Blackbeard was thought to have been active as a privateer for the British during the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-13), Edward Teach or Blackbeard was first heard of a pirate late in 1716. The following year he converted a captured French merchantman into a 40-gun warship, "queen Anne's revenge," and soon became notorious for outrages along the Virginia and Carolina coasts and in the Caribbean Sea.

In 1718 he established his base in North Carolina inlet, forcibly collected tolls from shipping in Pamlico sound, and made a prize-sharing agreement with Charles Eden, governor of the North Carolina colony. At the request of Carolina planters, the lieutenant governor of Virginia, Alexander Spotswood, dispatched a British naval force under Lt. Robert Maynard, who, after a hard fight, succeeded in killing Teach.

Apart from the luxuriant black beard which earned him his nickname, the most prominent aspect of the Teach legend is his great buried treasure, which has never been found and probably never existed.

It is said that Blackbeard was stabbed at least twenty times and shot as many as five times while fighting with Maynard. As the story goes, the two fought in hand to hand combat for as much as forty minutes before Blackbeard finally collapsed due to loss of blood.

It is also claimed that at one time he kept eleven of the most prominent citizens of Charleston as hostage for several days until the city finally paid his ransom demand. His demand? It was a demand for medicine and nothing more. It seems pirates tend to die faster from venereal disease than from fighting.

Blackbeard was one of history's most famous pirates, who became an imposing figure in American folklore.

P.S. Our class saw was might be Blackbeard's silver-plated skull at the Mariners' Museum's pirates exhibit. It was said that his skull was plated with silver and turned into a drinking vessel.

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