if they surrendered, what gave Blackbeard the audacity to blockade the port of Charleston, South Carolina, and remain defiant to the last?

Blackbeard: America's Most Notorious Pirate traces Teach's career from the time he went to sea to his final defeat in a tremendous sea battle near his base at Ocracoke Island. Pirate expert Angus Konstam follows in Blackbeard's bloody wake through the Caribbean and describes his encounters with many others in the trade, especially at Benjamin Hornigold's "pirate school" in the Bahamas. He also reveals how Teach assembled the most powerful pirate fleet of his day and examines his fateful alliance with the "gentleman pirate" Stede Bonnet.

Drawing on vivid descriptions of Blackbeard's attacks from his rare surviving victims, Konstam presents dramatic accounts of the pirate's very effective tactics as well as his reputation for cruelty. Angus also examines the life and business of piracy, explains the lure of the trade, and reveals how contraband played an important part in the establishment of colonial America's fragile community.

Tales of Blackbeard and his exploits have entertained readers ever since his death. In real life, however, a run-in with this fearsome pirate was no laughing matter. After reading Blackbeard, you'll count yourself lucky to have avoided experiencing the Golden Age of Piracy for yourself!

Colorful Cargo at the McLarty Treasure Museum

(verobeachmagazine.com 2-19-24)

Sometimes the greatest treasures are hidden in plain sight.

We know that well on the Treasure Coast, where salvage experts like Mel Fisher and his family are renowned for their amazing finds, and where there are still occasional stories of the glimmer of gold seen through the waters. Likewise, the origin stories of the treasure are hidden in plain sight. We all know about the 1715 hurricane and the shipwreck of the galleons. But what happened before the storm? The treasure of our coast had an intriguing journey even before it ended up on the Spanish ships that would prove bound for Davy Jones’ locker.

When the Treasure Fleet set sail from the great port of Havana, Cuba, it was carrying goods that came from South America and even from as far off as Asia. Did you know that Chinese porcelain was part of the cargo? Today, delicate blue-and-white ware can be seen at the McLarty Treasure Museum in Vero Beach and Mel Fisher’s Treasure Museum in Sebastian. Park Services Specialist and archaeologist Corey Kerkela of the McLarty Treasure Museum explains that these exotic items were carried across the Pacific by a separate fleet before they ended up on the Spanish Main (the body of Spanish colonial territories in the mainland Americas).  

“Chinese goods were shipped across the Pacific to Acapulco and then taken by donkey to Veracruz,” says Kerkela. The ships of the Pacific fleet were known as Manila galleons because they sailed from Manila in the Philippines, which had been explored by Magellan; subsequent voyages had led to the discovery of a route called the North Pacific Gyre, which made use of powerful currents to shorten the time involved in traversing the world’s greatest ocean. This course supplanted the famous “Silk Road”—the overland route that had brought Chinese goods to the West since ancient times, and which had been made even more famous by the adventures of Marco Polo. 

“As ships got more efficient,” Kerkela explains, “there was no longer the need for the overland route. What’s the use of going up through Samarkand and all those places when you can sail home?” Camel caravans trekking across the desert gave way to mighty ships crossing the blue Pacific.  

Today, experts identify the porcelain artifacts from the Treasure Fleet as Kangxi ware, named for the Qing Dynasty emperor during whose reign they were made. Kangxi porcelain is valued for its brilliant coloring, referred to as “underglaze sapphire blue,” and for beautiful imagery of bamboo, pines, flowers, and landscapes. The challenge, of course, was keeping these fragile works of art intact during the long voyages. Often they were packed in mud, which would then dry into a sturdy protective shield. If the Treasure Fleet had made it back to Spain, the humble dried mud would have been split open to reveal the precious and beautiful blue-and-white porcelain within. Of course, that was not to be. 

Gold and silver are more familiar cargo items for Spanish galleons; indeed, what would a Treasure Fleet be without them? Yet here, too, there are exotic stories behind the journeys of the artifacts. Gold and silver flooded into the Spanish Empire when the conquistadores, with their firearms, overran the Inca dominions; along with the differences in technology, the Inca were in the midst of a civil war at the time of the attack, distracting them from the impending threat. 

“After the conquest of the Inca, the Spanish found there was lots of gold in South America,” explains Kerkela. “There were walls of gold in Cuzco,” the Inca capital. “At first, the Spanish just melted down the walls.” Another account concerns a golden chain twice the length of Cuzco’s greatest public square. Furthermore, the Inca used gold and silver to fashion sculptures of llamas, alpacas, and other animals that were important to them, as well as human figures. These sculptures were often found in temples and mountain shrines. 

Curiously, the Inca never used gold as currency. They valued precious metals—gold was “the sweat of the sun” and silver “the tears of the moon.” However, rather than trading gold, they viewed it as the personal property of the emperor, who was associated with their sun god. To Europeans, however, gold and silver were money, and the conquistadores considered themselves rich beyond the dreams of avarice. Many precious items were melted down. A surviving artifact at the Mel Fisher Treasure Museum, however, may reflect the Inca background of much of the galleons’ cargo: a silver plate with carvings of condors. The regal condor, an enormous bird of the high Andes, was revered by the Inca and other South American peoples. 

Nevertheless, the conquest was in the 1500s, and by the time of the 1715 fleet, the wealth of the cities had already been plundered. Thus, Kerkela says, the gold and silver of the Treasure Fleet was largely from mining. “There was a mountain of silver called Potosi, and the silver was brought by horses and mules to Lima and then sailed up to Panama.” Even centuries before the Panama Canal, he points out, “Panama was always the shortest and easiest way to get across.”

Another treasure of the galleons was actually insectoid in origin. The cochineal, a relative of the mealybug, is the source of a bold crimson pigment. A related species had been used in the Middle East and Europe for centuries as a source of red pigment; however, the cochineal of Latin America provided a particularly flamboyant color that became highly prized when it was shipped back to the markets of the Old World. 

Before the conquest, the Inca had used cochineal for their valued textile arts; indeed, when the Inca surveyed the wealth of their empire, fine textiles were rated more highly than jewels, and the tradition of textile arts continues in Peru and Ecuador today. It may seem surprising to think of a crimson dye derived from insects being shipped back to Spain amid gold and silver, but cochineal dye was indeed among the treasures of the fleet.

Among the most beautiful treasures aboard the galleons were the deep green emeralds from the mines of Muzo, in what is today Colombia. “Muzo emeralds are the richest in the world,” Kerkela says. “Cartagena, Colombia is an amazing city—they have an emerald museum and a gold museum.” To this day, reaching the mines of Muzo is an adventure, as it calls for trekking across fog-shrouded Andean paths and then descending to the lush jungles and tropical vales where the fabled emeralds can be found. Imagine making the journey by llama or donkey!

As residents of the Treasure Coast, we know about the 1715 fleet and the quests of the famous salvagers. Yet the story behind the treasure adds to its allure and fascination. Tales of gold fever, war and intrigue, the wealth of empires, and perilous journeys across land and sea all lie behind the treasures of our coast.

https://verobeachmagazine.com/features/colorful-cargo-at-the-mclarty-treasure-museum/

The Golden Age of Piracy: The Truth Behind Pirate Myths

 

(from Amazon.com)

For thousands of years, pirates have terrorized the ocean voyager and the coastal inhabitant, plundered ship and shore, and wrought havoc on the lives and livelihoods of rich and poor alike. Around these desperate men has grown a body of myths and legends—fascinating tales that today strongly influence our notions of pirates and piracy. Most of these myths derive from the pirates of the “Golden Age,” from roughly 1655 to 1725. This was the age of the Spanish Main, of Henry Morgan and Blackbeard, of Bartholomew Sharp and Bartholomew Roberts.

The history of pirate myth is rich in action, at sea and ashore. However, the truth is far more interesting. In The Golden Age of Piracy, expert pirate historian Benerson Little debunks more than a dozen pirate myths that derive from this era—from the flying of the Jolly Roger to the burying of treasure, from walking the plank to the staging of epic sea battles—and shows that the truth is far more fascinating and disturbing than the romanticized legends.

Among Little’s revelations are that pirates of the Golden Age never made their captives walk the plank and that they, instead, were subject to horrendous torture, such as being burned or hung by their arms. Likewise, epic sea battles involving pirates were fairly rare because most prey surrendered immediately.

The stories are real and are drawn heavily from primary sources. Complementing them are colorful images of flags, ships, and buccaneers based on eyewitness accounts.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1510758348/ref=sspa_dk_hqp_detail_aax_0?psc=1&sp_csd=d2lkZ2V0TmFtZT1zcF9ocXBfc2hhcmVk

"Little has a deep affection for his subject that occasionally leads him to affectation, but his use of piratical jargon is more charming than jarring; clearly he’s having a good time, and so will readers. Packed with insight and adventure, Little’s book is sure to strike a note with armchair swashbucklers of all ages." —Publishers Weekly

About the author - Benerson Little is the author of multiple books and numerous articles on pirates, has twice appeared on the History Channel to discuss piracy, and has served as a historical analyst for the Starz pirate drama Black Sails. A former Navy SEAL, he has worked as a naval special warfare analyst, an intelligence analyst, and a consultant on maritime subjects. He lives in Huntsville, Alabama.