Commonwealth of Pyrate's First Revolution

Read the quote above one more time. Those few words carry great meaning and may have been Capt. Charles Johnson's (pseudonym for Nathaniel Mist) crowning achievement in A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pyrates. Mist warned the whole of the British Empire of that insane world across the seas, that provincial wilderness of America – a lascivious world "beyond the lines of amity" that had long filled with villains and desperadoes kicked out of civilization – a collection of criminals who had completely lost all veneer of civilization. These people had forsaken God and goodness, king and country, privilege and right. 

“Commonwealth of Pyrates” alluded directly to America, a forsaken land where “Wickedness” equates to “Gallantry.” Americans, colonials, provincials, or simply... “them” envied this “Wickedness.” And, this commonwealth attempted its first revolt during the Golden Age of Piracy.

What went wrong in America? 

For nearly a century, America developed under the more imperialistic and conservative Stuarts. In 1688, the Glorious Revolution occurred and more liberal Whigs slowly came to power. Eventually, England's Parliament forced a German ruler to the throne, still trying to reduce the power of the monarchy and resist the old Tory conservatism of the Stuart Dynasty. Americans had been growing apart from their mother country for a century, but these actions accelerated the widening gap. They wholly resented the change. Britain began enacting legislation against piracy, but Americans resisted them. Americans still viewed their domain from the old Stuart perspective - militarily, a martial land of feudalism where Christianity became a force of evil intent upon subjugating slaves. They still revered and needed piracy. Americans frightened the liberalizing, civilizing world. They learned to depend upon and even worship their pirates and resent British efforts against them! The British rightly worried of the loss of their tremendous investment in America - a land previously stolen from Spain... and soon to be lost to the wickedness across the sea.

Even by 1700, Americans were no longer British...

The Johnson-Mist quote described a rogue population of criminality - indeed, England had exiled their criminal population to America for decades. The quote did not inspire patriotic unity under the Union Jack. At best, it expressed division. This evil, villainous band of miscreants across the ocean needed to be corrected – and their society as well. America had to be righted – brought to heel. Blackbeard and his society needed to face the king’s justice or be removed!  

Blackbeard may have been the George Washington of the first American Revolution... one that failed and devolved into rebellion...

None of the political speculation or depth appeared in A General History, but then, that might detract from its direct point – its ghastly charm - of America as a place where uncouth degenerates lived. The argument was easy to make that America had become an evil place - pirates and slavery were everywhere. Stuart conservatives continued to conduct their business without regulation. 

Nathaniel Mist wrote this book as historical fiction - and made some good points like this one - still, he sold the book as history, fact – a popular criminal biography based on recent events, and sold to a hungry audience of mariners sure to be at sea for weeks at a time. It was liberal propaganda to reduce piracy and its accompanying evils so that Britain could regain control. 

These travelers to the virtual "hell" across the seas had time to absorb his infectious words, craving entertainment, and would spread the word that pirates there were evil and "notorious." The propaganda would spread across the Atlantic community like a computer virus in software. The wild stories attracted the gullible masses and were often not subtle in their anti-historicity, despite lightly sardonic affirmations of sincerity. A General History was not a history. The ardent wordsmith found it useful to treat the numerous gaps in sources as a blank canvas on which to paint Blackbeard’s “black” infamy and delight his indiscriminate audience - to convince America not to follow pirates, many of them former privateers, into battle against Britain.

A General History delighted in and, yet, admonished Edward “Blackbeard” Thache – for a reason. According to Johnson-Mist, Blackbeard was born in Bristol. His rise begins sometime in late 1716, just prior to the Admiralty’s strongest efforts to put an end to American piracy and regain control over their foreign plantations in the wilds of America. His wealthy family descended from a substantial Anglican minister in Gloucestershire is never mentioned by Johnson-Mist. His service in the Royal Navy on HMS Windsor, totally neglected. His gentlemanly qualities were erased... and, today we assume that discovering pirates' pasts are almost impossible! But, this is simply not true. Quest for Blackbeard tells the past of several of these pirates...

British Anti-piracy efforts and Blackbeard’s simultaneous appearance were probably not coincidental. Johnson-Mist completely confused Thache’s entry into pirate history, perhaps intentionally. He probably knew more than he wrote about Thache’s past. Furthermore, Arne Bialuschewski had pondered the change in tone of the reports coming from the first and quite new colonial news media of the day: the Boston News-Letter. He suspected that propaganda probably infiltrated these news reports, especially the month after Burchett’s instructions against pirates to the colonial fleet – another coincidence? This author of A General History was also financially in trouble and seen as a likely candidate for recruitment by Secretary Joseph Addison’s patron, Lord Sunderland and the Whig ministry, then in charge of Britain. 

Obviously, Britain's efforts only worked for a short time... by 1776, America declared independence on more solid ground and this time, beat the liberal Whigs soundly!

For whatever reason, A General History took great license to alter history and turn Blackbeard, and other conservative American heroes, into villainous monsters. It was an easy transition, though. Still, the book's continued use is a serious problem in history today.

Propaganda is a serious problem in any century. A General History has long been extolled as a reliable source, but it cannot be. The book isn't even necessary for telling pirate history. Johnson-Mist’s sources for his historically-accurate segments are available elsewhere – he used the same sources that we would today. He used the same sources that I used to write Quest for Blackbeard; though, thanks to modern advances in technology, I had many more. The part that annoys all historians, including myself, is that perhaps not all of the sources he used still remain. Still, taking into consideration the liberties, obfuscations, and outright lies that Johnson-Mist used intermingled with the facts, perhaps it is best to largely ignore his book as a historical source and rely upon the primary sources still available. 

After all, America, like its pirate heroes, is concerned with profit... not the truth.

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


"Quest for Blackbeard" has finally been approved for Global Distribution which means that it will be available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Alibris, and other online booksellers very soon. Look for it on my Lulu site at: http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/bcbrooks
 
It is already previewable on Google Books.

Reflections on My Past in Glass

Forgive an aging artist and historian, affected by the nostalgia of the holiday season... Over the past few years, it seems, while I was studying history so intently, I tended to forget about my past career in stained glass arts. I guess Blackbeard the Pirate can really take you captive, even in the literary sense! Many have asked me about this and were surprised and overjoyed that I once worked in such a colorful artistic field. Being in a post-Christmas holiday reflective mood, I feel the desire to brag on myself. So, please allow me this contemplative indulgence to tell you the story... 

In the spring of 1999, while returning to Florida from North Carolina, I happened upon a stained glass shop near where I lived. Looking for employment, I inquired there. The shop owner discovered that I was an artist and asked me if I knew how to cut glass. Having recently worked at a North Carolina commercial glass company, I happily responded "yes!"

Then, he asked me if I had ever painted on glass, to which I had to admit, "No."

After some test of my glass cutting ability, it was decided that, if nothing else, I would at least be capable of helping cut glass. It was a small town and this occupational feat was a rarity.

It did not take long before I tried glass painting and found it a wholly satisfying effort! We were working on a rather large church window with a glass medallion in center that required a painted dove. 

The most interesting part of stained glass painting is the reverse-painting method. Your put the color over the whole piece of glass and then remove the areas where you do not wish this color to be. Then, you fire this "paint" into the glass in a kiln at 1250-1400 degrees. [By the way, I'm selling my old shop kiln on Ebay for anyone who needs a large Skutt kiln for glass or ceramics.]

Also, I have written a book on the construction of a large, almost all-painted piece called "Jesus Knocking" window, showing these details.

Yes, each color is applied and fired separately, so you have to be careful how you plan these pieces. Well, the final result was more than acceptable and the customer was pleased. I was now onto a career as a stained glass artist. 

Over the next two years, we constructed many new church windows and focused our sales on painted pieces. It was quite rewarding and desired, even gaining some recognition from local residents as providers of a unique form of art for their homes. 

Note the lack of grey hair on my head... ;)

One of those residential jobs required a four-paneled depiction of a Florida spring in an aluminum frame so the customer could open his window when he desired. This presented unique challenges indeed. Some of the pieces were painted to provide shadows from the trees/leaves/ground on the ground and water at the spring. The effect was subtle.

By April of 2001, my employers had decided to close up shop and I started my own independent stained glass shop not far away. There, I continued the church work and explored other areas of glass art like melting glass, oozing (pun) with pleasure. The kiln that I'm selling now became my favorite toy as well. 

The final window that I constructed at the end of my career and before the stroke that sent me into my present career as an historian was the one that you see above and the one for which I wrote the book based on its construction. This window combined every technique that I had learned: Tiffany-style, came-style, glass painting on a large scale and alternating use of opals and clears to achieve glittering effects while you moved past the window. It literally appeared to be alive. My friend and sometimes helper told me that it was worthy of the Renaissance! lol

I did say he was my friend. No, I didn't pay him to say that...

Each piece of the door was painted on amber Spectrum wavy glass, first with a quill pen using black paint in Clove oil, then different shades of brown to provide the appearance of wood grain. The grapes were completely painted on white opal glass. The iron on the door was black paint on blue clear glass, borrowing from comic book artists who used blue to represent black objects, especially shiny ones. I probably didn't invent this idea on glass, but I like to think I did. lol

On interesting sidenote. My mother called me one day while I was firing Jesus' head piece... I had just broken the first attempt in the kiln across the forehead and had to redo it. I told her about this. Her response? Of course... "Well, you've been giving him a headache for awhile now!" See where I get it? 

I even did some glass etching work:

As I said, thanks for allowing an aging, slightly modified maritime historian his reminiscing indulgence. I hope you perceived it as a sharing of my love for art and color! I will always miss these days... 







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

As always, visit me at: http://baylusbrooks.com


Blackbeard's family records discovered - press release: http://baylusbrooks.com/Press%20Release%208-19-2015.pdf

The journal copies are limited and running out, but NC Publications has re-released my article as a separate pamphlet titled Blackbeard Reconsidered: Mist's Piracy, Thache's Genealogy and it is available online as well as in various NC museums and historic sites. 

North Carolina's Law Professor Robert E. Lee - the Blackbeard Buff!

Monarchy, favoritism, and corruption created Carolina. Nowhere is that fact more evident than in the literary work of the appropriately named Southern conservative and Wake Forest Law Professor, Robert E. Lee. Of course, Lee neither stated this directly in his history of Blackbeard, nor did he recognize the familiar anti-government theme of Golden Age pirates. In his Blackbeard the Pirate: A Reappraisal of His Life and Times, published by a North Carolina publisher and directed at a North Carolina audience, Lee shows himself to be a true North Carolinian apologist. His book on Blackbeard, for the most part, exposes the aristocratic bias and reliance upon legend that has long perverted North Carolina's true history. As a law professor, a learned man, but untrained in the historical arts, Lee followed many past North Carolina "historians" in their ill-conceived attempts to perform history as an "expert" in the field. His book on Blackbeard in 1974 was one of the last such attempts before trained professional historians began to restore the state's history - never an easy task! Blackbeard, with little of historical content available in the past, was always plagued by legends repeated and enhanced by these "great man" untrained historians, often imbued with personal bias. His story is still mired in confusion contributed by past historians like Lee. A new treatment is sorely needed!Born in Kinston, North Carolina on October 9, 1906, Robert Earl Lee was the son of Mike Lee, a rural mail carrier and his wife, May. By 1928, Robert graduated Wake Forest College with an LL.B degree in law. The closest that he ever came to working with history in school was as a historian for his law class. He later took professional classes in law at Duke University. By 1940, he and his wife Louise Gattis Lee of Franklin, North Carolina (married in 1932) lived in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Their son, Robert Jr. was born there in 1934. Robert, listed as a professor was then doing government work. Returning to Winston-Salem, he served as the dean of the law school for Wake Forest in the 1940s, and taught there for more than thirty years. His last two years of 1979-1980, he spent teaching at Campbell University. He retired and eventually died August 21, 1997 at Brookridge Retirement Community in Winston-Salem.[1]

 

Figure 1: Pictures of Dr. Robert Earl Lee (October 9, 1906-August 21, 1997), author of Blackbeard the Pirate: A Reappraisal of His Life and Times. Left: graduation from Wake Forest Law School in 1928 and, Right: Memorial from the Campbell Lawyer, Summer 1997.  

In chapter seven of Lee’s book on Blackbeard, he aptly describes proprietary possession and the inherent corruption of private colonies; however, he assures his readers that America solved that British nonsense in the Revolution, as though booting out the king fixed the damage and corruption. In reality, it reinstituted the same level of inequality and aristocratic domination that had developed under private British owners. He asserts that America had fought against a board of gentlemen three thousand miles across the Atlantic, “who only looked upon the colonies as an enterprise for the betterment of their private fortunes,” and that their government was ultimately and solely responsible for piracy. Perhaps he was thinking of the Lords Proprietors, or North Carolina’s private owners, when he said that. The Board was actually concerned with ending the corruptive influences of privatization.

For Lee, Americans, and especially North Carolinians, were absolutely innocent in the development of piracy – England alone was the nemesis responsible for that derogatory reputation, as he saw it. This was certainly not true. England provided the initial drive towards piracy, but all Americans alike reveled in it, especially the West Indies, both Carolinas and their sister colony of the Bahamas. Americans refined piracy through the centuries, and made it work far better than the English had ever dreamed. By the eighteenth century, piracy in America had become rather unique and essential – and quite different from newer British Whig or progressive economic policies.

Lee misses the historical context of the times, almost 300 years removed from when he taught law at Wake Forest and Campbell University. He recognizes bias well enough to observe its effects in modern contracts, but does he understand bias when translated from the colonial period – in a backwater wilderness devoid of any sense of European civilization or law? Does he recognize the inequality of the colonial period that elevated the wealthy landed aristocracy and essentially excluded the majority of the population? Furthermore, does he understand the differences between European civilation and the wild and remote nascent civilization forming on the American frontier?

Lee misunderstands the genesis of the records he researches. When Lee refers to the “people” of North Carolina being “mutinous,” he denotes the wealthy administrators who were arguably pirates themselves, not the people in the fields tending their hogs and trading their meager produce for necessaries in the local towns. The majority of the people are ignored by traditional documentary sources. He said that the “people” were “so used to disposing of their governors that they assumed they had the right to do so.”[2] Again, he only spoke of those few recorded in the records, an easy mistake to make, assuredly.

These were the men of whom Lee speaks glowingly in the following pages: Gov. Charles Eden and his council, Edward Moseley, Maurice Moore, the Ormonds who “played a prominent role in the history of Bath Town and Beaufort County,” Thomas Pollock, Tobias Knight, and many others.[3] Some of these men opposed Blackbeard.[4] Some, like the Ormonds, probably never even met the pirate. Still, all of them were ultimately concerned with their personal fortunes, regardless of from where it came. The unmentionables, like the greater number of commoners, today’s 99%, rejoiced in Blackbeard’s visits. Edward Moseley and Maurice Moore, specifically, founded the Lower Cape Fear settlement of Brunswick Town and stole as much as a hundred and fifty thousand acres belonging to the king while cutting others out of their monopoly. Their “Family” has been compared with a “syndicate,” much like the Gambino organized crime family or their perhaps less organized counterparts, or pirates. Again, “rovers of the sea” and “rovers of the land” differ in mode of travel only. The “people” of North Carolina are still subjects of these hierarchical forces of inequality that “belied the seeming equality of a poor state,” as historian Paul D. Escott infers.[5] The rest of America, it seems, contracted the same conservative illness.

And lastly, Robert E. Lee assumes Johnson-Mist to be an accurate source for the information that he obtained on Blackbeard, even touting the legends of his fourteen marriages and the prostitution of his wife, supported by no primary sources whatsoever. Then again, Lee believed like so many that he could trace his own ancestry back to the “notorious” pirate of legend. Why anyone would wish to be related to such a vile and wicked pirate as Johnson-Mist’s star antagonist is beyond comprehension!

Lee’s historical work has to be scrutinized carefully to avoid these amateurish mistakes. An expert in the law does not an expert in history make. He says that “because of its isolation and thinly scattered population, the troubles incident to colonial piracy were delayed in reaching North Carolina.”[6] For this, he thinks that the colony’s association with piracy came only when piracy was at its worst and, therefore, its reputation unduly suffered. Lee also says “caught in the undertow of piracy and undeterred by government, North Carolina’s colonists, in 1718, could hardly have been expected to resign a profitable connection with the pirates.’”[7] The piratical anti-government theme, like Charles Vane’s at Nassau, is palpable throughout Lee’s book, obviously influenced by the same conservative ideology that created the “Flying Gang” on the Bahama Islands.[8]

This is why professional training in the historical arts is essential. A professional historian spends his life studying the past, not just his short twilight years near retirement from his life-long expertise as a lawyer, journalist, or politician. North Carolinians’ and other Americans’ tendency toward treating history as a hobby handicaps its proper study and understanding. Historians train for years to think as their subjects do. For example, to understand the colonial era, you have to study intently that era and learn to think like a colonial, including the various classes of people from colonial culture. You have to study the needs and stamina of a cultural framework quite different from your own. Historians must be part sociologists, anthropologists, and psychologists, as well as historians. No professional historian would dare practice law like Lee, perform surgeries like Dr. Hugh Williamson, or preach like Francis Lister Hawks. Still, it did not prevent them all from writing amateur history and claiming to be historians.

North Carolina’s association with pirates began when the charter had been issued to the Lords Proprietors in 1663. It probably began even before that date, although association with the wealthy, careless, and distant proprietors certainly enhanced its piratical reputation. South Carolina’s relationship certainly began in 1671 when West Indians came to establish a colony for producing food for their Caribbean island enterprises. No, Carolina was not an end unto itself when it began. It was merely an ancillary operation. The proprietors viewed it as such, which may have largely contributed to its neglect. Again, profit was their only real consideration, not its settlers. Lee’s “people,” the actors of whom he considers worthy of note, were the only voices that ever mattered to him or to the proprietors.

The actual people whom Lee completely ignores merely enjoyed better prices brought by pirates and their fences. They had to resort to illegal merchandise to make ends meet in an unequal world that never really belonged to them. The then-affordable sugar and cocoa landed on the docks for the landless to purchase and load their wagons and head home to their tenantcy to feed chickens and make their family cups of sweetened hot cocoa to ward off the winter chill. Moreover, they usually did not participate in elections because the franchise was tied directly to freeholds, or land ownership. The vote belonged only to the wealthy.

The North Carolinians that we can read about in vital records actually welcomed pirates in 1718, as much as it did when part of Henry Avery’s crew settled in the Albemarle. Indeed, Lt. Gov. Spotswood of Virginia, after successfully capturing Blackbeard’s crew and killing him, faced derision from his fellow Virginians. As will be shown, some North Carolina residents (those few that appeared in the usual records) were pirates or related to pirates themselves, like the Jamaican assemblymen who profited greatly from the practice. Again, these were not the poor and landless living in the documentary background.

South Carolina favored business with their pirate brothers before the extravagances of 1716-1717, but not so much since Stede Bonnet, Edward Thache, and Charles Vane blockaded their primary harbor, took their ships, held their substantial citizens (Lee’s version of “the people”) prisoner, and invaded their town. This personal affront served to temporarily quell their love and maintenance of piracy – it helped to end Blackbeard’s career. Furthermore, economics had a large part to play. Arne Bialuschewski approaches the best explanation for the two Carolinas and their disparate attitudes toward piracy:

The Carolinas provide a good example of colonial settlements where the attitude towards pirates underwent a complete change in the early eighteenth century. For years the inhabitants, far away from any sources of military support, lived in fear of attacks by Native Americans and the Spaniards. Furthermore, prior to the development of rice cultivation in South Carolina in the late seventeenth century, the colonies lacked a major export staple capable of bringing prosperity to the region. Under these circumstances pirates were welcomed by the inhabitants for both their military value and the trade they offered the sparsely populated Carolinas. As in other colonies, the main benefit of the pirate trade was that it allowed access to looted specie and merchandise at discount prices. In the early eighteenth century, however, South Carolina began to flourish in its own right, as rice exports brought wealth to the colony. When pirates appeared off Charles Town in 1718, the source of prosperity was endangered. Piracy not only threatened local shipping but also raised indirect costs such as insurance, commission fees, wages and interest rates at a time when the economy was recovering from a costly war against the Yemassee. North Carolina, by contrast, lacked a major staple and the economy remained depressed after the war, so its mercantile and political elite continued to deal with pirates.[9]

This is not to diminish the distinguished law career or the massive amount of research that Lee performed for his book on Blackbeard. He explored every available piece of primary evidence, even listed them in an appendix. Still, he was led astray by the plethora of legends associated with Blackbeard, as many of us have been and still are. He occasionally delved into and seriously explored the wild assumptions of “a cousin of my uncle on my mother’s side.” These sorts of fascinating bedtime stories rarely provide serious evidence. Sometimes, rarely, those fascinating tales are somewhat reminiscent of the truth, but should never be taken wholly at face value, especially when the desire is to somehow be connected to the infamous figure of a notorious pirate! One must, indeed, consider all forms of possible bias...

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

Update (11/29/2015): The journal copies are limited and running out, but NC Publications has re-released my article as a separate pamphlet titled Blackbeard Reconsidered: Mist's Piracy, Thache's Genealogy and it is available online as well as in various NC museums and historic sites. 






Read more about the family of Edward "Blackbeard" Thache and the world in which he lived in the book Quest for Blackbeard: The True Story of Edward Thache and His World, to be released around Christmas of 2015. 

Get the poster of Blackbeard's family history and other gift ideas at this address:
http://www.zazzle.com/quest4blackbeard

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

How did the QAR wreck at Beaufort Inlet, North Carolina? Many have claimed that Blackbeard wrecked his ship on purpose. This may not be true... you judge.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHz9-uEJRb0

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

Warning!! This could change your most basic perceptions...

See how the Bahamas and its sister colony Carolina became pirate strongholds through neglect of its wealthy private owners years before Hornigold and Thache and their “Flying Gang” - how pirates came to the American South, killed 600,000 people to maintain their "peculiar" institution of slavery, and developed a unique conservative ideology that survives today.

See where America began – from New Providence and Charleston to the Lower Cape Fear - enmeshed in the violent wilderness “beyond the lines of amity” – competition and sport, stealing treasure and burning ships - with Caribbean Buccaneers and Pirates of the Golden Age!

 http://www.lulu.com/shop/baylus-c-brooks/pirates-slaves-making-america/paperback/product-22351221.html


 

Getting Blackbeard's Name Right?

Noah Webster, Jr. (1758 – 1843)

Teach, Theach, Thach, Thache, Thatch, Tach, Teech, etc, etc...

  
By Any Other Name...


OK... seemed appropriate, but... I’m not sure that anyone, even a poetically-inclined William Shakespeare, can claim Blackbeard smells like a rose. Still, the quandary over this man’s name is a long-standing issue with Blackbeard’s historiography. While many, both laymen and scholars, have worried over the spelling of Capt. Charles Johnson’s most “notorious” character, Edward “Blackbeard” “Teach,” it will surprise many to discover that folks in the 18th century did not really care how their name was spelled in official documents—as long as the point was understood. This is very different from modern times. I’ve had people ask me my name, say at a doctor's office, and when I say “Brooks,” they respond “Is that with an ‘e’?” I’m tempted, as an historian of the colonial era, to jokingly answer “Does it matter?”

Spelling did not become a matter of consistency until the mid-19th century. Blame Noah Webster (the guy in the photo). Until then, spelling was almost always one phonetic variation after another. As a professional genealogist, I often heard client after client telling me that their family’s name was spelled such and such and that the family using a slightly different variation in the census from the next county over wasn’t related to them. But, how did the census taker know how to spell your name if you probably couldn’t read or write yourself or ever cared anyway? Yeah... under-educated census officials riding in the heat of summer in the wilderness spelled it whatever way looked right to them so they could get on to the next house a few miles away. And, your family probably started spelling their own name whatever way sounded right to the first educated person who got off the farm and opened a book for the first time. So... you're probably related to those guys next door - even if they leave off the "e".

From my genealogical study of the Thache family, oddly enough, there was indeed some consistency in this matter— unlike most American ancestors, the Thaches were not poor as dirt and did not grow up in a wilderness. Blackbeard’s probable grandfather, Rev. Thomas Thache, attended Oxford after all! From the good reverend’s family, in the county of Gloucestershire, England (of whom I believe Capt. Edward Thache to have belonged), the spelling of the name was almost always “Thache.” Note also that Jamaican rectors of the Anglican church routinely spelled it "Theach" but most likely pronounced it "Teach." This was common in much of England and especially in Hiberno-English, where appear plenty of jokes about how Irish people pronounce “third” and “turd” the same. ["th" pronounced like a "t" as in "Thailand" or "Thames"]

With the Thaches of Jamaica, they seemed to use “Thache” also—in the documents that I believe they wrote themselves. Other legal documents, however, where a clerk wrote it for them, that clerk invariably attempted to spell their name phonetically —once three different spellings appeared in a single document: the 1706 deed from Edward Thache Jr. to his stepmother! The result? Many different spellings appear in documents, especially those written by captains, governors, clerks with depositions on various islands, and admiralty representatives across the Atlantic—people who had no idea how to spell such an unusual name anyway. These mean absolutely nothing and the debate over them is pointless. The family themselves used “Thache” more often and so, I have adopted this spelling.

Historians like to call the practice of impressing modern ideals onto the past “Presentism.” Presentism is almost always a fallacy. Times have changed and these types of ideas and practices also changed. If Blackbeard were alive today and some clerk asked him for his name, to which he answered “Thache,” that clerk is just as likely to ask him the same surprising question that they ask me: “Is that with an ‘e’?”

Ironically, the name "Thache" or "Tache" may actually come from a French word for "hook!" I know... how appropriate, right?


Meaning of Thache or Tache:

French: either from Old French tache ‘hook’, ‘buckle’, ‘loop’; ‘distinctive mark’, possibly applied as a nickname for someone with a deformity or distinctive mark. (Taché is an adjectival form of this name.) Alternatively, it may be a habitational name from any of various places named Tâche or La Tâche, for example in Charente-Maritime and Vienne. 

Romanian: unexplained. 

Source: Dictionary of American Family Names ©2013, Oxford University Press

Alternatively, "Thatch" means:

English: occupational name for a thatcher, someone who covered roofs in straw, from an agent derivative of Middle English thach(en) ‘to thatch’ (Old English þæccan ‘to cover or roof’). 

Source: Dictionary of American Family Names ©2013, Oxford University Press

Speaking of "Thache" without an "e":

Thachs of Perquimans County - 1729

A tax record from Perquiman's County in 1729 lists four "Thach" men: Thomas, Spencer, Leven, and Joseph. I have done an Ancestry search for Spencer and Leven Thach/Thache/Teach/Thatch, etc. No hits. I mean... absolutely no hits (with exception of Spencer Thach in Gloucester County, Virgina just north of the Albemarle). If you've ever used Ancestry.com, you will understand why this is so unusual. 

Anyway, Spencers and Levens were early families of Jamaica. The idea that Blackbeard's half-brother, Cox Thache may have been named for Thomas Cox, assemblyman from St. Catherine's Parish gave me the idea that other Thache men may have been named similarly. Spencers also appear numerously in St. Catherine's Parish and Levens in adjacent St. Ann's where some of Lucretia's in-laws may also come from. 

This idea, plus the name "Thomas," a known half-brother of Blackbeard's, makes me highly suspicious of these men being related to Blackbeard. Thomas may have gone there only temporarily because we know that he dies in Middlesex, England in 1748. But, what if he accompanied some of his kin to Perquiman's before then? I have yet to find records for him much earlier than the 1740s in Middlesex. Where was he before then? Not Jamaica, as we learn from Cox's will of 1737. He was a mariner like his Dad and half-brother Edward - in other words, a transient sort.

If Spencer or Leven Thach were born in Kingston or Port Royal where Edward and his half-brother Cox lived as adults, they may not have had their births recorded - because records from those two churches did not begin until 1722 (Port Royal's St. Pauls sank into the harbor in 1692 from the earthquake when Kingston was founded)! 

Inventory of the estate of John Thach of Chowan County, 1780 - notice the names of sons Green Thach and Thomas Thach.

The family of John Thach and Mary Standin (married 1748) still inhabit the northern part of Perquiman's and Chowan, many in the Perquiman's County seat of Hertford. There were other Spencers, Levens, Greens (also another common Jamaican surname), and Thomases who were ancestors to these folks.

There's also been a lot of claims of heritage to Blackbeard from descendents of these families in Perquimans, Chowan, and Hertford. Even Ellen Goode Rawlings Winslow, editor/author of the History of Perquimans County mentions the possibility in the 1930s. Few have ever really given credence to these claims, and there's still no solid proof - yet - but these Thachs could indeed be related to the infamous pirate - no kidding!

And, please don't ask me why they left the "e" out of their family name!! 

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


Upcoming article on Blackbeard's genealogy:
“ ‘Born in Jamaica of Very Creditable Parents’ or ‘A Bristol Man Born’? Excavating the Real Edward Thache, ‘Blackbeard the Pirate’ “ in the July issue of North Carolina Historical Review...

Available at: http://nc-historical-publications.stores.yahoo.net/the-north-carolina-historical-review.html

Update 12/9/2015: Above article republished by NC Historical Publications as Blackbeard Reconsidered and available here.


Author site:
http://baylusbrooks.com/

Author gift shop:
http://www.zazzle.com/quest4blackbeard

Other publications of Baylus C. Brooks:
http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/bcbrooks

Facebook pages:

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Brooks-Historical-Preservation
 
https://www.facebook.com/bayluscbrooks

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Quest-for-Blackbeard/1474554782859931

https://www.facebook.com/EdwardThacheofHMSWindsor

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Heirloom-Fountain-of-Hope/1475529162759249

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Defining-North-Carolina/1476287209337088

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Dictionary-of-Pyrate-Biography/902548336485428

And, I'm the website editor-administrator for NC Maritime History Council's website and Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/NC-Maritime-History-Council/308236152556180

Henry Timberlake's Deposition: Edward Thache and Benjamin Hornigold, Brief Partners in Crime!

Edward Thache, "Blackbeard"

Within the following is enclosed a deposition from a merchant mariner named Henry Timberlake, commander of the Brigantine Lamb. The incident involved in this deposition occurred while traveling on this fateful day in late fall 1716 from Boston to Jamaica. He was probably a resident in Virginia, the likely son of Thomas and Elizabeth Timberlake, born in 1688 in Saint Giles Cripplegate, London, the same place and only a few years later than that infamous North Carolina land pirate, Edward Moseley. He may also have been an ancestor to the famous Cherokee emissary to London in 1762, Lt. Henry Timberlake whose father died young in Virginia. You can read his memoirs: The Memoirs of Lt. Henry Timberlake: The Story of a Soldier, Adventurer, and Emissary to the Cherokees, 1756-1765. 

This deposition is quite a bit earlier. It tells of the first encounter that history has yet had with the pirates Benjamin Hornigold of Eleuthera, the Bahamas and Edward Thache of Jamaica, a.k.a. "Blackbeard the Pirate." 

This deposition may also be one of the sources used to effect an alteration between the May 1724 edition of a famous pirate book and its December 1724 second edition - yes, just seven months later, with numerous changes in the storyline for Thache, Hornigold, and Stede Bonnet. Capt. Charles Johnson's (a.k.a. Jacobite polemicist newspaper owner Nathaniel Mist) A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pyrates and that book's second-edition reference to Blackbeard serving as an underling on Hornigold's ship - until they captured La Concorde, renamed her the Queen Anne's Revenge, and Hornigold surrendered while Thache went off on his own - is a major change from the first edition when Blackbeard was shown serving as Stede Bonnet's underling as a foremastman on his ship. Odd, isn't it? Thache could never cut a break with this writer, you know? The literary effect of rising from lowly depths to greatness as a "notorious" pirate probably sold more copies - Mist certainly needed the money after his legal fees had accrued of late. He had to leave England in 1728 because of all the trouble he was in.

As pirate historian Arne Bialuschewski relates, "A first-hand account reveals that, early in 1716, Thatch was in Kingston, where he joined an expedition led by Benjamin Hornigold to loot silver-laden Spanish wrecks that had sunk off the east coast of Florida." The deposition here described follows that account in late 1716, as the pair returned from the wrecks.

Truth be told, Thache and Hornigold only sailed in consort briefly and, truly, no primary sources yet point to Thache living in Kingston, although his half-brother Cox probably did, possibly apprenticed to an artillery man at Fort Nugent. The deposition of John Vickers described Hornigold pirating since November of 1715 and his battles with another pirate, Henry Jennings who stole a prize ship from him. Vickers never mentions Thache who may still have been on the Florida coast in his ship. Hornigold wasn't even present for La Concorde's capture (accomplished by Thache all by himself with Stede Bonnet reading books below deck). 

Thache served "under" neither Hornigold nor Bonnet and was actually the most experienced maritime adventurer of the three men, having served on the HMS Windsor during Queen Anne's War. But, Johnson - I mean, Mist - got that all wrong. Still, this deposition most likely gave him the material for altering his story. He even suppressed a few records to make the Hornigold-Thache dynamic duo an historical icon of demonic piratica that would send his books flying from the shelves - at least until I screwed all that up for him with actual records. Oops! 

Ok... Johnson took literary license which was not unusual by any means. Still... ;)

I go into Johnson-Mist's fabrications in more detail in my article " ‘Born in Jamaica of Very Creditable Parents’ or ‘A Bristol Man Born’? Excavating the Real Edward Thache, ‘Blackbeard the Pirate’ " in the July issue of North Carolina Historical Review coming out in late August.  That article also includes the newly-discovered true family of Edward Thache living in Spanish Town, Jamaica. No, he wasn't a Drummond. No, he wasn't named Beard. He was actually a Thache, from the only Thache family living in the old Spanish capital of 18th-century Jamaica and he probably was actually born in Bristol, son of Capt. Edward and Elizabeth Thache, with a grandfather Rev. Thomas Thache who studied at Oxford. At least Johnson-Mist probably got "Bristol" correct... some redemption for that loosely-creative literary craftsman. 

This deposition shows Hornigold and Thache sailing almost identical sloops of eight guns each, each with crews consisting of ninety men. It also involves a capture of the Lamb at a location that was well known to Thache from his days on the HMS Windsor - Cape Doña Maria on the west end of Hispaniola or Haiti today. The Windsor frequently patrolled that area of the Gulf of Gonȃve along Longane Bay and Petit Goȃve, a French base for their ships that served as convoys for Spanish treasure galleons sailing from Cartagena and Porto Bello to Spain. 

In short, this deposition fits perfectly with the information that we now have for the "new" narrative introducing Blackbeard to the world as a real human being - with flaws, to be sure - but, also a man that may have made the Board of Trade nervous because of his prior service as a likely officer aboard the Windsor, not the usual pirate, to be sure!

Henry Timberlake deposition, 17 December 1716, 1B/5/3/8, 212–3 [426-7], Jamaican Archives.

henry Timberlakes       Jamaica Ss.
deposition                          henry Timberlake master of the Brigantine
                                            called the Lamb burthen about Fforty Tons being
                                            duley Sworn deposeth & saith as follows

That about the Sixteenth day of november last he Set Sail
on board the said Brigantine from the Port of Boston
in New England bound for this Island [Jamaica] That about the thirteenth
of December instant about Eight Leagues off of Cape Donna
Maria on the west end of Hispaniola about Eight a Clock
at night a Sloop mounted with Eight Guns and manned
with about ninety men as they told him called the Delight
Benjamine Hornigole Comander came up with this Depont.
fired Several Shot at him, obliged him to bring too and then
Comanded him with his Boat on board and this Deponent
and two of his men coming on board him, hornigole
told this Deponent he had taken a Spaniard with Fforty
Guns the Thursday before and a Bristol man that
Sailed from this Island the week before, but gave this
Deponent no further account of either of those Vessels
and acquainted this Deponent the week before fifteen
of his men had run away with their own Canoa and
carried forty Thousand peices of eight with them. That
hornigole Said to this Deponent, give my Service to the
Captn of the man of warr and tell him I design to have
his Ship from him if I meet him. That hornigole hoisted
out of his Boat with about a dozen hands and Boarded
this Deponents Said Brigantine, this Deponent remaining

[next page] Council minutes

on board the Sloop till about two or three of the Clock in
the morning. That hornigole's Boat returning twice or thrice
loaden with provisions from the Brigantine this Deponent
asked them why they used him so they answered they wanted
provisions and this Deponent further Saith That in about
an hour after hornigole Boarded him Edward Thach
Comander of another Sloop, the name whereof this
Deponent knows not mounted with Eight Guns & manned
with about ninety men came alongside the said Brigantine
and Sent their Canoa with Several hands on Board her and
plundered her That the said hornigole and the said other
Sloop took from this Deponent Three Barrils of Porke,
one of Beef, two of peese, three of Markrill [fish?] five
Barrils of onions Several Dozen Caggs of oysters most
of his Cloaths and all his Ships Stores Except about
Fforty Biskets and a very Small quantity of meat just
to bring them in and threw Some of their Staves over
board. That this Deponent was cheifly loaden with Staves
and Shingles and that he was beleived the loss and his orendrs
histained by the Said Pirates might be about Sixty pounds
Jamaica mony That hornigole about three in the morning
Sent this Deponent in his own Boat on board That this Depont.
Soon after arrived in Port Royal harbour and further this
Deponent Saith that the said hornigole told him that he
understood by the Bristol Ship afore mentioned that Captn
[Robert?] Quarry was in Goal for being concerned in a Pyracy
with him but Said he was wrongfully accused therein
for that Quarry did not act or concerned himself and
was by him forced to be in their Company & declared
that it was him and his Crew alone that had robbed
that Spaniard. Hornigole further declared that if he
thought that him this Deponent would no So Soon
as he got into Jamaica declare and make known
that Quarry was not concerned in that Pyracy he
would not Suffer him to go from them and further
Saith not.

        Henry Timberlake

Sworn this 17th of December 1716
before his Excellency Peter Heywood         Jamaica


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





Many thanks to Dianne T. Golding Frankson for retrieving this document for me!
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Author site:
http://baylusbrooks.com

Blackbeard's Genealogy Poster:

http://www.zazzle.com/quest_for_blackbeard_genealogy_of_blackbeard_poster-228428311978741827

Blackbeard Reconsidered:
http://nc-historical-publications.stores.yahoo.net/4793.html
 
Blackbeard in French records:
http://bcbrooks.blogspot.com/2015/07/blackbeards-capture-of-la-concorde-or.html
 
Other publications of Baylus C. Brooks:
http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/bcbrooks
 
Dianne's Genealogical Research Site:
http://www.genealogyplusjamaica.com/

On Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/bayluscbrooks

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Quest-for-Blackbeard

https://www.facebook.com/EdwardThacheofHMSWindsor

North Carolina: The Subtle Politics of Slavery Before and After the Civil War

Charlotte Story Perkinson

Charlotte Louise Story Perkinson (picture at left from biography provided by granddaughter Helen Poole Fontsere'), a celebrated prohibitionist and political writer, born 1884 in New Hampshire married her husband, native of Wise, North Carolina, Richard Terrell Perkinson, and moved to Raleigh, North Carolina in 1907.  There she began writing newspaper articles and became involved in state politics.  By 1933, she was the state editor for the new and short-lived Durham, North Carolina's State's Progress newspaper and served on various committees concerning women's rights.  She was also the campaign manager for Furnifold M. Simmons in his failed 1930 run to keep his Congressional seat against the challenger, Josiah W. Bailey. 

Upon her arrival in Raleigh, Perkinson encountered the peculiar lifestyle of the post-Civil War South.  Freed slaves were still alive and able to tell their story about slavery before and after the war, about re-invented slavery under "Jim Crow," and its eerie dichotomy of racial paternalism mixed with, at times, the violent underpinnings of resistance to change.  

This resistance has become a North Carolina tradition, never more obvious than in today's controversial battle over education, voting laws, teacher's rights and so many other issues that should not really be issues.  North Carolina has always been the quintessential "stick in the mud," refusing to change, especially when it comes to race.  Furthermore, North Carolinian conservatives react strongly and defiantly when pressed into a corner.  Whether as Southern Democrats or, now, as Republicans, conservatism in North Carolina has always been about maintaining the "peculiar institution," or at least keeping it's memory... its "heritage" alive.  

My grandfather, an elderly Baptist minister from Union County, even in 1933, must have read State's Progress, not one of the most popular newspapers in North Carolina, I'm sure... it ran for just over one year.  Grandpa was a well-read gentleman.  He also read the liberal Charlotte Observer.  He collected newspaper clippings and various historical and fascinating tidbits in a scrapbook that I still have in my possession.  In it, he placed this article "'Black Mammy' Tells Graphic Story of Slavery," from the 19 March 1933 issue of the Charlotte Observer.  The title does not do it justice... it's not simply about the old slavery days, but also about the story of a woman who saw horrors all about her, happening to others in her position, and a woman still capable of pride about her life as a slave and ex-slave.  It's a bittersweet and eerie story about herrenvolk mentality, psychology, and denial.  It instantly caught my attention.  

Article written by Charlotte Story Perkinson titled "Black Mammy' Tells Graphic Story of Slavery," Charlotte Observer (North Carolina), 19 March 1933

Rev. Edgar Marcellus Brooks, as a man of truly progressive thought, was much intrigued by this article.  As a  historian (a love that he passed to his grandson) and as a member of a former slave-owning family... and as man who experienced the Civil War, even though he was a child (born February 5, 1861), this article carried great meaning for him... and for me.  I never knew him, but I find great pride in being his grandson and in being able to share his experiences in articles like this one.  

Ironically, my grandfather passively held more in common with Josiah W. Bailey than his opponent, Furnifold M. Simmons, even though Bailey was the more conservative candidate in 1930.   He probably voted for Simmons, however.  Fifty-seven years of age in 1930, Bailey graduated from Wake Forest College in 1893 and immediately afterward had become editor of the Biblical Recorder, the weekly newspaper of the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina, a paper that my grandfather wrote for on occasion.

Charlotte S. Perkinson served as Simmons' campaign manager.  She supported the man responsible for the disenfranchisement of North Carolina's black citizens during the 1898 radical conservative takeover (then, calling themselves "Democrats") of the state that, with few exceptions, still maintains power today (now, calling themselves "Republicans").  That Perkinson was a liberal and wrote this article is a strange contradiction and tells us about the overall conservative nature of the state, not unlike today's far-right trends.  

Then again, many things about North Carolina have been a strange contradiction.  Race relations are foremost on the list.  The Biblical Recorder's current editor, Tony W. Cartledge stated that "Bailey was sometimes hard to figure out. In North Carolina, he was considered to be a progressive Democrat, but in Washington, he opposed Roosevelt's New Deal and helped compose what became known as the 'Conservative Manifesto.'" "Progressives" in the South of this time, especially in North Carolina, were the conservatives of the nation, due almost exclusively to issues of race and bitterness over the old conflict in the 1860s.   

When she came to North Carolina, Charlotte Perkinson had bumped into this "Solid South," a term that described the former member states of the Confederacy and their political ideology since the Civil war.  This state might have been thought the champion of that "Solid South," what with the number of troops that it supplied to the Confederacy in that age-old conflict that is politically still raging today.  Southerners of this breed draw together to resist almost any change, especially involving race relations.  They resisted Northern legislators long after losing that war.  Perkinson had arrived after Simmon's anti-African-American activities of 1898 and, perhaps did not join with him in those sentiments.  Also, she was staunchly prohibitionist and the more conservative Bailey supported a "wet" (anti-prohibitionist) Catholic for president.  Simmons would have been her obvious choice, but also obviously not for racial reasons.

Initially, at the beginning of the ironically-named "Progressive Era," (lots of irony in politics) there was great violence, which North Carolina characteristically experienced in the 1898 Wilmington Race Riot, the only coup d'etat to ever occur in the United States.  Nothing half-done here!  Hundreds of African-Americans died in that grave injustice when conservatives took over the city government at gunpoint.  Furthermore, lynchings occurred all across the United States after Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896.  "Separate but equal" was the law of the land and that repressive scoundrel "Jim Crow" moved into the neighborhood and would repress the African-American for more than half a century by 1930 (legally, it continued until 1954).  This was the political climate that encouraged and in which flourished the Ku Klux Klan.  For North Carolina, to name one state, these were the white-supremacist champions and redeemers of conservative Southern Democratic government who rebelled again after their abrupt release from justice, Reconstruction... a federal policy which had forced observance of civil rights on the South for twelve years following the war. They're still very much an active entity today, ever growing in response to the election of the first African-American president.

Lynchings and racially motivated murders in each decade from 1865 to 1965 -  The Great Migration drained off most of the rural black population of the South, and indeed for a time froze African-American population growth in parts of the region. A number of states experienced decades of black population decline, especially across the Deep South "black belt" where cotton had been king. In 1910, African Americans constituted more than half the population of South Carolina and Mississippi, and more than 40 percent in Georgia, Alabama, Texas and Louisiana; by 1970, only in Mississippi did African-American representation remain above 30 percent. “The disappearance of the ‘black belt’ was one of the striking effects” of the Great Migration, James Gregory wrote.  Still, it was only a change of 37%, leaving a slight majority in the South aat 53%.  Note from this chart that the violence in the South was strongest right after the Civil War, picked up strongly in the decade of Plessy v. Ferguson, and faded drastically after the Great Migration ended by 1930, with that 53% still in the South.

The violence ended, to be replaced with stringent paternalism... but only after a certain event that occurred in the first two decades of Perkinson's time in Raleigh.

Perkinson came to North Carolina at an ominous period in its history.  She arrived before Congress's many years of failed attempts to pass the Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill of 1917 and  before a Southern bloc of conservative Senators filibustered and killed the Anti-Lynching bill during Franklin Delano Roosevelt's (Northern) Democratic administration.  None of these attempts (begun in 1909) during the period known as the "nadir of American race relations" ever passed.  None of them ever became law.  To this date, no federal anti-lynching legislation has ever been passed. Only a Congressional "apology" for slavery in 2005!  Not exactly the "penitent" bunch, I assure you.

For North Carolina specifically, it's reigning conservative Southern Democrats had become kings with virtually no opposition at the polls for more than a century.  Until Brown v. Board in 1954 and the Civil Rights Act in 1964, finding a Republican in the South was nearly impossible.  Afterwards, Republicans slowly took over the already quite conservative South, as Lyndon B. Johnson predicted after the Civil Rights Act.  By 1980, but especially after 2008, the Southern Democrat had suddenly and almost completely disappeared, to be replaced with... solid Republicans in the "solid" South!  By 2012, North Carolina was at the top of that conservative Republican list and the only battleground state of eleven to vote for Mitt Romney (Republican) over the first African-American president Barack Obama (Democrat).

Filibuster against anti-lynching bill. Washington, D.C., Jan. 27. Members of the bloc of Southern Senators who have been filibusting against the anti-lynching bill for the last 20 days and are still going strong, left to right: Senator Tom Connaly, of Texas, Sen. Walter F. George, of Ga.; Sen. Richard Russell of Ga.; and Sen. Claude Pepper of Florida, 1/27/38

  [from: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C.]

In 1900, 90% of African-Americans lived in the South.  Moving away from oppression seemed reasonable.  Not surprisingly, 1.6 million blacks left from the fourteen traditional states of the South to northern cities in the "Great Migration"(1910–1930), resulting in a 37-point drop... their reaction to a "progressive" South.  Historian James Gregory Bennett calls this the first phase of the Southern Diaspora, similar to the massive Biblical exodus from bondage as Egypt slaves.  Only after this migration did the violence fade away... did Pharoah relent on the whip.  Still, lynchings were not the only type of violence that they had experienced.  There were subtle forms that neither made the news nor affect the statistics.  

Still, 53% of African-Americans surprisingly remained in the South after migration and, nevertheless, the lynchings nearly stopped (as the graph clearly shows)... the obvious violence had still faded.  This enigma must have intrigued the veteran political activist Perkinson, who interviewed many ex-slaves around Raleigh whenever possible.  Always the investigator, Perkinson was determined to arrive at the truth of their existence and learn the reasons why they remained in such a repressive atmosphere yet, somehow, got along.  

North Carolinians of varying hues in the 1930s didn't exactly "get along" equally, but not as would appear from the apparent lack of resistance.  The herrenvolk, or "master race" finally won the Civil War in the "progressive" North Carolina of the 1930s.  Such irony in these politics!

Perkinson certainly met with resistance from her subjects during the search.  She found that many ex-slaves would lie to her for fear of being punished for blabbering to an "outsider." 

The atmosphere was adversarial, yes, still wrapped in the ideological enigma of a conservative "Solid South" that permeated the state after the war, after the immense resentment of Reconstruction, and before the Civil Rights Act of 1964.  The South was still immersed in "Jim Crow," Plessy v. Ferguson, the segregationist laws and practices that kept ex-slaves poor, submissive, and "in their place," especially after Bennett's "Great Migration." Predominantly, Perkinson found a passively aggressive environment, one in which she said "there is still a great tendency among these old darkies [a typical reference of the day] to say only those things pleasant to the ears of former slave owners." 


Was this a detente reached at gunpoint or was it more subtle?  What exactly must these ex-slaves fear?   

She interviewed many elderly ex-slaves whose memory of events were "blurred," she wondered whether by age or fear, suspecting that it was intentional, to avoid retribution.  Their fearful resolve was difficult to overcome.  She gave up on hearing "the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth" and tried to read between the lines... that is, until she met Sally Parham.  

Sally surprised her.  Perkinson believed her to be the most candid ex-slave that she had yet interviewed in North Carolina.  Sally was the former property of one Asa Parham from a large plantation five miles from the small town of Oxford on the Oxford-Henderson road in Granville County.  It was in the small farming community of "Tabb's Creek."  

Also surprising and contrary to other interviewees, Sally proudly preferred the honorary title of "Black Mammy."  Thus, the title of Perkinson's newspaper article, "'Black Mammy' Tells Graphic Story of Slavery."  The title, however, was too simple... it did not represent the content at all!  It only expressed the mechanics, not the fruit of her discovery. 

The first county seat was called Granville Court House. Other records indicate that the town of Harrisburgh served as the county seat from 1746 to 1764, when at that time the location became unsatisfactory. Therefore, it was ordered that the courthouse be located on a branch of the Tar River called Tabb's Creek. Oxford was made the county seat in 1811, and it was incorporated in 1816.  Photo from "Find-a-grave" website.

Perkinson interviewed Sally, or "Black Mammy," at the extraordinary age of 102, blind and being cared for by a great-grandaughter of her former master, Mrs. Elizabeth Dorsey Walters, daughter of Asa's grandaughter Cynthia, from his younger son Gaston.  Sally's memory, even at 102, was still sharp and she was direct, apparently unafraid of the truth.  Perkinson rejoiced at finally finding the object of her search!  In Perkinson's words, Sally, without fear, told her "the more or less familiar story of having a good master, how and when she got religion, her memories of the Civil War, and the part she played during that period."  She got details!

As the interview wore on, however, Perkinson must have begun to realize that Sally's answers and joyful affirmations betrayed a deep sense of denial, a disassociation from reality, made possible, perhaps, by the comparably comfortable circumstances in which she found herself throughout her long life, even before the Great Migration.  

Asa Parham, by Sally's description, of course, was one of the "good masters." He was born in 1792, in Granville County upon the very plantation where Sally was also born.  He married Delia Hawkins Reavis on 22 March 1824 and had four boys and one daughter between 1829 and 1841.  According to 1860 slave census records, Asa owned twenty-four of them, ranging in age from 1 to 78.  The female slave listed as 27 years old was Sally, born in 1833.   

Sally, since her birth, had always lived on Asa's plantation, even for sixty years after his death in 1870.  She cared for five generations of his family and was proud of it.  It was on this plantation that Charlotte Perkinson interviewed the proud old "Black Mammy," still living there so long after emancipation. 

Sally's exuberant tale exposed that the life of a slave was far from ideal, even wretched.  Fortunately for her, perhaps, she merely witnessed the horrors and, therefore, did not mind telling the stories.  She seemed unaffected by a life in which she apparently did not belong.  Sally openly exposed to Perkinson a "most revealing description of the slave 'speculator,' of how crime was punished, of the 'pattyrollers,' and of many other subjects not often touched upon."  Perkinson listened intently to Sally's story. 

Reflected in the interview, Sally's earliest memories were of as a little girl in the "big house" being trained as a house servant.  She remembered trying to resist returning to the slave quarters when her mother came to fetch her and was dragged down the front steps.  "My head counted those steps," as she jokingly told Perkinson, "and I'll never forget them!"  This kind of treatment from Sally's own mother may have shocked Perkinson.  She may have thought it only a joke, an exaggeration.  The remaining details perhaps gave her a different perspective.

Nevertheless, Sally felt special.  She reflected on how she would sometimes accompany her master's children to school, with a "pass" from him, and could sometimes bring home books, like the "Blue Back Speller."  From this book, Sally learned to spell and pronounce some words.  She was quite proud of knowing the alphabet, which she repeated in its entirety for her interviewer.  Most slave owners preferred not to educate their slaves for fear of them gaining confidence and independence, eventually revolting. 

Sally was more than happy to relate all the details of a slave's life.  A "pass," she said, was vital to prevent a slave from being caught off the plantation by a "pattyroller," slang for "patrol," a gang of five to six white men designated by the local government to prevent slaves from gathering at night and possibly organize a revolt. "If a slave went courting or to a candy stew or a prayer meeting," they had to have a note or pass saying where they were going and why, otherwise they were beaten and sent back to the plantation.  Perkinson was told by her informant that slaves "feared and hated 'pattyrollers' intensely." 

Always in intimate identification with her former owner's family, Sally told Perkinson that slave owners seldom had respect for the patrol as well.  Giddily, she related how the slave and white children alike would play pranks on these "pattyrollers."  She related how "one night they stretched ropes across the lane leading to the negro quarters and then hid and waited for the gallop, gallop of the night patrol."  She heard each horse fall with a "heavy thud" as the ropes tripped them.  Needless to say, she remarked smiling, "there were no boys of either color visible when once the riders and horses set out again upon their spying errand."

About her own family, Sally was perhaps more reticent.  She only married once, having "higher ideals" in that regard, as she told it, "patterned after the white folks."  Her husband's name was Harry, a slave of Asa's younger brother, Albert Parham, who lived on the neighboring plantation.  Being perhaps less candid for the only time during the interview, she turned her words away from her husband.  Perhaps aware of Sally's subtle deflection from an emotional subject, Perkinson informed her reader that "marriage in slavery days was hardly more than an agreement to live together."  Of course, in this case, they were barely allowed even that.  The capitalistic requirements of the peculiar institution was conducive to polygamy, "inasmuch as the more children a slave woman had, the more value she was to her master." It was just a business, still, one aspect that she may have deeply regretted. Some emotion peeked through Sally's glittering facade.

This aspect of slave breeding explains the thirteen babes and adolescent slaves (54% of the total) living on Asa Parham's plantation in 1860.  The master needed his female slaves to produce babies... more slaves to continue working the plantation, for sale, or trade.  That was the business, like breeding cattle.  The idea of the "marriage" itself was incidental.  If this bothered Sally, it was isolated and personal, less candid.  She merely showed a glimpse of her discomfort as she talked around the subject of her husband, Harry.

Sally did, however, relate the details of a dark incident that affected her brother-in-law's family, a "particularly pathetic scene that had fixed itself upon" her memory, as Perkinson perhaps encouraged, thirsty for detail.  This involved an aspect that Perkinson called the "most despicable aspect of slavery, the thing which aroused the abolitionist the most," the slave trader, the slave driver, or the "speculator."  

Surely, this affected Sally.  It had to.

Continuing from a detached aspect, however, Sally casually informed her interviewer, this middle-aged white Yankee reporter, that the "speculator" was the "most abominable species of humanity."  As though giving a scholarly presentation, she told that they "trafficked in black flesh."  They "sold and bought men and women and children for profit."  Slaves hated to see the "speculator's" wagon pull up, she said, "covered with canvas and drawn by several mules."  "Into it were herded," as Sally calmly related, "much as sheep or dogs might be, often as many as 17 unwashed and half-clad negroes."  Such an event strongly affected Harry's brother, Tom and his family.  

Sally, however, spoke of it as normal, matter-of-fact... 

One day, she told, a speculator arrived at Albert Parham's farm.  Tom watched in horror as his wife and children were loaded into the "speculator's" wagon.  He begged his reluctant master to sell him, too, so as not to split them up.  His master replied that Tom was a good worker and he would not let him go.  This incident might have emotionally defeated Tom, had it not been for the "speculator's" insistence upon buying Tom as well.  Albert Parham finally gave in... for the right price. 

When Perkinson inquired as to why Tom's wife and kids were sold in the first place, Sally replied that they had "Injun" blood, which was thought undesirable.  As in the business of animal husbandry, breeding was essential to profit and Indians were considered poor or problematic workers.  "The blackest skin brought the best price," Sally said. 

At this point in the interview, the proud old slave woman, "Black Mammy," might have reached her core sense of inhumanity and injustice.  If so, Perkinson saw no sign of it.  

The most chilling tale was yet to come.  How were slaves punished for severe crimes?  

Sally then spoke of two slaves, Joe and Martha, who hated their master intensely and decided to murder him by pouring scalding hot coffee down his throat, which killed him almost instantly.  Sally verbally reprimanded them for their actions, which was "in no way" justified, she said.

Sally told that the local community decided to make examples of Joe and Martha by holding a public execution in the old courthouse square at Harrisburg Creek and every slave from far and wide was forced to watch.  Sally was piled into a wagon crowded with slaves and she and her mother became afraid and started screaming.  Her mother finally calmed down, but not young Sally.  Sally said her master told her mother to "let the little fool out" and she did not attend the hanging.

Her mother, however, did and told Sally about it.  So, she knew that when they arrived at the courthouse, her mother saw Martha, "sitting on her coffin with a rope around her neck," suckling a newborn baby that she had while in jail awaiting her execution.  A large gathering of the community of Tabb's Creek turned out.  As her death approached, Martha began to sing:

"I'se travellin to the grave, my Lawd,
To lay this body down."

"Sister, you'd better watch and pray,
I'm huntin for Jesus night and day..."

At that point, someone in the crowd hollered out "You ought to a thought a that 'fore you scalded your moster."  

Then, Martha handed her baby to a nearby slave woman and kept singing until the "suddenly taughtened rope" choked off her voice.  The image of a recently alive woman hanging from a rope with a broken neck and her crying newborn nearby is strikingly horrible and difficult to bear.  Still, Sally went on with her casual recollection...

Sally informed Perkinson that when "a slave killed a white man, he was dealt with in short order."  Sally almost made the horrifying seem civilized by saying that the state was required to pay the slave's owner for the financial loss, "the same way that a corporation nowadays has to pay damages for injury to property, perhaps for running over a horse or cow."  

Sally understood business and the place of a worker in the master's business.  After all, slaves were nothing more than expensive farm implements. They had been considered such since 1671 in Carolina... almost 200 years before the war.  The business model went back a few decades further.  There was a long tradition of chattel slavery used for the lucrative sugar production reaching back to the 1640s in Barbados, founders of Carolina.

As horrible as the story already read, there was yet more to come.  Sally told about another slave who had been branded on each palm for his crimes.  The painful branding was done as he was forced to slowly recite  "The Lord save the State - the Lord save the State - the Lord save the State" three times while the hot branding iron seared deep wounds into his palm flesh.  If he said it too quickly, they made him stop and begin again.  Unable to use his hands for a full year after this brutal treatment, his owner had little use for him and sold him. Few farmers had ever broken a plow on purpose, or maimed a horse out of spite.  Why destroy this slave's usefulness?  This type of "conditioning" never made the papers or official records.  The hidden fears were revealed in Perkinson's interview.

Sally disassociated herself from the horror that she witnessed every day.  She saw herself as not "white," but not a slave, either.  She lived like Cinderella in a castle.  Clearly, her master treated her with uncommon compassion.  Sally saw herself as somehow different from other slaves and, therefore, exempt from the punishment and the horrid treatment that they usually received.  She cared for and protected her master's family and their belongings during the war, proud of the way she fooled the Yankees by placing molasses jars in front of the whiskey and buried his money all around the yard until he and his boys came home from the war.  

After the war was over, emancipated slaves in the South had to deal with Southern revenge, the KKK, hatred, mobs, and lynchings.  So, the horrors of which Sally spoke had not included those later events, the assuredly more intense violence.  The events that she described involved slavery before and during the war... they occurred before emancipation... before the real dangers began! 

Sally's subtle deception tainted the historical value of her testimony.  The images they invoked contrasted strongly with the words themselves, the terrifying life of a typical slave as she saw it... as she felt it... from afar.  Did Sally realize that she regaled a life that, for others, was a literal hell on Earth?  She may not have seen herself as a slave at all, but a part of Asa's natural family, always a child... though with limited rights.  Sally would never have left the South like the 37% that fled from 1910-1930! After all, she had a home in the "castle."

Charlotte Perkinson perhaps had achieved that for which she had searched; she understood Sally Parham much better by the end of the interview.  The ex-slaves who remained in the South, perhaps, were not as confident or independent as the people who fled in the Southern Diaspora.  Many found it easier to accept the terrible life that they had known so well rather than the life in the unknown... and they mentally compensated.  As Perkinson listened to Sally, she began to glimpse the reason that "Black Mammy" spoke so freely of slave mistreatment, all the while living into a ripe old age in the very house in which she was born a slave, was freed, and yet remained until her death. 

Perkinson interpreted the experience from a standpoint of a front-line war reporter, buried within a highly-reactive culture, but also from the restrictions of 1928.  These horrors were perhaps too vivid for print.  After all, the KKK was at the height of their power then.  "They are those of old slavery time," Perkinson justified, "when the finest points of etiquette were observed by the white people, and whose manners were imitated by the house servants, generally."  

Perkinson commented further, "Even now, the old woman feels it within her province and a part of her duty to the old family, to admonish and advise her young mistress, when occasion demands, and most of all to tell her 'bout the way her family did and lived befor' de war.'" Such devotion... to please the white establishment who certainly would be reading the paper.

Sally became a member of the white church, "Tabb's Creek Baptist Church," constituted just before the Revolution.  She was baptised in Cheatham's Pond with whites and slaves, only praying in private, "no one dar' but me and Gawd!"  Living together was normal to her, but keeping their distance was only right, she also believed.  Sally witnessed the "not unusual" practice of mulatto children born of the masters and their slave mistresses and felt it was the greatest cause of "unhappiness and misery for both races."  

Unabashedly, she repeated the mantra of the Ku Klux Klan, the white supremacist, abhorring miscegenation of the races, or "race-mixing," as it was called.  "Gawd" never intended that! Sally might say.

Modern Tabb's Creek Baptist Church.  Photo taken by Pat Garrett, Brittany & Ross Cifers. From "Find-a-grave" website.

Ex-slaves in the South were cultural captives of the South for decades after the war.  Modern psychologists define "Stockholm Syndrome," or "capture-bonding" as "a psychological phenomenon in which hostages express empathy and sympathy and have positive feelings toward their captors, sometimes to the point of defending them."  This certainly explains Sally's interview.  It explains Sally's strong defense of the white Southerner's way of life during the era of "Jim Crow," of her joyful preference for the nominally derogative term "Black Mammy,"now considered to be an ethnic slur. 

Any group of people politically consist of about 20-60-20%; 20% are those who will go one way that will be good for them, the other 20% are those who will never advocate for themselves... the 60% in the middle are those that must be "convinced."  It's simple human nature.  In this case, it worked out about half and half after the "convincing."  53% stuck around.

Sally was one of those who, like Patty Hearst in the 1970s, identified with her captors and began working with them, supporting them, even defending them.  In a way, she was strong-willed, but used that strength to re-enslave herself.  

For Sally, it was an easy pattern for her to fall into, Asa Parham being such a relatively nice guy.  Still, when you belong to the dominant demographic and have never suffered the centuries-long dehumanization of being a slave, you can afford to be a little nicer. 

In her defense, Asa was, indeed, one of the "good" ones, again, relatively speaking, and times have changed since Sally's days, especially after the Civil Rights Act of 1964.  

Again, it's a slow process and it's not nearly over.  With each successive generation, a little more of the fervent belief passes into the ether of historical memory.  The fact that African-Americans remained in the South is actually facilitating that change.  Peaceful movements like Martin Luther King Jr.'s in Alabama, Mississippi, North Carolina, etc. are changing American society for the better... never more apparent than today.  One day, skin color, or relative melanin pigment production, will not matter.  Phenotypical differences may actually become respectable and not debilitating. 

Still, the realities of "separate but equal" kept the status quo for nearly 100 years in North Carolina and it certainly will not end overnight... especially when the strongest opposition initially fled north.  The ghost of "Jim Crow" haunts us still.  Changing that for good will yet require many more years, decades, or even a century!  Yes, social progress is a slow process.  

Richard and Charlotte Perkinson left Wake County for Mecklenburg in 1940.  At least Perkinson lived long enough to see the Civil Rights Act passed, hear Luthur's "I have a dream..." speech at the Lincoln Memorial, passing away in 1970.  She witnessed a future that she helped to create.  Nice legacy!

Perkinson's cultural examination revealed the barriers and the horrors that Sally witnessed during her life that should have made any former slave reject that kind of life.  Being a slave was obviously no badge of honor.  Then again, Sally had not met Martin Luthur King, Jr., nor W.E.B. Dubois.  She had no examples in that regard.  Might she have changed her opinion if she had?  Well... probably not this proud ex-slave, indoctrinated since birth to believe that it was her God-given rightful place.  She had only her delusion to support her.  That was the reality in the South of Sally's post-migration day... the day that the South finally recovered their lost territory... the day the violence stopped, the battle had ended... until 1964, and again in 2008. 

As Grandpa knew, Charlotte Story Perkinson certainly got a story from 102-year-old Sally Parham, even if not the one she had expected.  As Sally would say, it was "the Gawd's truth!"  Well, almost.

Thanks Grandpa!

------------------------------ Afterward about Charlotte's son Richard Terrell Perkinson Jr.:

Richard was born September 23, 1908, a year after his parents' marriage in 1907 and while they still lived in Plymouth, New Hampshire.  On the 9th of April 1934, at the age of 25, the young farmer was shot by 63-year-old William Lonnie Collins of Raleigh with a shotgun before Collins turned the gun on himself:

The Robesonian (Lumberton) 12 Apr 1934

 Charlotte's granddaughter, Helen Poole Fontsere' tells "the whole story was much more horrific, as is shown in the many N.C. newspaper reports of his murder by a madman who then killed himself.  I'm sorry that the man took his own life, because I know my grandmother would have taken that opportunity to back up her sincere opposition to the Death Penalty.  This murderer would surely have been convicted of premeditated murder and sentenced to death.  But my grandmother would have opposed his execution."

Quite the lady, indeed! 

Richard T. Perkinson and his daughters, ca 1930