Private Proprietary Pirates - Early Capitalism in America, 1700

A letter from Edward Randolph depicts the arrogance of aristocratic oligarchs known as the Lords Proprietors in England and the negligence they placed upon their private possessions in the American colonies, particularly Carolina, the Bahamas, and New Jersey. This was a prime example of the dangers of private control in the matters of government. Privatization at this level facilitated piracy in the Bahamas as well as multiple abuses across America. Indeed, it began the development of America by the Stuarts of England as a criminal domain, given as gifts to these aristocrats who were charged with the theft of all the possessions of Spain "beyond the lines of amity" or friendship! This attitude remained in America through the reign of the Stuart Dynasty - nearly the entire 17th century - until the ascendancy of the Whigs, or more liberal administrators of England took control after the "Glorious Revolution of 1688." Still, the damage was already done.

These pervasive criminal tendencies involved theft, slavery, murder, extortion, bribery, rampant smuggling so far from authorities, 3,000 miles away in England. It probably infested the nascent United States with the same ubiquitous criminal element and led to the Confederate States of America attempting to maintain this criminal West-Indian society, slavery, and all the abuses that accrued hereto during the Civil War (1861-1865). And, it likely led to many abuses we find in government today under the outlaw Trump Administration. We are indeed, as "Capt. Charles Johnson," the author of A General History of the Pyrates, called us in 1724, a "Commonwealth of Pyrates!"

This is just a small window into the behavior of the men that came to rape Spain's colonial lands - before the development of the "Flying Gang" of Benjamin Hornigold in the Bahamas almost two decades later. Edward Randolph tried to warn the Board of Trade of the dangers still infesting these waters because of these criminal creoles. Many of today's Americans are their descendants.

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March 25, 1700  New Providence [separated for readability]

Edward Randolph to the Council of Trade and Plantations. Begins as March 11.

I am, I thank God, in health but not recovered of the lameness I got in gaol at Bermuda. I landed [at New Providence] the 10th inst.[March 1700] and finding Mr. Read Elding (tho'illegally, yet) actually in the possession of the Government,

... the next day, after some debate [I] had with him [Elding], I administered to him the oath, though several objections were at that time made to the contrary, viz. that he assumed the Government by virtue of an illegal commission clandestinely obtained from [Nicholas] Webb, being also contrary to the Lords Proprietors' instructions which direct the method of appointing another Governor, in case of the death or departure of the present.

Besides, Webb went away on a suddaine to Philadelphia, not having first advised with the Council nor had the consent of any one of them about his appointing Elding his Deputy, which was not known to any of them till Webb was under sail, so that the Government is of right invested in Mr. Richard Peterson, a Lords' Deputy and the first in Council.

But they, finding the inhabitants divided and ready to cast off all Government, chose rather to sit still than hazard the peace of the country, and expect the Lords Proprietors' directions in that matter.

But the chief thing before I gave the oath that I scrupled at [had a problem with] was, that Elding, under pretence of a commission to him from Webb to apprehend pirates, etc., piratically seized a briganteen of Boston, John Edwards, Master.

Webb, Elding, and the others to whom he had given the like commissions, shared the money they found aboard.

Elding does not only brave it out [take advantage of?] upon the Commission Webb gave him to be Lieutenant Governor, but supports himself in the lawfulness of the other commission to take pirates, but sets a very high value upon his services by the accidental seizing Hind the pirate and afterwards executing six of his accomplices.

Hind and four of his men were surprised upon an island 10 or 12 leagues from hence by a Bermuda man [Bermuda vessel]: the three others were taken by chance and executed also, but one of the four, having nothing proved against him, [though he] was discharged and sent by Elding to cut logwood at Campeach, run away, and [Elding] believes his good services against Hind, etc., will expiate for his own piracy upon Edwards.

[Elding] a day or two ago caned Mr. Gower, a Lords' Deputy, most severely, and keeps him in prison, for questioning his power to appoint a Judge to try the pirates, a thing questioned by all the Lords' Deputys.

Their Lordships [Lords Proprietors] at home are very careless and ignorant of their own interest and of the good of the inhabitants. Though many complaints upon just grounds are made to them, praying for relief, yet they take no notice of it, nor of the most arbitrary government of Trott and Webb; neither of the late action done by Elding against Edwards, which they had notice of, but discourse him very indifferently upon that matter.

These inhabitants are daily more unsettled, and will give little credit to what their Lordships [Proprietors] say or promise them they will do for their encouragement, when at the same time they sell and dispose of their privileges for very inconsiderable sums, as Hog Island, lying to the north of Providence, which makes the harbour, 'tis, after several grants and confirmations thereof to the inhabitants, sold to [ex-Gov] Mr. Trott for 50l., to the utter ruin to the inhabitants of this town.

Hog Island in the Bahamas - just across Nassau Town Harbor from Nassau, New Providence Island

Their Lordships [Proprietors] have likewise granted away the royalty of the whale fishing and a great part of the Island of Abbico to one Dudgeon, late Secretary and Marshall of Bermuda a sort of stock jobber, for 30 years, as appears upon record here;

... neither do they regard into whose hands the Government of these Islands comes [lawlessness].

I am well informed that for more than seven years past seldom less than four known pirates have been [on] the Council.

I brought Commissions to persons upon the place to be Officers in the Court of Admiralty, but all of them, except Ellis Lightwood, the intended Judge, are either dead or removed.

I find him [Lightwood] an ill man, and was a busy promoter of oppression in Trott's and Webb's time, as appears by the records of the Courts in which he was Judge. Besides, he is the only security for Bridgeman [Henry Bridgham], alias Every's appearing here when demanded, in one bond of 1,000l., and also for 10 or 12 of his company in a like bond of 1,000l. for each of their appearance.

I have suspended the delivery of the Commission to him for that reason. 'Tis expected that orders will be directed to some persons here to put those bonds in suit, ('twill deter others); the securities have got a great deal of money.

I know no man so fit for that service as Mr. Thomas Walker;

... as to Mr. Warren, the Attorney General, he is security also for some of Every's men.

Packer, one of that gang [Henry Avery/Bridgham's], is married to Elding's sister now in town. His Majesty will have little justice done him by Elding and others of his party, who bear all the sway here.

Webb was directed and proved an apt scholar under Trott's discipline and advice: Elding writes after his [Webb's] copy and expects to be made the Governor, by which appears the deplorable and miserable conditions the poor inflicted inhabitants have lived in from the time of their resettlement, after they were drove off and destroyed in 1680 by the Spaniards, who watch an opportunity to do the like again.

The Lords Proprietors laid out money and sent over a few arms with some ammunition to the value of 3,600l. [it actually came to just over 800l., which was the presumed profit of the Bahamas] sterling towards the defence of the country. After all their charge their fort is not serviceable. Certainly the inhabitants will either desert the place or submit to any foreign Power that will protect them.

The interests and the affairs here between the Lords and the inhabitants are so different and distracted that it will require a long time to bring them to a right understanding. From the consideration whereof I humbly propose that His Majesty will please to require Read Elding to answer in England for his piracy against Edwards, and, further, that in the meantime till there be a complete settlement in this and all other the Proprieties, that His Majesty be pleased to direct his Commission to Thomas Walker, Esq., an ingenuous man, one of the Lords' Deputies, to be the President, and to Richard Peterson [father-in-law of Adm. Judge Edmond Porter of North Carolina], a Deputy, Isaac Rush, Richard Tollefero, Thomas Williams, Martin Cook, Samuel Frith, Perient Trott, Jeremiah Wells, and John Bethel, to be the Council and to take upon them the administration of the Government of these Islands, (being all of them settled inhabitants,) during His Majesty's pleasure.

Probably the Draft Commissioned below... in the Library of Congress maps

I have the promise of an exact draft of these Islands and of the fort and harbour of of this town, but being presently bound to Carolina in my return to Bermuda, I have recommended the care thereof to Mr. Walker, who will make it his business to see them exactly drawn and transmit them with a complete narrative thereof to your Lordships. Signed, Ed. Randolph, S.G. Endorsed., Recd. July 20, Read July 25, 1700. Holograph. 2½ pp. Enclosed,

    250. i. Abstract of above. 1¼ pp.
    250. ii. Copy of Read Elding's Commission from Gov. Webb to be Deputy Governor of New Providence, etc. April 13, 1699. Endorsed., Recd. July 20, 1700. 1 p.
    250. iii. Copy of a clause in the Lords Proprietors' Commission to their Governor about appointing Deputy Governors, Jan. 12, 1692. ½ p. Same endorsement.
    250. iv. Copy of Gov. Webb's Commission to Read Elding to take pirates, July 13, 1698. 1 p. Same endorsement.
    250. v. Copies of depositions by John Edwards, Master; Ebenezer Dennesse, Mate; and John Stiles, Boatswain; William Gray and John Ashcroft, Mariners, of the Bohemia Merchant, which was chased and piratically seized by Read Elding off Cape Florida, August 2, 1698; and of Daniel Kenney, of the Sweepstakes. 3 pp. Same endorsement.
    250. vi. Copy of letter from Lords Proprietors of the Bahama Islands to Gov. Webb and Council, May 27, 1699. 1¾ pp. Same endorsement.
    250. vii. Copy of an Order of the Grand Council, Nassau, July 8, 1690, making Hogg Island a free Common. On back, Copy of disallowance of the same by the Lords Proprietors. Sept. 21, 1699. Same endorsement. [Board of Trade. Proprieties, 5. Nos. 31, 31.i.–vii.; and (without enclosures), 26. pp. 248–256.]

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Just published 2nd Electronic Edition of Quest for Blackbeard!

Some of the poorer sort went aboard pirate ships and sloops as crew, certainly, but they usually were not as well educated as those who navigated them. The tale of these early pirate leaders’ gentlemanly demeanor, formerly wealthy privateers, has been confined, narrowed, and almost eradicated by literary rhetoric. Worse still, modern historians attempt to explain them all as an early form of democratic society, confusing some of these gentlemen with the common people and further skewing their reality. The people we call “pirates” today most resemble those found in the Bahamas after 1715, driven out by 1718, scattered refugees of a barren island and rude maritime subsistence, but the real pirate leaders of the Golden Age were wealthy – the 97% were blamed for the crimes of the 3%! This injustice is where we must begin the true Quest for Blackbeard!

http://www.lulu.com/shop/baylus-c-brooks/quest-for-blackbeard-the-true-story-of-edward-thache-and-his-world/ebook/product-24414312.html
 

Author website:
baylusbrooks.com 

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Only $0.99... so, please read. Understand the need for #Resistance

https://www.amazon.com/Golden-Republican-Political-History-America-ebook/dp/B082XJ3ZVZ/ref=sr_1_4?keywords=trump+commonwealth&qid=1579900044&s=digital-text&sr=1-4

More Primary Sources Available!

There are a few new transcriptions available on my website at http://baylusbrooks.com/index_files/Page7226.htm

Ellis Brand to Admiralty—26 Jan 1720

John Freeman, Second Mate of the City of Ostend - Mar 1723

   Captured by pirates on City of Ostend or Ville d’Ostende, formerly Greyhound

Sieur Robert about Pirates on Madagascar—1730

   Officer of captured La Duchess de Noailles

Comm. Thomas Mathews - trouble with the Dutch Government at Cape of Good Hope—1 Nov 1721

Arguments with Gov. of La Bourbon for Kendall the pirate— letters dated April 1722 to Sep 1723

Keep watching... more coming!

Author Spotlight: http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/bcbrooks

#Blackbeard #pirate #twitterstorians

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BLACKBEARD: 300 YEARS OF FAKE NEWS.
from BBC Radio Bristol
300 years ago on Thursday - 22 November 1718 - Bristol born Edward Teach (aka Blackbeard, the most famous pirate in the history of the world), was killed in a violent battle off the coast of North America. And after 300 years we can finally separate the truth from the myth. You can hear the whole story this Thursday at 9am in a one off BBC Radio Bristol special: BLACKBEARD: 300 YEARS OF FAKE NEWS. With new research by Baylus C. Brooks, narrated by Bristol born Kevin McNally - Joshamee Gibbs in PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN, and produced by Tom Ryan and Sheila Hannon this is a very different Blackbeard from the one in the story books...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p06s6zfx

You can hear it at https://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/player/bbc_radio_bristol

Author Spotlight

#Blackbeard #pirate #twitterstorians


Also:

Three Centuries After His Beheading, a Kinder, Gentler Blackbeard Emerges - Smithsonian Online

By Andrew Lawler
smithsonian.com
November 13, 2018



Read about the final end of Edward Thache:
Murder at Ocracoke! Power and Profit in the Killing of Edward "Blackbeard" Thache



In commemoration of "Blackbeard 300 Tri-Centennial":

As always, drop by baylusbrooks.com and check out the primary source transcriptions

admiralty, adventure, Africa, african, alternative facts, appalachee, arcadia, art glass, bahamas, bar harbor, Barbados, barham, baylus, baylus brooks, bbc, blackbeard, bonnet, book, boston, boston news-letter, bourbon, bristol, British, brooks, burgaw, burrington, buse, calusa, cape fear, capitalism, caribbean, carolana, carolina, castillo, charles johnson, church, cimaroon, cimarroon, clone, cnn, cocklyn, colchester, colonial, condent, confederacy, confederate, congdon, conservative, corruption, Davis, democrat, depression, document, dunn, dutch, east carolina, east indies, ecu, England, fake news, family, florida, french, gale, Gambia, genealogy, genetics, glass, grovesnor, hispaniola, historian, history, hornigold, howell davis, indians, iron gall, itchetucknee, jamaica, jersey, jesus knocking, jolly roger, kkk, la concorde, lawler, lawson, levasseur, liberal, lighthouse, lillington, lyme, lyndon, madagascar, maine, Manhattan, maritime, maroon, martel, maynard, McLaggin, mist, moore, mortar, moseley, mount desert, New York, newfoundland, newspaper, north carolina, original, painting, panama, paper, pearl, pender, pestle, phenney, philadelphia, phoenix, piracy, pirate, pirates, plantation, politics, privateer, profit, progressive, pyrate, QAR, racism, rebel, republican, rice, robert e. lee, rogers, romance, rothschild, Royal African, royal navy, Salem Towne, sawtelle, seager, seal cove, seminole, shark, Sierra Leone, slave, slavery, smithsonian, south, south carolina, southern, spanish, St. Augustine, st. helena, stained glass, staines, symonds, Taylor, teach, thache, thatch, theach, timberlake, time travel, timucua, traitor, treason, treasure, trump, victory, walker, west indies, windows, windsor, witchcraft, witches, woodard, worley, wrecking, write

Plate, Silver, Gold, Jewels and other Merchandise!

1754 Bellin Map of Veracruz, Mexico

 From a traditional English perspective, the 1716 capture of Virginia's sloop Virgin and her crew were acts of Spanish piracy. However, their captor was Don Joseph Rocher de la Peña (b.1651-d.1737 while mayor of Veracruz City), the Rear-Admiral of their elite Barlovento squadron, stationed at Veracruz, Mexico since 1640 -  not exactly a pirate. The state of Veracruz (within which the city of Veracruz sits), comprised most of the Mexican western shoreline in the Bay of Campeche, plagued incessantly by English pirates who liked to steal Spanish logwood from the Bay of Campeche since the days of 17th-century English Buccaneers. In 1684, the Spanish attacked the main stronghold of these "buccaneers" in Charles Town, now known as Nassau - on the Island of Providence in the Bahamas.

Bay of Campeche

Virgin's crew had been confined under allegedly extreme conditions, if we are to believe the reports from their captain Harry Beverley, a wealthy Virginian and former House of Burgesses representative for Middlesex County. Beverley owned more than 3,000 acres of prime Virginia real estate by the time of his 1716 venture to seek pirates - but perhaps more importantly - to seek the wrecked Spanish flota or squadron (in hurricane of 1715) presumed by Lt. Gov. Alexander Spotswood to be somewhere between the Bahamas and the then-Spanish territory of La Florida's east shore.

Was Spotswood merely interested in preserving the recent Treaty of Utrecht between his mother country of Great Britain and Spain? Or, was he a pirate facilitator himself, interested mostly in the spilled treasure on the coast of Spanish Florida?

For a simple colonial statesman, Spotswood concentrated a great deal of his attention at this time on wreck-fishing technology... and on finding out exactly where the wrecks lay! Spotswood specifically suggested fishing the Spanish wrecks as a way of increasing British income, despite the dubious legalities. English Jamaicans wholly supported this effort as well, as Capt John Balchen of HMS Diamond testified. Gov. Lord Archibald Hamilton of Jamaica was determined guilty of exactly the same method: commissioning privateers to take pirates, but then fishing illegally on the Spanish wrecks instead - i.e. becoming a pirate!

Oddly enough, Spotswood later claims that Beverley was blown off course and captured near Bermuda: "The said sloop was taken upon the high seas near the Island of Bermuda, and had never been within some hundreds of leagues of any of the Spanish Dominions." The story he told almost a year later went:

 On 23rd June Beverley departed from Virginia since wch, there is advice from him by letters dated at St. Domingo on Hispaniola the 14th Aug., that two days after he left the Capes of Virginia he mett with a strong wind at South West, which carry'd him into the latitude of 28d. 40m. [approx. latitude of Orlando, Florida] and longitude of 6 degrees [east or west?; 6 deg. west puts him in Florida, near the wrecks] from the said Capes, where on 5th July he found himself close by a ship and a sloop, which proved to be a Spanish man of war called the St. Juan Baptista, commanded by Don Joseph Rocher de la Pena, and the sloop his tender. The man of war fired three shots at Beverley's sloop (which had the English colours flying on board) and then ordered him to come on board, where (without ever looking into his papers or so much as asking for them) only demanding from whence he came, he was made prisoner and his boats crew confined apart. The men of the Spanish ship immediately went on board his sloop, beat and stript all the men broke open their chests, plundered and carry'd off all the cargo, and brought the men prisoners on board the man of war, where they were forced naked as they were to work as the Spaniards ordered them, except Beverley himself, and Mr. Peter Whiting and George Heeble his officers. On the 30th they arrived at Porto Rico, where the Spaniards sold most of the goods belonging to Beverley's sloop, and then on 11th May, they came to St. Domingo. At both which places Beverley conscious of his honest intentions, desired a trial but was denyed, untill they should arrive at La Vera Crux, whither the Spanish Commander declared he intended to carry his prisoners.

The coordinates could mean that Beverley was taken, six weeks after leaving the Capes of Virginia, by Admiral Rocher precisely at the location of the wrecks - which the Spanish still guarded - or he could have been hundreds of miles east of the Bahamas - but, nowhere near Bermuda! Spotswood simply interpreted it as the latter, for the preservation of his own representation - having signed Beverley's letter of marque.

Beverley's instructions in that letter of marque from Spotswood, like those of Hamilton's to his "privateers," were to go to the Bahamas (in the other direction from Bermuda) and report back... especially on the whereabouts of the wrecks that Bahamians were fishing... on the coast of La Florida - a Spanish territory! My suspicions are that Beverley did just that... with six weeks between leaving Virginia and being captured.

What exactly was he doing if not fishing the wrecks or spying on the Spanish who were? Again, how far was he captured from the wrecks by Admiral Rocher in the warship St. Juan Baptiste?

Actually, 28 degrees, 40 minutes was the latitude of Cape Canaveral, Florida - about the northernmost range of the known wrecks' location and near the Spanish salvage camps at St. Sebastien Inlet. Nassau, the main town of the Bahamas, where Beverley was supposed to go first to gather intel on pirates, lay at about 25 degrees. The longitude given, if 6 deg. west, put him dead on Florida, west of Orlando. But, 6 deg. east put Beverley and his sloop Virgin, far east from Florida, at approx. 70 deg. of current longitude or 500 miles east of the Bahamas - still nowhere near Bermuda! Admiral Rocher had no reason to be out there. He would remain closer to the wrecks on the Florida shore to guard them against pirates, as were the Barlovento squadron's orders since 1640.

Nassau, New Providence Island in the Bahamas is at latitude 25 deg.

I'd love to know the official Spanish account of the capture... including the exact location. But... Spotswood claims the official English version (Beverley's more than six weeks of being "off course"... possible, yes... probable? You decide. He may have needed an excuse for being so far north after so much time.)...  Spotswood lied for his pirate. And, Beverley likely covered his aft quarters after being caught red-handed fishing illegally, if you get my drift (the puns are far too easy here, huh?).

Furthermore, Spotswood added "and since 14th Aug. [1716] Beverley nor any of his men have been heard of" as though the Spanish Catholics were evil (religious discrimination? racism?) and did all of this on purpose just to evilly torture some Englishmen! Spotswood's story, if you'll pardon yet another pun, just doesn't hold water for me... I say he facilitated piracy and Beverley was the one committing a crime.

Discrimination against the Spanish is a long-time American tradition! The English came to America to steal Spanish wealth - not much had changed after more than a century - even since the English defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588 - a defeat that originally signaled the weakness of the Spanish Empire! Englishmen literally first came to America as pirates!

It's not much of a surprise that English wills of the time included bequeathals of "Plate, Silver, Gold, Jewels, and other Merchandise," material reflections of Spanish American wealth!

There's a lot more to this international political episode related thru "English-colored glasses" for the past few centuries in Capt. Charles Johnson's A General History of the Pyrates. Perhaps the best way to look at this event is not by reading Johnson... er... London newspaper publisher Nathaniel Mist's... highly controversial polemic that pretends to be a "history."  Historians don't use polemics! The primary sources combined with good old fashioned professional history should do nicely!

I here present to you the actual primary English (and probably quite biased) evidence involved in this case - evidence that may have jump-started British merchants to go against "pirates" in America! I'm still looking for Admiral Rocher's version...

YeahYeah... I blame the British War on the Golden Age of Piracy on Alexander Spotswood, but he wrote a lot of letters and annoyed a lot of people... so he was a good candidate!

Commission of the Privateer Virgin, Capt. Harry Beverley—15 June 1716

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BLACKBEARD: 300 YEARS OF FAKE NEWS.
from BBC Radio Bristol
300 years ago on Thursday - 22 November 1718 - Bristol born Edward Teach (aka Blackbeard, the most famous pirate in the history of the world), was killed in a violent battle off the coast of North America. And after 300 years we can finally separate the truth from the myth. You can hear the whole story this Thursday at 9am in a one off BBC Radio Bristol special: BLACKBEARD: 300 YEARS OF FAKE NEWS. With new research by Baylus C. Brooks, narrated by Bristol born Kevin McNally - Joshamee Gibbs in PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN, and produced by Tom Ryan and Sheila Hannon this is a very different Blackbeard from the one in the story books...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p06s6zfx

You can hear it at https://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/player/bbc_radio_bristol

Author Spotlight

#Blackbeard #pirate #twitterstorians


Also:

Three Centuries After His Beheading, a Kinder, Gentler Blackbeard Emerges - Smithsonian Online

By Andrew Lawler
smithsonian.com
November 13, 2018



Read about the final end of Edward Thache:
Murder at Ocracoke! Power and Profit in the Killing of Edward "Blackbeard" Thache



In commemoration of "Blackbeard 300 Tri-Centennial":

As always, drop by baylusbrooks.com and check out the primary source transcriptions

admiralty, adventure, Africa, african, alternative facts, appalachee, arcadia, art glass, bahamas, bar harbor, Barbados, barham, baylus, baylus brooks, bbc, blackbeard, bonnet, book, boston, boston news-letter, bourbon, bristol, British, brooks, burgaw, burrington, buse, calusa, cape fear, capitalism, caribbean, carolana, carolina, castillo, charles johnson, church, cimaroon, cimarroon, clone, cnn, cocklyn, colchester, colonial, condent, confederacy, confederate, congdon, conservative, corruption, Davis, democrat, depression, document, dunn, dutch, east carolina, east indies, ecu, England, fake news, family, florida, french, gale, Gambia, genealogy, genetics, glass, grovesnor, hispaniola, historian, history, hornigold, howell davis, indians, iron gall, itchetucknee, jamaica, jersey, jesus knocking, jolly roger, kkk, la concorde, lawler, lawson, levasseur, liberal, lighthouse, lillington, lyme, lyndon, madagascar, maine, Manhattan, maritime, maroon, martel, maynard, McLaggin, mist, moore, mortar, moseley, mount desert, New York, newfoundland, newspaper, north carolina, original, painting, panama, paper, pearl, pender, pestle, phenney, philadelphia, phoenix, piracy, pirate, pirates, plantation, politics, privateer, profit, progressive, pyrate, QAR, racism, rebel, republican, rice, robert e. lee, rogers, romance, rothschild, Royal African, royal navy, Salem Towne, sawtelle, seager, seal cove, seminole, shark, Sierra Leone, slave, slavery, smithsonian, south, south carolina, southern, spanish, St. Augustine, st. helena, stained glass, staines, symonds, Taylor, teach, thache, thatch, theach, timberlake, time travel, timucua, traitor, treason, treasure, trump, victory, walker, west indies, windows, windsor, witchcraft, witches, woodard, worley, wrecking, write

Blackbeard after Capture of La Concorde

A ship resembling Queen Anne's Revenge or QAR

The events following the capture of the famed French slave ship La Concorde, renamed Queen Anne's Revenge in a decidedly Jacobite tone, involving Edward "Blackbeard" Thache are quite well known. This is due to many sources of information, only a few of which were newspaper articles. These recently discovered sources often wholly contradict the traditional 1724 source for pirates - fast becoming a known polemical piece of uncited fact blended with elaborate fiction. FYI: the factual bits are to be found in other, more reliable primary sources. So.... why do we still use this heavy historical anchor weight to reality?

More importantly, there were also other primary sources not utilized by the controversial author of that 1724 historical fiction. These include depositions of eyewitnesses to some of these important events - events which include French captains, officers and officials of French ports, Stede Bonnet, David Herriot and his sloop, Adventure, Capt. Thomas Jacobs of HMS Diamond, and the various vessels that eventually composed the four-ship flotilla used to blockade the Port of Charleston!

Archaeologist David D. Moore, for the first time, presented a few of these valuable sources in his article “Captain Edward Thatch: A Brief Analysis of the Primary Source Documents Concerning the Notorious Blackbeard,” NCHR, vol. 95, no. 2 (April 2018), 156-160. Moore has spent a great deal of time analyzing these records. He also seems to have discovered more on the history of Stede Bonnet, the so-called "gentleman" pirate who, in an alleged letter to Col. Rhett, says that he was essentially coerced into piracy by that mean ol' nasty "notorious" pirate Blackbeard - once again titled by the Johnsonite Moore! Still, long before he ever met other pirates, Bonnet seems to have absconded from Barbados with Godfrey Malbone's old sloop Revenge, as the collector noted "Gone without Clearing" and after which a Royal Navy captain warned of a new pirate on the loose!

Barbados Shipping Record referred to by David D. Moore in “Captain Edward Thatch: A Brief Analysis of the Primary Source Documents Concerning the Notorious Blackbeard,” NCHR, vol. 95, no. 2 (April 2018), 156-160. It shows the moment that a 35-ton sloop Revenge absconded from Carlisle Bay, Barbados in spring 1717, "Gone without Clearing" - perhaps with a wealthy Maj. Stede Bonnet then aboard! Capt. Bartholomew Candler mentioned this in a letter to the Admiralty as well. He said the sloop then had "126 men and 6 guns."

Using all of these sources, it is now possible to reassemble the events following La Concorde's capture and the events that followed as they probably played out. Still, many of the ideologies and intents of Edward Thache can truly only be assumed. Some of the events that occurred may not have happened for the reasons that we believe - especially if influenced by other disreputable sources.

My findings in Jamaica, published in Quest for Blackeard: The True Story of Edward Thache and His World, that show a gentlemanly and wealthy Edward Thache - indeed with very different intentions than expected from a lowly "notorious" pirate - may not necessarily need that much "more work" as Moore asserts. Moore still clings - hopelessly, in my opinion - to "Capt. Charles Johnson's"  A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pyrates, that controversial 1724 source that more and more scholars are finding increasingly disreputable. Using this old controversial anti-American (read: anti-pirate counterfactual) rhetorical source can hamper good work. But, so many devotees are reticent to give up the fiction!

For instance, in the paragraph directly following the erroneous telling of Blackbeard's "falling in with the Scarborogh [Scarborough's own log does not confirm this] Man of War," Johnson (whose real name was Nathaniel Mist) mentions that Bonnet then had a sloop of ten guns when he met Thache, which is possible if he had added four guns since leaving Barbados. Still, the passage goes on to explain:

In his Way he met with a Pyrate Sloop of ten Guns, commanded by one Major Bonnet, lately a Gentleman of good Reputation and Estate in the Island of Barbadoes, whom he joyned; but in a few Days after, Teach, finding that Bonnet knew nothing of a maritime Life, with the Consent of his own Men, put in another Captain, one Richards, to Command Bonnet’s Sloop, and took the Major on aboard his own Ship, telling him, that as he had not been used to the Fatigues and Care of such a Post, it would be better for him to decline it, and live easy and at his Pleasure, in such a Ship as his, where he should not be obliged to perform Duty, but follow his own Inclinations.

It should be noted that Stede Bonnet, himself, attempted to regale (and sway) Col. Rhett with a slightly different version (that Bonnet letter to Col. Rhett) of these events with the following passage:

God the knower of all secrets, will lay to my charge; and must intreat you to consider that I was a prisoner on board Captain Edward Thatch, who, with several of Captain [Benjamin] Hornigold's company which he then [Aug 1716-summer 1717?] belonged to, boarded and took my sloop from me at the island of Providence, confining me with him eleven months.

Admittedly, Bonnet was allegedly pleading for his life to Col. William Rhett, the man who had captured him in the Cape Fear River - once he returned there from pirating vessels in Delaware Bay (on his own, without Thache, I might add). Bonnet, himself, in this passage, admits that he was guilty of these events - and of escaping from justice! So... maybe not all he allegedly wrote in that letter can be trusted? Also this assumes that he had, indeed, written such a letter!

Don't get me wrong... I do believe that this letter has a high chance of validity. I'm just exercising the customary caution.

Johnson goes on to explain how Benjamin Hornigold took the French slaver La Concorde (renamed Queen Anne' Revenge or QAR) and then gave it to Thache. This probably did not happen, of course, which Moore tells. French records (transcribed by Jacques Duqoin for the QAR team at East Carolina University) definitely state that Thache took the vessel himself in a 12-gun sloop (presumed to be Revenge), with the help of another sloop of eight guns (probably Thache's former vessel). So... Benjamin Hornigold did not bestow the magnificent mantel of "pirate grand pubbah" upon his not-so-pupilish "pupil" Thache with this ship... another blasting historical error of the inventive Johnson... er... Mist!

Secretary of State for the Navy - Correspondence to the arrival from Martinique 1717-1727: Feuquieres (François de Pas de Mazencourt, Marquis de), Governor General of the Windward Islands - Correspondence ◦ Mesnier (Charles) the Navy to Martinique ◦ December 10, 1717, EN ANOM COL C8A 22 F ° 438

Moore concentrated upon particular French records, from those gathered by the ECU QAR team member Jacques Duqoin, author of Barbe-Noire [Blackbeard] et le négrier La Concorde. Moore assures that Duqoin had believed these records belonged to Blackbeard, but they simply could not pertain to this particular pirate. Agreed. Moore leads into the traditional tale of Blackbeard at the Bay of Honduras at this point.

Still, other French records (which Moore did not go into, but were also transcribed by Jacques Duqoin) do refer to Blackbeard's deeds prior to his meeting others at the Bay of Honduras. These records describe the taking of other French ships: Roy Guillaume de Rochefort, Saint-Antoine de Marseilles, and his semi-military actions against the French of Petit Goave that Thache et al undertook after taking of La Concorde off Martinique, Christopher Taylor's Great Alleyne at Bequia, and the other French ships.

Thache's taking part in a 17 or 18-vessel attack on the French at Petit Goave in Saint Domingue (modern Haiti) shows much more revolutionary initiative (and singular disdain for the French) than a average pirate of the Golden Age. These attitudes may easily have evolved from Thache's higher and wealthier "gentleman" status and the long-running ubiquitous French abuse against his home of Jamaica!

One French record dated 21 Jan 1718 tells of the pirate's capture of "Concorde of Nantes charged with 500 blacks, Roy Guillaume from Rochefort and the Saint-Antoine de Marseille from Martinique to Santo Domingo. They gathered at the islands of Providence [probably Long Island in the Bahamas] to the number of 18 boats... it was said [in warning of French pirate Jean Martel (who Johnson said was an Englishman)] that they were waiting for 17 pirate ships to go and burn the Petit-Goave... in fact they were gathered in the number 18 boats at Longueland [Long Island is an island in the Bahamas that is much further south and closer to St. Domingue], one of the small islands of Providence [rather, Bahamas]... [the French assembled] 500 good men at Petit Goave, cavalry and infantry, not to mention the 3 armed ships and well-stocked batteries."  From Long Island, pirates planned to launch their anti-French attack by Christmas 1717. Then...  they did:

Jean Morange, captain of La Volante de Saint-Pierre, deposed afterward that:

Two Spanish Corsairs who had arrived in Puerto Rico prior to the expedition to the Crab Island, reported that the pirates, numbering 25 vessels [the pirate fleet had grown!], were at Cape Tibron [Tiburon - western tip of St. Domingue or Haiti], and that they had been burning the French district of Lautibonette* [l’Artibonite—at mouth of Artibonite River north of Petit Goave] at St Domingue... it was the same pirates who had taken the Concorde before [Thache, of course], and had since added forty guns they had taken from an Englishman [Christopher Taylor at Bequia?].

Map of Haiti showing locations of l’Artibonite and Petit Goave

Then, the events that Moore describes in the Bay of Honduras occurred in April-May 1718. As stated, the depositions which Moore reveals spoke more detail to these events of an allegedly "notorious" pirate - if that's how you want to interpret them. But, indeed... was that really what he was? Was he "Notorious" or "wicked" or a "villain" as Johnson-Mist describes in his heavily elaborated pages? I do not think so. Did I mention that Johnson... er.. Nathaniel Mist was a controversial Jacobite newspaper publisher who was arrested often, held in stocks once that we know of, and even nearly died in Newgate Prison? I'd suggest we take this into consideration when we evaluate his motives for writing a popular pirate "counterfactual" hit-piece a few years later!

Note that Johnson's book was first published in 1724. Only 15 years later, in 1739, Barbadian Charles Leslie, in his A New History of Jamaica, described a family quite like that which I described from the Jamaican Anglican Church records. Leslie wrote "that Blackbeard was born in Jamaica of very creditable Parents; his Mother [Lucretia Thache, died in 1743] is alive in Spanish Town to this Day, and his Brother [Cox Thache, died in 1737] is at present the Captain of the Train of Artillery." The family of Thaches that I found (Edward Thache Sr. with 2nd wife Lucretia and eldest son Edward Thache Jr.) in Jamaican Anglican Church records were living in St. Jago de la Vega, aka "Spanish Town" from about 1686-1743... and were there c1735 when Leslie visited the Jamaican capital city to research his book.

Patrick Pringle, c 1953

Later pirate author, Patrick Pringle also recognized Leslie's book in 1953 as carrying a very different impression of Blackbeard than we have attributed to Edward Thache for the last 300 years, due to Johnson's unreliable book. He asserted that "Pirates had been Maligned" in a Louisiana newspaper article about his new book, Jolly Roger: The Story of the Great Age of Piracy. Pringle, too, looked for the records that I found (through Ancestry.com and Familysearch.org), but was unable because he relied on the new local archivist (started 1950) who had to clean up quite a mess before he could do any kind of research for anyone. Of course, these records were well-kept in St. Catherine's Parish Church, just a couple of miles away from his office at the time. He just didn't look there.

Dr. Manushag N. Powell

Nathaniel Mist was not telling a history, but writing an entertaining and experimental type of "piratical counterfiction" as described by Associate Professor of English at Purdue University Dr. Manushag N. Powell - you might also had heard me mention this before. She regarded "Blackbeard, meanwhile, was popular in large part due to his sensational treatment as a theatrical, lascivious devil in A General History of the Pyrates (1724-1728)." Her treatise "The Piratical Counterfactual from Misson to Melodrama" properly explores Johnson or Mist's book as a work of fanciful historical fiction, experimenting with "a number of modes—including history and romance and, through their combination, counterfactual writing. This is more than just an interesting quirk of composition. It is radical experimentation, an extremely early and atypical example of the counterfactual mode... This is what counterfactual writing does: it plays upon readers’ willingness and even desire to invest in an alternative world in which we pretend a thing we know did not happen, did."

Really, my hat's off to Moore and other researchers like him who ply through the records for each and every clue. But, we all must exercise some measure of caution when using A General History as actual "history," as Dr. Powell suggests. We must analyze all records and the biases and intents of each and every one found before making judgements. We must analyze our own inner biases as well - tradition does not a history make! The new era of mass digitization which helped me find Blackbeard's family will reveal many more past biases and secrets heretofore unknown to historians. There are now billions of records out there of which historians have yet to analyze - genealogical and historical. These records will also help expose the art of modern genealogy as absolutely essential and worthy of an exalted place in the professional historian's toolkit!

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Recent publicity by BBC Radio Bristol and the Smithsonian:

BLACKBEARD: 300 YEARS OF FAKE NEWS.
from BBC Radio Bristol
300 years ago on Thursday - 22 November 1718 - Bristol born Edward Teach (aka Blackbeard, the most famous pirate in the history of the world), was killed in a violent battle off the coast of North America. And after 300 years we can finally separate the truth from the myth. You can hear the whole story this Thursday at 9am in a one off BBC Radio Bristol special: BLACKBEARD: 300 YEARS OF FAKE NEWS. With new research by Baylus C. Brooks (found in Quest for Blackbeard: The True Story of Edward Thache and His World), narrated by Bristol born Kevin McNally - Joshamee Gibbs in PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN, and produced by Tom Ryan and Sheila Hannon this is a very different Blackbeard from the one in the story books...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p06s6zfx


Author Spotlight

#Blackbeard #pirate #twitterstorians


Also:

Three Centuries After His Beheading, a Kinder, Gentler Blackbeard Emerges - Smithsonian Online

“The real story of Blackbeard has gone untold for centuries,” says Baylus Brooks, a Florida-based maritime historian and genealogist.

 By Andrew Lawler
smithsonian.com
November 13, 2018

Please keep up with updates on my website at baylusbrooks.com and at my Facebook pages: Baylus C. Brooks and Quest for Blackbeard.

Watch for Sailing East: West-Indian Pirates at Madagascar, now published!

Meanwhile, visit my Lulu page for already published material, including Quest for Blackbeard! You can also purchase the book at Amazon.com

 

Quest for Blackbeard is 15% OFF ALL PRINT FORMATS now at: http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/bcbrooks

Blackbeard in Philadelphia?

Quest for Blackbeard: The True Story of Edward Thache and His World attempts to right the wrongs of many past historians and authors, amateur and professional. One of those wrongs is warping the conservative war veteran Edward "Blackbeard" Thache into a virtual comic character, notorious and villainous, a "swaggering merciless brute," as Hugh Rankin called him, based upon simply the acts - as assumed by everyone but Thache, I might add - of the last two years of his life. But, in doing so, we tend to hide from our past and our true natures as citizens of a true "Pirate Nation."

Hiding from ourselves created modern America and destroyed the reputations of gentlemen like Edward Thache. Especially by the latter nineteenth century, a lot of our rhetoric was aimed against our former heroes – privateers and pirates - misunderstood founders of what "Capt. Charles Johnson" or Jacobite newspaper publisher Nathaniel Mist referred to as the "Commonwealth of Pyrates," or America. Still, holding pirates closely to our breasts, turn-of-the-century claims of a local origin for Blackbeard, in the United States, as opposed to Jamaica, appear greatly embellished – ahistorical, but sometimes directly covert.

Why? It seems that, in the latter nineteenth century, once the United States began to assert its own dominance and identity apart from England, Blackbeard became less of an historical figure and more of an ephemeral abstract object, about whom anything could be spoken or invented.

America "adopted" Blackbeard the Pirate! We liked the pirate... and probably his methods!

These literary inventions first appeared in 1844 in a book on Philadelphia – not his actual home of Jamaica – a book relying strongly on hearsay that incurred much damage to Edward Thache’s reputation, while also popularizing him as a local villain – perhaps to avoid the inevitable comparison to capitalists of the era, whose own methods were not so dissimilar.

John F. Watson, in writing the Annals of Philadelphia and Pennsylvania in 1844, first claimed Blackbeard to be a member of a family in North America rather than Jamaica in the West Indies. Watson pulled his information from an informant who told him that he knew the family and that “Captain Drummond was a half-crazed man, under high excitements, by his losses and imprisonment by the French.”  This account gave great detail about being a privateersman out of Liverpool (not Bristol?) – even mentioned a doctor who served with him. Drummond supposedly had been the wild son of Gov. William Drummond, first governor of North Carolina, and was later executed by the governor of Virginia, which invited speculation upon local politics as a factor. Watson’s early work planted a seed: that Blackbeard was not from Bristol or Jamaica, but Virginia and/or North Carolina.

This seed grew through the years, with ex-Confederate Thomas T. Upshur’s twilight-year genealogical theories of an Accomack County, Virginia family of Teaches. It continued through many local theories to Robert E. Lee’s mid-twentieth-century version, until the present day with other local North Carolina-biased work. They all repeated and enhanced the demonized version of Johnson’s “villainous” Blackbeard while also oddly claiming him as one of their own. But, why? Why did demonization of pirates become so popular at this time as opposed to earlier? Was it simply entertainment to the masses or was it more broad – cultural in context? And, why love the demon so much?

Still, Philadelphia held the first and most "supportable" fascination over Blackbeard and it has spawned many a "midnight theory" of notoriety by centuries of authors. Thache and his semi-pirate acquaintance Stede Bonnet visited the Delaware Capes around October - November 1717. A local Pennsylvania councilman named James Logan, and/or his fellow councilman Jonathan Dickinson, apparently remembered Edward Thache when he was the mate of a brigantine from Jamaica who had recently visited their port. Logan wrote about his experience in his peculiar early eighteenth-century literary style:

Some of our Mastrs. Say, they knew almost every man aboard, most of them having been lately in this River [-] their Comandr. is one Teach who was here a Mate from Jamca. [Jamaica], about 2 yrs. agoe...

Note this phrase "Mate from Jamca." The Boston News-Letter, Thursday, Nov 11, 1717, Boston, MA, Issue: 708, on page 2 shows:

Note here the phrase "formerly Sail'd Mate out of this Port." It sounds similar to the James Logan quote above and I believe it was bastardized from his letter. The intent was probably "sailed mate of a Jamaican brigantine out of this port." Newspapers of the day were notoriously unreliable in this respect. But, that does not stop the many authors who would dearly love to have the notorious and villainous comic character as "one of their own."

It's my opinion that Blackbeard never lived in Philadelphia or on the American mainland - in any part of the current United States. He visited that port of Philadelphia about the year 1715 while serving as a "Mate" on a Jamaican brigantine, certainly. He may have remained for a few weeks, maybe a month, as he and the crew exchanged cargoes. This was routine for most mariners and their vessels. But, then he sailed back to his home in Jamaica.

I apologize to all Americans for dashing their "piratish" hopes!

-----------------------------

BLACKBEARD: 300 YEARS OF FAKE NEWS.
from BBC Radio Bristol
300 years ago on Thursday - 22 November 1718 - Bristol born Edward Teach (aka Blackbeard, the most famous pirate in the history of the world), was killed in a violent battle off the coast of North America. And after 300 years we can finally separate the truth from the myth. You can hear the whole story this Thursday at 9am in a one off BBC Radio Bristol special: BLACKBEARD: 300 YEARS OF FAKE NEWS. With new research by Baylus C. Brooks (found in Quest for Blackbeard: The True Story of Edward Thache and His World), narrated by Bristol born Kevin McNally - Joshamee Gibbs in PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN, and produced by Tom Ryan and Sheila Hannon this is a very different Blackbeard from the one in the story books...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p06s6zfx

You can hear it at https://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/player/bbc_radio_bristol

Author Spotlight

#Blackbeard #pirate #twitterstorians


Also:

Three Centuries After His Beheading, a Kinder, Gentler Blackbeard Emerges - Smithsonian Online

“The real story of Blackbeard has gone untold for centuries,” says Baylus Brooks, a Florida-based maritime historian and genealogist.

 By Andrew Lawler
smithsonian.com
November 13, 2018----------------------------

Exciting new detail, including information from French and English depositions, appears in a new book, Sailing East: West-Indian Pirates in Madagascar, now available!

Find further details at baylusbrooks.com
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