Racism - the Door is Now WIDE Open

"My own Southern mother recently called me a 'full-fledged Democrat,' but the flying spit and venom made it feel like 'Damn Yankee!'.. a phrase I have heard come from her lips on many an occasion! Earlier, she called me a 'died-in-the-wool Democrat' which has a specifically Confederate meaning.. Rebel wool uniforms were grey because they couldn't afford the blue die that the Union could, thus... a died wool uniform was worn by a Yankee."

Key point for Trump's Confederate fans: Democrat = Yankee

This is what Trump has brought to full fruition! This is also what Civil War did to us the first time... not surprisingly over the same damned White Supremacist issues!

My mother and her family are from an area of North Carolina which I have researched for many years.. the Lower Cape Fear - an area that retained more of a South Carolina flavor than the rest of the state.

As I grew up, I had witnessed many clues to the white-supremacy of this region and have often felt the hatred and resentment of the old war had never died.

Understand that the Old South had never truly relinquished any significant amount of sovereign supremacy to the Union - the United States of America after 1865. You may have heard, as I have many times, that "The South Will Rise Again!" This is the cultural stubbornness that I witnessed on those many trips from my home in Fayetteville (a large city) to the rural Lower Cape Fear (LCF) to see my grandmother - we all have seen it in the plethora of Confederate statues at courthouses across the United States! Understand that this is virtual worship of a defeated traitorous nation.. on our current government soil! It would be merely uncomfortable anywhere else, but outrageous on government property!

Why did we allow this? I'll never quite understand that... 

Illustrating Southern intransigence, there comes another personal tale. I once lived about two years with my cousin in the LCF, and my cousin had an aunt on the paternal side - descended from the aristocratic Hollingsworths in the Duplin-Pender County area. She was visiting with us one day when a guy I worked with in Wilmington (a large city in the LCF) had stopped by to tell me something. This fellow - I'll call him "John" - had always seemed like anyone else, regardless of his color (he was of African American descent). He, too, was from the Pender County area where we then lived.

As soon as John walked through the front door and saw the aristocratic iconic Southern woman - like Scarlett O'Hara - in all her glorified Southern majesty -minus the mint julep - in the center of the room, he immediately began to behave differently. They had obviously known each other.

Remember, I worked with John for months and he behaved like everyone else, so his mutation into... this something truly archaic was unbelievable!

I looked at him like he was a different person... had John lost his mind??! He was genuflecting strongly, his voice had altered to something resembling that of a child, or at least something quite subservient, and he was repeating the phrase "Yes, Miss Pearl, why it's good to see you Miss Pearl." The oddest part.. he sounded like a 19th century slave on the plantation!!! My cousin (from Fort Lauderdale, Florida) and I were both shocked that his demeanor would have changed so drastically.

After John left, the aristocratic Pender County socialite woman announced to us all - in a surprisingly tender way - that John had "always been such a nice young nigger boy!"

My citified mind went: Wham!!! John was 60 years old!!! The LCF was a virtual time capsule! But, it wasn't just in the LCF...

This was the paternal sense of white supremacy that has always pervaded the South - ever since Carolina was founded in 1671 by crude slaving Barbadians. Southerners of that ideology absolutely cannot see any other way to be! For them, whites are designated by God himself to rule over Blacks, Hispanics, Indians, and anyone else of color - until the end of time - which they would gladly welcome over "Negro Rule!"

 

My mother and her family have marinated in this hateful ideology all their lives. And, the election of Barack Obama to two terms as president of the United States simply confirmed to them how USA has defied God and his divine order! It is no surprise that these vengeful white supremacists elected Donald Trump - a man more like their biblical version of the "Anti-Christ" or "Deceiver," or "Man of Sin" in Revelations. Compare this "White Jesus" or Satan with the Socialist Jesus of Matthew 14, who fed the hungry, housed the homeless, and healed the sick... all non-grate, for no pay whatsoever!

After caging brown children for fear's sake, Trump just identified as "un-American" (read: "anti-Trump") four Congresswomen (two of whom are of Islamic origin) - as if they were enemies!! He was quite un-presidential and un-American when he pointed these women out to his violent followers. He, the South's "Anti-Christ" has just - after a whole 2.5 years of semantic shell-game - finally revealed the racist violent truth of his presidency - and their Confederacy!

Trump and his followers also see that their minority of racist voters will always stay in the minority and that American democracy - or rule by majority - will always disfavor them, so they need democracy to end! To equally-violent-minded "Lost Cause" adherents of the Old South, it was high time for another Civil War or perhaps the End of the World! So, bring on the Anti-Christ Donald Trump, no matter he chooses to collude with!

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A reflection on my grandfather's life experience with racism at the turn of the 20th century is quite instructive: https://bcbrooks.blogspot.com/2019/05/my-grandpa-progressive-liberal-minister.html
#Racism #WhiteSupremacy

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!

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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 (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
Author's Bookstore
Author's Amazon.com  page

Was Blackbeard the Pirate from Jamaica?

Was Blackbeard from Jamaica?

Well... before Disney's movie Blackbeard the Pirate in 1952, that was the general consensus... that he was born on Jamaica, lived there, or at least worked out of Jamaica as a mariner. Nathaniel Mist - you know him better as "Charles Johnson" - wrote in his first edition of A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pyrates that Blackbeard was born in Jamaica. He changed this slightly in his second edition: that he was born in Bristol, but worked out of Jamaica. So, for well over two centuries, we believed that Edward Thache at least lived his adult life on the Caribbean Isle.

Since then, however, a huge media campaign was launched that gave him a new home in North Carolina. Yes, he died there. We know that. We even have a date: November 22, 1718. We know this with much greater assurance than his birth... still presumed to be in Bristol, which has been questioned recently as well. 

Why all the confusion with Jamaica?

I blame Patrick Pringle. Not that Pringle didn't do a good job in trying to investigate the question of whether or not Blackbeard came from Jamaica. Before the publication of his book Jolly Roger: The Story of the Great Age of Piracy in 1953, Pringle wrote to the new and first government archivist on Jamaica, Clinton Vane de Brosse Black, to find evidence of Edward Thache's existence on the island. Black wrote back to him that there was no evidence that he could find. 

We have to understand, however, the context in which Black answered Pringle's question. Black had just started as archivist in 1950. Pringle's letter had to arrive before 1953... say between 1950-1952. Again, Black had JUST started his job! He himself told of the condition of government records when he began at the government offices in Spanish Town. He said the archives were a shambles. Records were scattered everywhere, misplaced, and never in any type of order. Employees at the government complex had been known to use the deeds, wills, and other important historical documents as placemats for their lunch... even used to wrap their food to keep it fresh!

Black also did not have computers to help him search for any references to any specific person, place, or record. He had to hand search the millions of scattered records for the name "Edward Teach" or any phonetic variation. Black faced an impossible task before the decades it would require for him to put this mass of records into any semblance of order with a finding aid. 

In essence, Black could never have given a definitive answer to Pringle's question. I don't particularly care for A General History as an actual source of history, but I do think he was right about Bristol and Jamaica.

Still, pirate enthusiasts wanted more... and Disney brought Blackbeard back into the excited eyes of American pirate fans and their kids... who wanted an American hero or anti-hero, as it were.

Throughout the early 20th century, North Carolina had actively sought to build a pro-Blackbeard outlook... for financial reasons, of course. Prior to this date, the southern state was intimately aware of their descent from the West Indies and the pirates associated with early America. Nathaniel Mist even called America the "Commonwealth of Pyrates."

In the late 1920s, the town of Wilmington held "Feast of Pirates" festival, the first national pirate celebration that attracted as many as 40,000 visitors from around the nation. Louis Toomer Moore photographed the events of 1927-1929. There was obviously more than a passing interest in America's former heroes. The festivals are discussed at this link.  

Bath Town had long been the focus of the pirate's attention, but it was a rather small hamlet on the Pamlico River in an out-of-the-way section of coastal North Carolina. There was no commercial base there... like in Wilmington. Still, it was also the state's oldest incorporated town from 1705. A great deal of the state's earliest maritime history was focused there - one of the first ports in a geographically-handicapped state. This topped maritime interest in Queen Anne's Town, or Edenton, as well... the focus of Port Roanoke. 

The interest in pirates quickly waned after this brief southern blip on the radar in the early 20th century. The Great Depression may have made some contribution to the nation's loss of focus on entertainment - corporate pirates then took the wind from our sails!

Durham Morning Herald, 12 Oct 1947

Occurrences of "Blackbeard" in articles appearing in American newspapers from colonial times to the present. The most obvious increase in public interest in pirates began not only after the publication of Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island in 1883, but it jumped to more than four times after Disney's Blackbeard the Pirate feature film in 1952. Furthermore, the interest sustained itself for nearly four decades, with increased southern newspaper occurrences!

As can be clearly seen, interest in pirates remained down, with a definite surge in the 1930s, again probably reduced by World War II. Still, the interest lulled throughout the 40s, with North Carolina struggling to make Bath Town historically popular. Disney's movie, Blackbeard the Pirate, however, appeared in 1952 and the newspapers literally exploded! What's more, the interest sustained itself through the next four decades, giving Bath Town its opportunity to break into the competition.
 

Adding to the state's excitement, Prof. Herbert Paschal wrote A History of Colonial Bath, published by Edwards & Broughton Co. in 1955. Unfortunately, Paschal made a transcription error on an Ormond family will which made it appear that this Ormond died in the colony 50 years earlier than 1773! This initiated speculation that the pirate Edward Thache married this man's daughter "Mary Ormond" as his fourteenth wife, showing devotion to the fantasies of Nathaniel Mist or "Charles Johnson" in A General History! This error made him intimately - if erroneously - acquainted with North Carolina. Ironically, this error made Blackbeard a virtual "son" of the state! Other North-Carolina-centered "theories" evolved that would make Blackbeard more intimately associated with the state - one actually made him a North Carolinian!

The sudden surge of interest in North Carolina and the lack of a definitive connection to Jamaica by 1953, easily handed Blackbeard the Pirate into North Carolina's financially-downtrodden family! William Byrd's "Lubberland" became the pirate king's personal domain! 

Thus, Edward Thache, the conservative war veteran and gentleman resident of Spanish Town, Jamaica became a victim of the media and a forced offspring of the state of North Carolina. Yeah, he was a pirate, but early America loved such conservative Jacobite defenders of their liberty! He was only married once that I know of and he even had a daughter - Elizabeth, named for Thache's mother and who married a prominent and wealthy doctor and multiple plantation owner of Spanish Town. The genealogical exploration has been quite definitive! 

Posters available in various sizes at Zazzle

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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 available there!

"Fake News" Rhetoric and the Damage that it Does

Today's news organizations are under repeated fire from conservatives and even some liberals concerned with the "specter" of "fake news." Many conservatives ill-advisedly get the bulk of their "news" from "Fox News." I try to convince those of the conservative persuasion that "Fox News" is unreliable because they often purposely fake their news. Truth be told, in 2004, they won a lawsuit by declaring that they were "entertainment" and NOT "news," so it didn't matter that they lied in their programming. But, conservative Americans REALLY WANT to believe what they believe, so it is difficult to convince them otherwise.

Perhaps an example from my own work in history will help:

Charles Johnson (not really his name; actually Nathaniel Mist) has been considered the foremost expert on piracy since 1724 when he published "A General History of the Pyrates." Indeed, having the word "History" in its title served Johnson's deceptive purposes as much as "News" does in "Fox News!" I have demonstrated several times that Johnson did not just get some things wrong, but that he outright lied... intentionally, again as "Fox News" does and to which they admitted in 2004. See: http://bcbrooks.blogspot.com/2016/10/jean-martel-misunderstood-french-pirate.html

This is dangerous to history because Johnson has become so well respected in pirate history circles for the past 300 years! The same is true of the lies spewed by "Fox News." They are dangerous to our current political quandary, sitting as it is on the verge of a constitutional crisis over the very likely firing of special council Robert Mueller by the subject of his investigation: Donald J. Trump.

Whereas, CNN has skewed some truths to make them more appealing to the general public, I have yet to see or hear that they have outright lied, as Trump's rhetoric would have you believe. If you do not carefully view and critically examine news stories on a consistent basis, you can be fooled into believing Trump's rhetoric, possibly leading you into the crisis. To the average viewer, CNN could appear to you as just as unreliable as "Fox News," much like the unreliable and sometimes purposely faked "A General History" was universally accepted as "history" for the last 300 years.

This is the inherent danger of Trump's purposeful fascist rhetorical method, much like that touted by Joseph Goebbels, Nazi propaganda minister. It is indeed insidious in its simplicity.

Remarkably. spreading the rhetoric of "fake news" casts doubt upon ALL news. regardless of the source. CNN has had particular scrutiny placed upon them, even though they consistently work hand in hand with reputable news agencies such as the Washington Post and the New York Times. Close study of any of these news sources will verify their honesty and integrity. If they print something that is later proved wrong (a very rare case, to be sure), they immediately print a retraction to maintain their integrity. "Fox News" does not, indeed is not even REQUIRED to do so.


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Coming Soon!

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Johnson's Alternative Pirate Facts!

The Board of Trade and Plantations in London, c.1808

Most of us think of the wheels of government as slow. America and its irascible author and humorist Mark Twain had a particular disgust with Congress! Before the Monday Evening Club in Hartford in 1873, Twain reflected a rather common view of Congress:

It [the press] has scoffed at religion till it has made scoffing popular. It has defended official criminals, on party pretexts, until it has created a United States Senate whose members are incapable of determining what crime against law and the dignity of their own body is—they are so morally blind—and it has made light of dishonesty till we have as a result a Congress which contracts to work for a certain sum and then deliberately steals additional wages out of the public pocket and is pained and surprised that anybody should worry about a little thing like that.

Twain likened Congress to thieves or bandits. We can't truly call them pirates since "piracy" is conveniently defined as "theft at sea." I guess Twain could say that Congress are the equivalent of pirates on land.

This opinion of Congress or government in general as crooks may not have been so fervently held in England as it is in America, at least not at the time of actual pirates in the Golden Age of Piracy. Their Board of Trade and Plantations had acted rather like any politicians. Truly, these petitioners whom you are about to meet were 139 experienced fighters on the sea who may be useful in the new war against Spain, the War of the Quadruple Alliance, as we now call it. That should have prompted a quicker reaction from the Board.

Carter Lane in London. By Gary Davis

Still, there are many varieties of pirate. Literary Pirates occasionally used the written word to assail their opponents. There was no one more effective at such word play as Nathaniel Mist, the controversial Jacobite newspaper publisher of the Weekly Journal and Saturday Evening's Post in London with offices on Great Carter Lane, not far from the government offices at Whitehall.

Mist wound up in jail on numerous occasions and was repeatedly fined for his attacks upon the king and his government. Mist was known to borrow our government's modern practice of "alternative facts" from time to time in these attacks - carefully crafted lies that were not so easily discernible to the average reader. Admittedly, he was much better at it than our current administration.

A little know "real" fact is that Mist also wrote a book about pirates under a pseudonym, Capt. Charles Johnson. This book was called A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pyrates, long thought to have been penned by Daniel DeFoe, who actually worked for Mist at one time - in fact, DeFoe was hired by the British government to calm Mist's printed libeling of the king. A General History was published twice in 1724, the second time with numerous alterations.

Johnson-Mist introduced us to the 139 trained seamen of whom I referred. One of his "alternative facts" shows up subtly in his passage on pirate Capt. Thomas Anstis: 

This being approved of, it was unanimously resolved on, and the underwritten Petition drawn up and signed by the whole Company in the Manner of what they call a Round Robin, that is, the Names were writ in a Circle, to avoid all Appearance of Pre-eminence, and least any Person should be mark’d out by the Government, as a principal Rogue among them.

 To his most sacred Majesty George, by the Grace of God, of Great-Britain, France and Ireland, King, Defender of the Faith, &c.

The humble PETITION of the Company, now belonging to the Ship Morning Star, and Brigantine Good Fortune, lying under the ignominious Name and Denomination of PYRATES.

Humbly sheweth,

THAT we your Majesty’s most loyal Subjects, have, at sundry Times, been taken by Bartholomew Roberts, the then Captain of the abovesaid Vessels and Company, together with another Ship, in which we left him; and have been forced by him and his wicked Accomplices, to enter into, and serve, in the said Company, as Pyrates, much contrary to our Wills and Inclinations: And we your loyal Subjects utterly abhoring and detesting that impious way of Living, did, with an unanimous Consent, and contrary to the Knowledge of the said Roberts, or his Accomplices, on, or about the 18th Day of April 1721, leave, and ran away with the aforesaid Ship Morning Star, and Brigantine Good Fortune, with no other Intent and Meaning than the Hopes of obtaining your Majesty’s most gracious Pardon. And, that we your Majesty’s most loyal Subjects, may with more Safety return to our native Country, and serve the Nation, unto which we belong, in our respective Capacities, without Fear of being prosecuted by the Injured, whose Estates have suffered by the said Roberts and his Accomplices, during our forcible Detainment, by the said Company: We most humbly implore your Majesty’s most royal Assent, to this our humble Petition.

And your Petitioners shall ever pray.

This Petition was sent home by a Merchant Ship bound to England, from Jamaica, who promised to speak with the Petitioners, in their Return, about 20 Leagues to Windward of that Island, and let them know what Success their Petition met with. When this was done, the Pyrates retires to the Island before proposed, with the Ship and Brigantine.

This Island (which I have no Name for) lies off the Southwest End of Cuba, uninhabited, and little frequented. On the East End is a Lagune, so narrow, that a Ship can but just go in, tho’ there’s from 15 to 22 Foot Water, for almost a League up: On both Sides of the Lagune grows red Mangrove Trees, very thick, that the Entrance of it, as well as the Vessels laying there, is hardly to be seen. In the Middle of the Island are here and there a small thick Wood of tall Pines, and other Trees scattered about in different Places.

Johnson-Mist goes on to explain how these crews survived on that Cuban island for nine months, eating mostly four different kinds of turtle. He even went into a long excerpt from a mock trial that they supposedly portrayed to amuse themselves. How he could know these details is a good question. Mist may have spoken to some of the defendants in jail - if he had that much energy.

Johnson-Mist said they stayed on this Cuban island for nine months, awaiting an answer to their petition, and that they eventually went into the Windward Passage in search of a ship from London that might have news of the answer to this petition. As Johnson-Mist wrote, "The beginning of August 1722, the Pyrates made ready the Brigantine, and came out to Sea, and beating up to Windward, lay in the Track for their Correspondant in her Voyage to Jamaica, and spoke with her; but finding nothing was done in England in their Favour, as ’twas expected, they return’d to their Consorts at the Island with the ill News, and found themselves under a Necessity, as they fancied, to continue that abominable Course of Life they had lately practis’d."

So, Johnson-Mist declared that the pirates did not receive an answer. The crews of the Morning Starr and Good Fortune left Bartholomew Roberts in April 1721, waited on a Cuban island for nine months, until January 1722... no... wait... he wrote "August 1722." That's 16 months from April 1721!

What Johnson-Mist did not know was that the crews of the Morning Starr and Good Fortune might have left Roberts in April 1721, but they did not submit their petition until 28 April 1722 - to Nathaniel Lawes of Jamaica... wait again... they supposedly gave the petition to a "Merchant Ship bound to England, from Jamaica, who promised to speak with the Petitioners, in their Return, about 20 Leagues to Windward of that Island." They didn't actually speak with the governor himself - did they?

Wait again... 20 leagues to windward? Of Jamaica? Why, that's not in the Windward Passage! What the hell?

All of this confusion exists because Nathaniel Mist "alternative-facted" or lied - as usual. In my opinion, he didn't even seem to have the common knowledge of a seaman familiar with the West Indies.

It was not unusual for writers in the early eighteenth century to lie or to copy other written work and republish it as their own - with conveniently "rearranged" facts or "alternative facts" more inclined toward their agenda - in essence, plagiarize it. American government officials and their wives are not the only ones who ever thought of plagiarizing.

The crews of the Morning Starr and Good Fortune sent their petition to England probably through Gov. Lawes' connections. The answer would of course be delivered to Gov. Nathaniel Lawes himself. They probably had it sent through the usual communications of Lawes with the Board of Trade. That's why the copy of the petition and its reply are found to this day in CO 323/8, the repository in England for letters from governors whose names began with an "L":

Portion of Pirates' Petition in CO 323/8 - interestingly, about 80% of the pirates shown in this round robbin could sign their own name, a possible indicator of literacy not normally believed about mariners of the day.

Even though the paper is torn in the middle part of the petition copy above in blue, one can still make out:

X x x x x paper torn x x x x Starr and Brigt. Good F x x x x x
Fourteenth? Day of June 1722 This vangs x x x x x tion to Your Most Sacred Majesty The First Dated April the 28th: 1722. To His Excellency Sr. Nicholas Lawes Knt. Governour in Chief of the Island of Jamaica.

This copy was made for recording the Board's and the king's answer to these pirates - to be kept in their records - in London. Yes, this is just down the street a bit from Great Carter Lane. The date of 14 June 1722 is the date that it was officially transmitted to the Board and recorded and that date could not have been much greater than two weeks after they received the petition from Lawes! Pretty spiffy for government work, hey? Well, let's not get excited...

Did Nathaniel Mist, the controversial Jacobite polemicist who wrote under the pen-name "Capt. Charles Johnson," see this petition, but not see who relayed it from the West Indies?

England actually got the petition and answered it, addressing the reply to Gov. Lawes - but well after December 1722, as the Board still deliberated with West Indian merchants at that time. A later deposition tells the pirates waited eight months - from April 1722! That would be December 1722 - still not enough time to get the laborious answer. Mist wrote his book and published it in May 1724, then again, with many modifications in Dec 1724. Still, all of this petition parley was said and done by then.

But, still... if Mist had found the original petition, why had he not asked about the Board's deliberations and answer? Was he not welcome in their offices and forced to rummage their trash for bits and pieces and just found the original petition, no longer needed by the Board? Considering his reputation... very possible!

Most likely, he had access to their records, or at least a source on the Board who would speak with him. He obviously had found a copy of the petition itself - to copy it so precisely into his book. He most likely saw the Board's copy and their answer to Gov. Lawes. But, Mist never mentioned Lawes. Did Mist just ignore the part in blue above, assuming that he saw it? The part about Gov. Lawes? If he saw it, then why did he stop his transcription just as he came to this part? Did he want his readers to know that Lawes was involved? That the petitioners may actually have gone to Lawes instead of this clandestine route - more piratish in execution? More desperate in literary terms?

He should also have seen the answer to the petition immediately following it:

Also in CO 323/8 appears the answer, immediately following the copy of their petition.

The long-awaited answer was "YES!" The pirates received their pardons:

To the Right Honoll. Lords Commissioners for Trade and Plantations

Whereas Your Lordships [Admiralty?] have Communicated the Coppy of a Petition addressed to his Majesty on behalf of the Company belonging to the Ship Morning Star and Brigantine Good Fortune, dated the 14th June 1722. Alledging themselves to have been Forced by Bartholomew Roberts and his Accomplices to serve as Pirates which Impious way of Living the said Petitioners utterly detest and Abhor and praying his Majesties most Gracious Pardon.

Wee the Underwritten in Case his Majesty of his Great Wisdom and Compassion, shall think Fitt to Signifie by Proclamation his Gracious Pardon to these and mo x x others here being, or deemed, or taken to be Pirates as Shall Conforme to the Conditions in such Proclamation to be incerted, do hope that his Majesties Grace Extended to those Offenders will not be attended with any evil Consequence to Trade of Navigation but on the Contrary prevent Many Mischiefs which may otherwise happen.

Unfortunately, there is no date on the document, but Mist didn't print it either. He wanted his readers to believe that these pirate rogues and scoundrels were totally on their own - brigands against the world! Oh, the tragedy and hopelessness of the poor, "notorious" pirate!


Of course, what they would have done with these pardons was unpardonable. They remained on the account, were arrested a couple of years later, and executed. So, the story may actually have worked out for Mist no matter what happened.

At their trials and in their depositions, they mention that the crews of the Morning Starr and Good Fortune waited for their answer - not on a Cuban Island with four kinds of edible turtle, but rather on the Island of Roatan at the Bay of Honduras, where many a Jamaican ship came to gather logwood - the quicker to hear about a response from Jamaica no doubt.

Mist had read their depositions, too... or, at least one of the depositions made by Thomas Lawrence Jones, Bridstock Weaver, William Whelks, and Henry Treehill, all men whose names appeared on the petition above. Still, Johnson-Mist mentioned Thomas Anstis as captain, John Fenn as captain, a Phillips as carpenter - all men whose jobs were not mentioned on the petition itself, but only in the depositions. How did he know that? Unless he read the depositions from 1723 and 1724, especially the one by Treehill. All of those petitions also told about the Island of Roatan... nothing at all about a Cuban Island with turtles.

At best, Nathaniel Mist or "Capt. Charles Johnson" was lazy with his facts - you might even say "alternative facts!" Yeah, he probably just outright lied... um, like Congress! Certainly, the wheels of government have always been indescribably slow. Somebody tell Mark, would you? ;)




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"Quest for Blackbeard" is now available in ebook format and can be found on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other online booksellers, including Apple iTunes.

Quest is already previewable on Google Books.

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"Fake News" in the Golden Age of Piracy!

New Providence Island, c.1700

I missed an opportunity when I wrote Quest for Blackbeard: The True Story of Edward Thache and His World. Still, that's what I have this blog for... to correct mistakes or add something of interest that I may have left out. Really, the opportunity I missed may have been of greater interest to me personally, as it has to do with my continued harassment of the infamous pirate author, plagiarist, and scoundrel Capt. Charles Johnson. I like tearing his dishonesty apart and even have a Facebook page for it now. Yes, I daily encourage rebellion in pirate historical circles. Like Thomas Jefferson, I'm bold and will shed some patriotic blood for the cause!

Thanks to recent scholarly work, we all know the Jacobite polemicist, journalist, and opportunist, forever in legal trouble because of his mouthing off at important folks - like the king! He went by the name of Nathaniel Mist, as well as his pen name "Charles Johnson," controversial publisher of London's Weekly Journal and Saturday Evening Post. I've argued on numerous occasions, indeed found absolute proof, that Mist was a liar and profiteer quite worthy of membership in the "Commonwealth of Pyrates" he so enthusiastically wrote about from 3,000 miles away. Mist was a purveyor of what we call today "Fake News" and provided plenty of "alternative facts" on pirates. The worst is that he mixed the lies with the truth, muddling it all - much like Bertram G. Nelson back in the 1920s radio craze.

Mist claimed that Frenchman Jean Martel was an English pirate and gave him credit for many things that he never did. He said that Stede Bonnet had pirated a set of vessels in August 1717 off the Virginia coast that Samuel Bellamy had actually done in April - and forgot to even mention Bellamy's name - he even mixed up ships and people by name to intentionally confuse the data. Worst of all, he made Edward Thache out to be a cruel and vicious man when no record even shows that he ever harmed anyone outside of battle. Indeed, he was courteous to his opponents, as you might expect of any Royal Navy officer. I do have to say that Mist was not entirely responsible for Thache's liable problem - a lot of that had to do with Britain's new Board of Trade and their desire to put piracy down in America, that "Commonwealth of Pyrates" I referred to earlier. I'll let you be the judge of whether or not you think that effort was successful! 

What wild tirade is he on, now! I'm sure you asked that...

Well, he did it again. Mist did it again! The man can't stop lying. As usual, he used a bit of truth to pad his fantasies. I can't tell you how this irks an historian like myself, trained with the solemn task of finding truth in documentation. When you purposely falsify the documents, my job is 100 times harder than it needs to be. 

We have a modern term for Mist's Piracy, don't we? No, I don't mean "Fox News." I'm referring to the more general category of "Fake News" to which Fox News deserves special consideration!

In my book, I discussed a pirate named Othniel Davis and partner to pirate Thomas Porter (brother of Daniel, sloop Mayflower, who dealt with Richard Tookerman at Curaçao and joined with Bartholomew Roberts occasionally), both recently of the Island of New Providence, Bahamas. I found that Othniel Davis came to the Bahamas from the direction of New York. He pirated a bit and took the king's pardon, along with 208 other penitent types - well, mostly penitent. Davis and Porter together owned a sloop known as Moville Trader and Gov. Woodes Rogers commissioned Davis to go after pirates. Some communication got twisted and Davis apparently committed piracy again. The two men left the Bahamas after Davis' surrender and backsliding, to the colony of South Carolina. Thomas Porter experienced the true American dream with lots of gold everything in his South Carolina will! Hey! Nothing personal, I'm sure. When the two on-off pirates reached South Carolina, Davis again surrendered to Gov. Robert Johnson and again received a commission to go after Spanish ships - now that Britain was back at war again with Spain (Dec 1718) and needed fighters. He turned out to be much better at keeping that promise of hunting the Spanish and stealing their treasure. He was even spoken of as a hero in the admiralty court!
 

South Carolina Admiralty Court - Sep 1719

Well... an interesting tidbit appears in Charles Johnson's A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pyrates. I did not notice this bit when I researched Othniel or Othenius Davis. His name was listed as "Othenius" on his surrender to Capt. Pearse at the Bahamas in March 1718. 

Anyway, Johnson apparently conflated Othniel Davis with a least part of his history that he listed for Howell Davis. Of course, "Howell" and "Othniel" look a lot alike... I guess. He told that:

[Howell Davis] knowing that the Island of Providence was a kind of Rendevouz of Pyrates, he was resolved to make one amongst them, if possible, and to that Purpose, found Means of shipping himself for that Island; but he was again disappointed, for when he arrived there, the Pyrates had newly surrendered to Captain Woods Rogers, and accepted of the Act of Grace, which he had just brought from England.

However, Davis was not long out of Business, for Captain Rogers having fitted out two Sloops for Trade, one called the Buck, the other the Mumvil Trader; Davis found an Employment on Board of one of them [the Mumvil Trader as he later mentions - he also later tells it was Buck... anyway...].

Obviously, this was Othniel Davis, not Howell Davis. South Carolina Admiralty records clearly show that Moville Trader was co-owned by both "Othniel" Davis and Porter. 

Note that in this same section on Davis, Johnson mentions "Coxon's Hole" on the east end of Cuba. A "Coxen Hole" is actually on Roatan Island in the Bay of Honduras. Still, "Coxen" is short for "coxwain" and there are probably quite a few places that carry this name. I can't find reference to any on Cuba, though. Johnson may have been thinking of current Guantanomo Bay

Coxen Hole, Roatan, Bay Islands, Honduras

 This, however, was not the worst part. The really worst part involved not only a serious jumbling of data by Johnson, or Mist, but another lie told by a different newspaper, the Weekly Packet of London. This bit was truly worthy of the term "fake news." And, wouldn't you know? Johnson copied it and added a lot more fake stuff!

The Really Worst Part...

While reading the part on Howell Davis, I read another bit that I couldn't quite identify in my research. Johnson's version goes:

Cadogan Snow of Bristol, Captain Skinner Commander, bound for the Coast of Guiney, of which Snow [Howell] Davis was chief Mate: They were no sooner arrived at Sierraleon on the aforesaid Coast, but they were taken by the Pyrate England, who plunder’d them, and Skinner was barbarously murdered, as has been related before in the Story of Captain England.

As it turns out, the Weekly Packet of August 2, 1718 printed this:

Weekly Packet of August 2, 1718

Bristol, July 28...  Yesterday Morning arriv'd the Lydia and Sarah, Capt. Briant, in six weeks from Barbados, and brings News of the following ships arriv'd there: ... Coulston, Capt. Skinner, from the coast [Africa]. The Coulston and Society, both of this Port, were plunder'd by two Pirates, of 30 Guns each, at [Sierra] Leone. They took thirty-seven Slaves out of the Coulston, and a Considerable Quantity of Gold. 

The Boston News-Letter picked up the story from London on August 1, 1718, although they called the ship Skinner and its captain, Coulston:

Boston News-Letter, 17 Nov 1718, 1.

It would appear that the Weekly Packet confirmed Johnson's story, with the exception of the ship's name, Coulston rather than Cadogan. These were the events supposedly from the 1718 voyage of Coulston. Indeed, Johnson most likely pulled this article from the newspapers and then added more detail in his section on Edward England and Howell Davis. There is no way to determine if a Howell Davis ever actually served as the mate on Coulston, but he did not appear to take command of this vessel after the captain died, as Johnson said that he did. Davis was not the mate on this voyage!

The beauty of the modern age is that we have digital access to many records that Johnson and people of his day never had - which makes them look pretty sorry, actually - not always their fault. For instance, Ancestry.com tells that a Peter Skinner of Bristol married a Mary Carpenter in 1712, that he was a mariner, well-acquainted with the Tunbridges of Bristol. He made a will in 1713 in which he left everything to his new bride and made his "loving friend Robert Tunbridge of the City of Bristol" executor. It was probated in 1719, a year after this 1718 voyage.

Will of Peter Skinner - probated 23 Jun 1719 - PROB 11/569/170

Another convenience is the ability to access programs like the Atlantic Slave Trade Database "Voyages" in which every extant newspaper and official record has been scoured to obtain details of every slave voyage possible. Every single voyage contains multiple sources, so the list should be rather comprehensive. This database shows the voyage of Coulston, from the time it departed Bristol on December 3, 1717 until it returned September 28, 1718, nearly ten months. This date range straddles the August edition of the Weekly Packet - nearly a year for a round-trip voyage for this ship! No other possible voyages are possible for the bulk of 1718. In other words, the Weekly Packet article was definitely talking about this particular trip on August 1, 1718.

Voyages database tells a great deal more than dates. First of all, the only Cadogan in the database was commanded by Richard Baugh and sailed in 1731. Coulston of Bristol, 70-tons 4 guns, built 1717, was owned by Robert Tunbridge, with master Capt. Peter Skinner - yes, the one whose will was mentioned above. Skinner had not died en route in 1718 - he died the year after and it wasn't by pirate torture. Furthermore, his mate was Hugh Vaughn, not Howell Davis. They arrived at Sierra Leone, purchased 41 slaves and arrived at Barbados June 9, 1718 with 33 slaves left. They only lost 8 slaves (a loss of 19.5% - average was about 15%), nominal for these types of Middle Passage trips. They didn't lose 37, what amounted to their entire complement - why even continue if they had? Most telling, this ship was listed as "not captured" by pirates or Spanish privateers on this 1718 voyage.*

*Sources for the 1718 Coulston voyage: Richardson, David, Bristol, Africa and the Eighteenth Century Slave Trade to America: Volume 1, The Years of Expansion, 1698-1729 (Bristol, 1986); Volume 2, The Years of Ascendancy, 1730-1745 (Bristol, 1987); Volume 3, The Years of Decline, 1746-1769 (Bristol, 1991); Volume 4, The Final Years, 1770-1807 (Bristol, 1997); Post Man (London), 31 Jul 1718 & 2 Oct 1718.

Peter Skinner's last voyage had not ended with his ship being captured by two pirate ships of Edward England or any other pirate, despite reports in at least two newspapers. He was not assaulted by a pirate crew and killed. They did not do as Johnson wrote:

[England's crew] laid hold of the Captain, and made him fast to the Windless, and there pelted him with Glass Bottles, which cut him in a sad Manner; after which they whipp’d him about the Deck, till they were weary, being deaf to all his Prayers and Intreaties, and at last, because he had been a good Master to his Men, they said, he should have an easy Death, and so shot him thro’ the Head.

Yeah... that entire list was supposedly an "easy Death." A pirate Howell Davis does appear in newspapers, but truth be told, the majority of Johnson's Howell Davis section is vague and impossible to prove... just like this wild-eyed fish tale.

The Weekly Packet story was obviously "fake news!" Furthermore, this fake news was spread across the Atlantic Ocean to the Boston News-Letter. "Fake News" is truly akin to a virus - stowing away in the creaky moldy hull of a ship, waiting to infest other places! It may be that Tunbridge wanted to write off this 1718 voyage and collect on insurance - he might have anonymously slipped notes of a fake disaster involving his ship into the local "Fox News of London." Lloyd's of London did pay for cargo lost to pirates, assuming it was insured with them. Still, the slaves made it to Barbados - someone reported 33 received out of 41 loaded in Africa from Coulston that trip. You know the buyer would have made noise if they hadn't!

Charles Johnson simply copied this fake news from the newspaper and then added a whole bunch of juicy fake stuff truly worthy of Sean Hannity and his Fox News guys. And, he changed the name of the ship, which was probably wise... because no scholars of Nathaniel Mist's day could "fact check" what lies he told without the internet! Oh, and... the pirate Edward England's name never came up in any of these records...



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"Quest for Blackbeard" is now available in ebook format and can be found on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other online booksellers, including Apple iTunes.

Quest is already previewable on Google Books.

baylusbrooks.com