Eᴅᴡᴀʀᴅ Tᴇᴀᴄʜ

Pɪʀᴀᴛᴇs: Eᴅᴡᴀʀᴅ Tᴇᴀᴄʜ - Bʟᴀᴄᴋʙᴇᴀʀᴅ

The beginning of the life of Blackbeard is shrouded in mystery – although thought to have been born and raised in Bristol, other schools of thought have suggested that Teach was born in Jamaica.  It is also unknown if ‘Teach’ was the true family name of this man.  An unconfirmed source suggests he might, in fact, have been named Edward Drummond, and in later documents he has also been referred to as Edward Thatch.  Nevertheless, when he began his career on the high seas, sailing from Jamaica aboard a privateer during the War of the Spanish Succession, he was using the name Edward Teach, or a variation thereof.

The War of the Spanish Succession (1701 – 1714) brought many men to the sea, and plenty of sailors became pirates at its end.  Piracy meant that they could continue their profitable and relatively undisciplined life, much preferring this route to that which they might find in the merchant navy or Royal Navy.  This was Edward Teach’s choice, and in 1716 he joined the crew of Benjamin Hornigold.  Hornigold was a skilled and ruthless Bahama pirate, and Teach so impressed him with his own aggression that within months of him joining Hornigold’s crew, Teach was in charge of a captured sloop.  Hornigold and Teach terrorised the western Atlantic, and in 1717 took theConcorde.  This English built, 20 gun, 300 ton ship had been seized by the French in 1711, but now Teach was granted her command by Hornigold.  He renamed her, and the Concorde became one of the most famous pirate ships in history – the Queen Anne’s Revenge.

Hornigold retired, taking advantage of an amnesty offered to former privateers by the British Government.  Teach was no longer under his command, and began a two year campaign of piracy which left him with a reputation for cruelty.  He fought a running duel with the HMS Scarborough, which, by adding another twenty guns to the Queen Anne’s Revenge, he bested, although this particular conflict added to his notoriety no end.  He then went on to plunder at least eighteen ships in six months.

Teach cultivated the image of Blackbeard the Pirate in this period.  There are no verified accounts of his murderous ways, and it is thought that he prevailed against his enemies by fear alone.  This was certainly helped by his fearsome appearance.  Blackbeard took to weaving slow burning fuses into his famous black beard when going into battle, creating clouds of smoke around his scowling visage.  He fought with not one but multiple swords, guns and knives, and the sight of the demonic looking pirate, armed to the teeth, would certainly have terrified many of his opponents.

He was also given to be a colourful character in contemporary media.  Newspaper portrayals included a story of Blackbeard shooting his first mate, so that his crewmen wouldn’t ‘forget who he was’.  He was a notorious womaniser, as can be seen from this excerpt from Captain Charles Johnson's A General History of the Robberies & Murders of the Most Notorious Pirates:
“Before he sailed upon his adventures, he married a young creature of about sixteen years of age . . . and this I have been informed, made Teach's fourteenth wife . . . with whom after he had lain all night, it was his custom to invite five or six of his brutal companions to come ashore, and he would force her to prostitute herself to them all, one after another, before his face.”

Blackbeard’s demise was brought about by the Governor of Virginia, Alexander Spotswood.  Putting a price of £100 on Blackbeard’s head, he also financed an expedition south by land and sea to expose what he suspected what a collaboration between Blackbeard and Governor Charles Eden, who had granted Blackbeard a formal pardon  in August 1718.  At North Carolina’s Ocracoke inlet on the 22nd November 1718, Blackbeard and his pirate crew of only a reported nineteen men on the Adventurewas engaged by Lieutenant Robert Maynard, commanding two sloops and fifty four men.  Blackbeard had vowed to give no quarter, nor seek it, and died fighting.  Teach was reportedly shot five times and stabbed more than twenty, although this has not been verified.  He was certainly decapitated, however, following a death due to loss of blood. 

True to the legend Teach himself had created, myths about Blackbeard’s death immediately surfaced, including that his headless corpse swam between two and seven times around theAdventure before sinking.  Teach’s head was hung from Maynard’s bowsprit, and later from a pike at Bath, North Carolina. 

ᴛʜᴇ ʙʟᴀᴄᴋʙᴇᴀʀᴅ ʜɪsᴛᴏʀʏ

Since the 1950s, thanks to the influence of his original and unforgettably charismatic portrayals of both Blackbeard the Pirate and Long John Silver, Robert Newton's distinctive vocal intonations, swagger, facial expressions, and liberal use of the interjection "Arr!" have become ingrained in the public consciousness as characteristics of the quintessential "Golden Age" pirate—so much so that the painting shown at the right is simply identified as "Blackbeard" with no mention of the actor who posed for the photograph on which it was based. 

Much of what we "know" about the life of the pirate known as Blackbeard (whose real name is commonly believed to be Edward Teach, though it was also variously recorded by contemporaries as Tatch, Thatch, Thatcher, and even Drummond) comes from a book published in two volumes between 1724 and 1728 entitled A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pyrates by a mysterious author named Captain Charles Johnson. Because nothing is known of this Captain Johnson—even his existence cannot be verified, though he must have been well-connected—many scholars believe that Johnson was in fact a pen name used by journalist and novelist Daniel Defoe (whose contributions to literature include Robinson Crusoe and Moll Flanders). Although controversy over its authorship continues, in recent years, the still-popular book has been boldly reprinted under Defoe's name. Unfortunately, like the identity of its author, much of the information asserted as fact in the book cannot be verified through other sources, and, indeed, some of it could not have been known by a third party (such as the dying words of a man marooned on a deserted island). Yet where the facts can be corroborated, they generally jibe with historical records. Because of this the General History is widely held to be a mixture of fact and Defoe's very creative imagination. The difficulty for historians (and serious students of pirate lore) lies in deciding where to draw the line between fact and fiction. (Even Henry Morgan's early biographer, Alexander Exquemelin, who sailed under him and witnessed his deeds, is believed to have seamlessly embellished the truth where he felt it would make better—i.e., more sensational—reading.) Yet there do exist undisputed eyewitness accounts and Naval records of Blackbeard's later exploits, as well as his spectacular final battle.

Unfortunately for pirate and history enthusiasts, none of these sources seems to have been consulted in creating the script for the 1952 film Blackbeard the Pirate. Most of the research done seems to have focused more on Henry Morgan than on the ostensible subject of the film. Below is a sampling of the film's departures from the true story of Blackbeard and his supposed contemporaries depicted in the film:

---

The film version	Historical "facts"
The opening text of the film boldly proclaims that, "During the 17th Century the Spanish Main was overrun with pirates, foremost of whom was Edward Teach, the evil and immortal Blackbeard."	Blackbeard's career as a pirate captain lasted two years, from 1717-1718 (in the 18th century). While he did plunder in the Caribbean, basing himself in the Bahamas (not Jamaica), more of his time was spent in the North American colonies, where he managed to ingratiate himself to Governor Eden of North Carolina, who is even alleged by "Captain Johnson" to have presided at Teach's nuptials (to his 14th wife, a girl of 16).
The text goes on to inform the viewer that "Sir Henry Morgan, who was then in the service of the king, had been sent to clear the seas of the very pirates he once had led."	This aspect of the film is based on truth but it still takes license with it. The real Morgan began his career as a privateer, commissioned by the king to fight the Spanish, primarily in the Caribbean, and his brutality was legendary. Following the 1670 Treaty of Madrid, he continued his plundering, apparently not having received word that England was now at peace with Spain, and proceeded to commit his most infamous deed, the sacking of Panama. As a result, both he and his sponsor, Governor Modyford of Jamaica, were sent to England in chains by order of Charles II. Arriving in London, however, Morgan was not imprisoned, due to his being "very sickly" (Cawthorne), and was treated like a hero. In 1674, on the theory that "it takes a thief to catch a thief," he was sent back to Port Royal, Jamaica, and given the titles of Lieutenant Governor (which simultaneously conferred a knighthood) and judge of the Vice Admiralty Court, in which capacity he prosecuted pirates. (Due to a shipwreck en route, he did not arrive in Jamaica to take his post until 1676.) However, there appears to be no record of his personally chasing down pirates at sea as shown in the film; his worsening health would have precluded such strenuous voyages.
The voiceover narration begins: "One night when Morgan was at sea, the ship of the pirate Charles Bellamy came creeping into the harbor and passed unharmed under the guns of the fort." Bellamy's body is soon seen hanging from the yardarm of Blackbeard's ship.	While Blackbeard and Bellamy may have encountered each other at the pirate hotbed of the 1710s, New Providence in the Bahamas (not Port Royal), Charles Bellamy spent most of his career plundering ships on the New England coast from 1717-1720. Considering Blackbeard died while Bellamy's career was still going strong, it is certain that Bellamy's body never hung from Blackbeard's yardarm. (Charles Bellamy is often confused with Captain Samuel Bellamy, who was killed in 1717 when his ship, the Whydah Galley, sank off the coast of Cape Cod. The Whydah, discovered in the mid-1980s, is the only positively identified pirate-ship wreck yet to be recovered. Another shipwreck believed to be Blackbeard's Queen Anne's Revenge was discovered in 1996.)
The narrator continues: "I, Edward Maynard, disguised as a down-at-the-heels surgeon ..." (The character later introduces himself to Blackbeard as Robert Maynard. When he bumps into his Uncle Jeremy at Morgan's fort, he too addresses him as Robert.)	Lieutenant Robert Maynard, of the HMS Pearl, was the active-duty naval officer dispatched by the governor of Virginia to put an end to Blackbeard's plundering. A detailed, eyewitness report of their bloody battle is part of the official record. (Adding to the implausibility of the plot itself, it is difficult to imagine how a bounty hunter could disguise himself as a surgeon, especially when called upon to perform delicate surgery, as he is in the film!)
The narrator concludes: "... [I] had been haunting the Port Royal waterfront, waiting for something like this to happen. For the governor of Jamaica believed that Morgan was a pirate still and had a quick fortune ready for the man who could prove it. I wanted that quick fortune."	Governor John Vaughan of Jamaica, who had succeeded Morgan's cohort Sir Thomas Modyford, did indeed persecute his Lieutenant Governor, having Morgan brought repeatedly before the Jamaican Council on miscellaneous charges of which the accused was always acquitted thanks in part to his popularity. [In fact, what Vaughan suspected Morgan of was not overt piracy but that "he was clandestinely arranging private commissions with his old friend Governor d'Ogeron of Saint Domingue and taking 10 percent of the profits" (Cawthorne).] (Meanwhile, after spending two years in the Tower of London without a trial, Modyford had also been sent back to Jamaica to serve as chief justice.) Rather than sailing the high seas, Morgan spent increasing amounts of time haunting the taverns of Port Royal, and Vaughan finally succeeded in having him "suspended from office for disloyalty and drunken disorder" (Cordingly, 1996). Vaughan was eventually recalled as governor, to be replaced temporarily by Morgan himself, but Morgan was in turn removed from office in 1682 by returning interim governor Sir Thomas Lynch. As for the film's setting of Port Royal, on June 7, 1692 (four brief years after Morgan's death yet a full quarter century before the start of Blackbeard's career), the city known to contemporaries as "the richest and wickedest city in the New World" was obliterated first by an earthquake and then by the tidal waves that followed, taking Morgan's ceremoniously interred remains with them. What little of the city that was not permanently submerged was rebuilt (on the site of present-day Kingston) and ceased to be a haven for pirates. By Blackbeard's time, the hotbed of piracy in that region had been relocated to the then-ungoverned island of New Providence in the Bahamas, known today as Nassau, which Blackbeard and over 500 of his contemporaries, including close associates Stede Bonnet, Benjamin Hornigold, and Charles Vane (none of whom is mentioned in the film), made their home base. When former privateer Woodes Rogers was appointed governor of the Bahamas in 1717 and set about his successful campaign to suppress piracy, Blackbeard relocated his base of operations to North Carolina.
Blackbeard complains, "There 'e sits, up there in 'is castle, the great Sir Henry Morgan, with all the loot o' Panama—gold, silver, jewels—that's what 'e's sittin' on up there." The "castle" he refers to is the fortress in which Morgan resides. (Later, "all the loot o' Panama" somehow manages to fit into the false bottom of a trunk.)	Morgan was in fact quite wealthy, coming from a landowning family and owning several plantations in Jamaica, but history does not record that his riches were amassed in Panama, where the loot shared out amounted to only about £18 a man. If he did, in fact, cheat his crew and return to Jamaica with immense spoils, the unamused government would surely have demanded its share upon summoning him and Modyford to London in chains. At any rate, Morgan did not reside in a fortress hoarding up treasure but, rather, when not squandering his money in the local taverns, he "spent much of his time supervising his estates" (Cordingly, 1995).
The name emblazoned across the stern of Blackbeard's (formerly Bellamy's) three-masted ship is theBristol Queen.	Anybody who knows the first thing about Blackbeard knows his flagship was called the Queen Anne's Revenge, which is never shown or made mention of in the film. His fleet eventually grew to include three other vessels captured as prizes: the Adventure; the Revenge (command of which he had taken from "gentleman pirate" Stede Bonnet, who remained among Blackbeard's crew), and another unnamed sloop. In 1718, the Queen Anne's Revenge and the other sloop ran aground in Topsail (or Beaufort) Inlet—some say it was by design so that Blackbeard could cheat his oversized crew of their share of the spoils—and he went off with 40 of his original 400 men in the Adventure, the sloop from which he engaged Lt. Maynard in his final battle. (Though nothing is known with certainty about his early life, some sources report that Blackbeard hailed from Bristol, which could explain the name Bristol Queen. But the vessel shown in the film is definitely not a sloop, that is, a small vessel of only one mast!)
From aboard the ship, the Bristol Queen appears to have only one cramped level below the main deck, with prisoners being thrown directly from the main deck into the hold. Yet early in the film, Blackbeard orders a member of his crew to give up his cabin and move to the orlop deck.	The large, three-masted ship shown in longshots would have at least one gundeck above the waterline and an orlop deck below it, with the hold lying below that (just above the bottom of the ship, or bilge).
"Whereat did you learn your doctorin'?" asks Blackbeard, to which Maynard replies, "Two years on a privateer corvette, theSwallow." Blackbeard instantly recognizes the name: "The Swallow? Ar, the old 'Gulp 'Er Down.' Apirate surgeon."	The name Swallow is merely the set-up to more of Blackbeard's suggestive avian humor (see memorable lines). There were in fact two famous historical ships named the Swallow: The first was commanded by Sir John Hawkins, cousin to national hero and original privateer Sir Francis Drake, during the 1500s. The second was the 50-gun naval warship that put a decisive end to the dread pirate Bartholomew Roberts's career in 1722. (Neither Swallow was a corvette, a class of ship just below a frigate usually mounting only 18 guns.)
Blackbeard's second in command is a goofy lummox named Ben Worley.	There was, in fact, a pirate captain named Worley or Worsley who sailed from New York in 1718. He was clearly not a goofy lummox, though, as he managed to begin his career with a crew of only eight and soon captured several prizes before he was killed in battle off South Carolina. Governor Johnson personally led the attack against him due to the state of high alert in Charleston following recent raids by Blackbeard and his associates. Meanwhile, Israel Hands, real-life ship's master and pilot (two positions which required considerable technical knowledge and skill) under Blackbeard is mentioned in passing but conspicuously absent from the film. His competence was at least such that he was trusted with command of Blackbeard's prize, the Adventure. However, Hands left the crew after Blackbeard, playing a practical joke, lamed him with a gunshot to the knee. It is through his eyewitness testimony that we know anything reliable about Blackbeard's shipboard exploits. (Robert Louis Stevenson borrowed Hands's name for the character of the coxswain aboard the Hispaniola, formerly Captain Flint's gunner, in Treasure Island, and he turns up again in another Robert Newton movie: Long John Silver's Return to Treasure Island.)
"Fiery wench" Edwina Mansfield (Linda Darnell) and her "lady in waiting" are welcomed aboard Blackbeard's ship with open arms in the film. They roam the ship freely, and the beautiful, seductively clothed Edwina's honor is only momentarily threatened.	Real-life pirates had strict rules forbidding women aboard their ships, some say due to superstition, and, from a practical standpoint, in order to prevent the lack of discipline their presence tended to cause among the men. Any female prisoners aboard a pirate ship would have been heavily guarded. Further, because of rampant piracy, few women of the time dared to travel by sea in the Caribbean except under the protection of a Naval ship.
Edwina is both fiancée to Captain Charles Bellamy and daughter to renowned pirate Edward Mansfield, "commander of all the Brethren of the Coast and ... the blackest pirate whatever until Ned Teach." It is also suggested that Edwina is Morgan's niece, although he proposes marriage to her.	In 1666, Dutch pirate Edward Mansvelt (anglicized to Mansfield) was indeed elected "admiral" of a fleet of 600 buccaneers (referred to in later literature as the "Brethren of the Coast") at the urging of Governor Thomas Modyford of Jamaica, who sought to protect his island from Spanish attacks. However, even in 1663, when he took part in Sir Christopher Myngs's campaign against the Spanish, Mansfield was described not as "the blackest pirate whatever," but as an "elderly man," and he died in 1667, shortly after returning from the campaign. Henry Morgan (nephew of the late Colonel Edward Morgan, who had also been in Modyford's employ and was said by Exquemelin to have served as Mansfield's vice-admiral) was promptly elected his successor. (Since Morgan was born in Wales many years later than Mansfield, it is highly unlikely that he could have been uncle to Mansfield's daughter, if indeed he had one living in the Caribbean.) Further, the film's premise in which Mansfield's daughter meets Morgan the lieutenant-governor/pirate hunter must have taken place sometime between 1676 and 1682, while her betrothed, Charles Bellamy, did not begin pirating until 1717, about the same time as Blackbeard.
The leading man (Keith Andes) of the film looks to be a good two inches taller than the title character.	The real Blackbeard was renowned for his terrifying appearance; the mere sight of him was generally enough to cause his intended prey to surrender without a fight. Part of this was due to his physical stature; during a time when men rarely grew to the height of 6 feet (Robert Newton's actual height), Edward Teach was said to stand 6'5". Surely this illusion could easily have been accomplished on film, even with the limited technology available in the 1950s.
Blackbeard decorates his long beard with red ribbons and has fierce-looking, wild eyes.	When preparing for battle, Blackbeard was reputed to decorate his long beard (or hat) with lit fuses that wreathed his head in smoke and added to his frightening appearance, a successful deterrent to prey thinking of giving fight. "Captain Johnson" elaborates: "his eyes naturally looking fierce and wild, made him altogether such a figure that imagination cannot form an idea of a fury from hell to look more frightful." (Indeed, the tactic seemed to have worked, for, although he took many prizes, there is no official record of Blackbeard's ever having engaged in battle until his fateful encounter with Maynard's sloop in Okracoke Inlet—at which time he did not sport the forbidding lit fuses in his hat or beard. To be fair, red ribbons are not mentioned in Lt. Maynard's report either.)
Sir Henry Morgan appears in the film to be fit, annoyingly jaunty, and in excellent health.	A Port Royal doctor, Sir Hans Sloane, described Morgan as "lean, sallow-colored, his eyes a little yellowish and belly jutting out or prominent" and later reported that, due to his continued heavy drinking, "his belly swelled so as not to be contained by his coat," diagnosing him with "dropsy." On August 25, 1688, two days after being administered a highly unconventional treatment from a local Voodoo practitioner, Sir Henry Morgan died at the age of 53.
Much of the plot revolves around treasure burial in the Caribbean. On completion of the laborious task, Blackbeard tells the object of his toil, "Ar, only the devil and I know where you are now."	This aspect of the film is at least based on legend. It goes without saying nowadays that, with very rare exceptions, real pirates weren't frugal enough to bury their treasure (nor did they make their enemies "walk the plank"). Most squandered their booty the moment they set foot ashore and died in poverty. However, Blackbeard is alleged to have been one of the rare exceptions. The story goes that, on the night before his final battle, when asked if his wife knew where his treasure was buried, he replied that "nobody but himself and the devil knew where it was and the longest liver should take it all." (One supposed eyewitness alleged that Blackbeard together with his crew buried their loot on an island in the York River in Maryland. However, this lead was followed up and, not surprisingly, no treasure was found. According to Pringle, "Blackbeard never took enough loot to make his share worth burying.")
Blackbeard is dogged by Edward/Robert Maynard; however, Maynard makes clear early on that it is not Blackbeard but Morgan he is after. [Warning: plot spoiler!] Later on, Blackbeard is cruelly done in by his own disgruntled crew on a Caribbean island.	In reality, Blackbeard was hunted down, along with his crew, and killed in a bloody and dramatic hand-to-hand shipboard battle in November 1718 at Okracoke Inlet in North Carolina. The attack was led by Lieutenant Robert Maynard, by order of Governor Spotswood of Virginia. Even after sustaining five gunshot wounds and twenty deep stab wounds, including a slashed throat and a bullet in his chest (fired at close range), Blackbeard fought on fiercely, breaking Maynard's sword in two before finally succumbing to his injuries and falling dead on the deck. His decapitated head was hung from the bowsprit of Maynard's sloop, while his body was flung overboard. (Legend has it that it swam several times, Rasputin-like, around the ship before sinking to the bottom!) By the end of the piracy trials, only two of Blackbeard's crew survived: one man who had joined the crew only the day before and Israel Hands.
Blackbeard is depicted as a narcissistic (if charming), conniving, cold-blooded murderer.	In the words of Patrick Pringle, Blackbeard is "probably the most maligned pirate in history. He ... never fought if he could avoid it. ... He did not terrorize his prisoners, and there is not a shred of evidence to show that he ever ill-treated one of them. He threatened murder at [the siege of] Charleston, but did not keep his word when the time-limit expired [and the medicines he demanded were not delivered]. When he took prizes he usually put the crews ashore and burnt their vessels. If this was not possible he merely took the cargoes and let the men keep their ship, although it would have been safer to sink her with all hands. ... Blackbeard fought bravely at the end, but this was the only occasion on which he ever had to fight."

Early engraving of Captain Edward Teach, known as "Blackbeard"

Sources:

Cawthorne, Nigel. Pirates: An Illustrated History. London: Arcturus Publishing Limited, 2005.

Cordingly, David (consulting editor). Pirates: Terror on the High Seas—from the Caribbean to the South China Sea. Atlanta: Turner Publishing, 1996.

Cordingly, David. Under the Black Flag: The Romance and the Reality of Life Among the Pirates. New York: Harcourt Brace and Company, 1995.

Mitchell, David. Pirates. New York: The Dial Press, 1976.

Pringle, Patrick. Jolly Roger: The Story of the Great Age of Piracy. Mineola, New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 2001. (Originally published: New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 1953.)

Rogozinski, Jan: Pirates! An A-Z Encyclopedia (Brigands, Buccaneers, and Privateers in Fact, Fiction, and Legend). New York: Facts on File, 1995.

10 Rᴇᴀʟ-Lɪғᴇ Hɪᴅᴅᴇɴ Tʀᴇᴀsᴜʀᴇs Yᴏᴜ Cᴏᴜʟᴅ Sᴛɪʟʟ Fɪɴᴅ

Eᴠᴇʀʏᴏɴᴇ ᴡᴀɴᴛs ᴛᴏ ғɪɴᴅ ᴀ ʜɪᴅᴅᴇɴ ᴛʀᴇᴀsᴜʀᴇ. Jᴜsᴛ ɪᴍᴀɢɪɴᴇ ᴡᴀʟᴋɪɴɢ ᴀʀᴏᴜɴᴅ ɪɴ ᴛʜᴇ ᴡᴏᴏᴅs ᴀɴᴅ sᴛᴜᴍʙʟɪɴɢ ᴀᴄʀᴏss ᴀ ᴛʀᴇᴀsᴜʀᴇ ᴄʜᴇsᴛ ᴏғ ᴍᴏɴᴇʏ. Pɪʀᴀᴛᴇs ʜɪᴅ ᴛʜᴇᴍ ᴀʟʟ ᴛʜᴇ ᴛɪᴍᴇ, sᴜɴᴋᴇɴ sʜɪᴘs ʜᴏʟᴅ ᴇɴᴅʟᴇss ᴀᴍᴏᴜɴᴛs ᴏғ ᴡᴇᴀʟᴛʜ ᴜɴᴅᴇʀ ᴛʜᴇ sᴇᴀ, ᴀɴᴅ sᴏᴍᴇ ᴘᴇᴏᴘʟᴇ ᴀʀᴇ ɢɪᴠɪɴɢ ᴀᴡᴀʏ ᴛʜᴇɪʀ ʟɪғᴇ sᴀᴠɪɴɢs ᴊᴜsᴛ ғᴏʀ ᴛʜᴇ ғᴜɴ ᴏғ ɪᴛ. Tʀᴇᴀsᴜʀᴇs ᴀʀᴇ ʜɪᴅᴅᴇɴ ᴀʟʟ ᴀʀᴏᴜɴᴅ ᴜs, ᴀɴᴅ ᴀʟʟ ᴡᴇ ʜᴀᴠᴇ ᴛᴏ ᴅᴏ ɪs sᴇᴀʀᴄʜ ғᴏʀ ᴛʜᴇᴍ.

10Forrest Fenn Hidden Treasure

Forrest Fenn wants you to have all of his money when he dies.

When Fenn was only nine years old, he found an arrowhead near his home in Texas—an arrowhead that would shape the rest of his life. Fenn fell in love with ancient artifacts. After becoming a pilot in the air force in the 1960s, Fenn regularly flew his plane to Pompeii to look for artifacts, of which he found plenty.

When the 1980s hit, Fenn was diagnosed with kidney cancer and told he would only have a few years to live. With his mortality looking him right in the face, Fenn decided to hide his most beloved artifacts and give everyone the clues to find his treasure, which he estimates to hold $1–3 million worth of gold, jewelry, and other valuable artifacts.

9Treasure At Little Bighorn

For many Americans in the late 1800s, traveling west and striking it rich by finding gold didn’t seem like an absurd idea. Some didn’t even make it all the way to the Pacific. A few men struck it rich when they found gold in Montana. When fewer and fewer men found gold in Middle America, more and more of them continued west. But they probably should have kept looking.

According to some experts, Captain Grant Marsh was in charge of the Far West, a steamboat making its way up the Bighorn River to resupply General George Custer in his fight against the Indians. When Captain Marsh heard of General Custer’s defeat and found out he would have to take injured men away from the battlefield, the only thing he could do to keep the ship from sinking under the weight of so many injured men was to bury the $375,000 worth of gold bars on the shores of the Bighorn River. Some say that Marsh had collected the gold bars from worried gold miners who didn’t want to be attacked by the Sioux.

8Treasure In The Mojave Dessert

It may sound crazy that an oceangoing ship sunk 160 kilometers (100 mi) inland of the Pacific Ocean—in the Mojave Dessert no less—but if it is true, there are millions of dollars’ worth of pearls in the Salton Sea.

Experts believe a large tide from the Gulf of California collided with runoff from the Colorado River. Enough water runoff developed that the ship (presumed to be Spanish) was carried into the Salton Sea. The ship would have been forgotten forever if it weren’t for the abundance of pearls on board.

Surprisingly, there is a twist to the story. In 1870, the Los Angeles Starproduced a story about a man named Charley Clusker who went out in search of the ship and actually found the treasure. But since the date the story ran, no other mention of Clusker or the ship he “found” has been dug up, leading many people to believe the ship and its pearls are still out there.

7Mosby’s Treasure In Virginia

Confederate Commander Colonel John Singleton Mosby was one sneaky fighter during the Civil War. He and his men were known as Mosby’s Raiders for their lightning-quick raids of Union camps and their ability to elude the Union Army by blending in with the local townspeople. He was essentially like Mel Gibson’s character in The Patriot, but without all of the drama.

After one of his many raids, which took place about 75 kilometers (46 mi) south of the Confederate line at Culpeper, Virginia, Mosby took Union General Edwin Stoughton prisoner, as well as a burlap sack containing $350,000 worth of gold, silver, and family heirlooms. The problem was, Mosby had also captured 42 other men during the raid and had to take them back through Union territory and across the Confederate line.

Following a route that parallels today’s US 211, Mosby’s Raiders traveled south until they ran into a large contingency of Union soldiers. Unwilling to part with his treasure, Mosby instructed his men to bury the treasurebetween two large pine trees in case of a battle. Mosby marked the trees with his knife, and the Raiders headed back along their route and across the Confederate line without any trouble from the Union.

Unfortunately for Mosby, when he sent back seven of his most trusted men, they were all caught and hanged. Mosby never returned to look for the treasure.

6$63 Million Hidden In Bedford County, Virginia

Thomas Beale must have been a strange man. Legend has it that in 1816, Beale and a few men he was traveling with came into a large sum of gold and silver while mining somewhere in the Rocky Mountains. With such a large fortune, estimated to be around $63 million in today’s money, all of the men wanted to make sure their next of kin would get the money should they perish. So Beale wrote three ciphers. One described the exact location of the treasure, the second described the contents of the treasure, and the third was a list of the men’s names and their next of kin. Beale then entrusted Robert Morriss, a Lynchburg, Virginia innkeeper, with the safekeeping of a box containing the ciphers.

Morriss was supposed to wait 10 years before opening it. At this point, if Beale did not return for the box, a key to the cipher was supposed to be mailed to Morriss. But it never arrived. For years, Morriss and a friend tried to decode the three ciphers, but they could only manage the second cipher (the one describing the contents of the treasure).

5Treasure Of Jean LaFitte

Jean LaFitte, along with his brother Pierre, were French pirates who made their living attacking merchant ships in the Gulf of Mexico and then selling the goods at one of their many ports or through a warehouse they owned. Apparently, the two brothers were so good at smuggling and pirating that they amassed enough wealth that they had to resort to burying some it.

After LaFitte died sometime between 1823 and 1830, legend of his treasures began circulating around Louisiana. Claims have been made that there are large caches of treasure buried somewhere in Lake Borgne, right off the coast of New Orleans, and another about five kilometers (three miles) east of the Old Spanish Trail near the Sabine River in a gum tree grove.

4Butch Cassidy’s $20,000 Treasure

Butch Cassidy is arguably one of the most notable outlaws of the Wild West. He was such an outlaw that he even formed an outlaw group, called the Wild Bunch, to travel with him, robbing whomever they felt like. Before the law was hot on his tail, Cassidy and the Wild Bunch actually buried $20,000somewhere in Irish Canyon, located in the northwestern part of Colorado in Moffat County.

3John Dillinger’s Buried Treasure

Being an outlaw means you have money, and everyone knows John Dillinger had a lot of money. Only months before he died, he buried $200,000 in Wisconsin.

Dillinger was hiding out with a few of his outlaw buddies in April 1934. FBI agents found out they were hiding in the Little Bohemia Lodge in Mercer, Wisconsin, and they surrounded Dillinger, along with “Baby Face” Nelson and the other men. The FBI shot the first three men walking out the door, all three of whom happened to be civilians. Amid all the confusion, the gangsters were able to escape out a back entrance. It is said that Dillinger ran a few hundred meters (yards) north of the roadhouse where he buried $200,000 in small bills inside a suitcase.

Just two months later, Dillinger was shot to death in Chicago, never getting the chance to go back to find the money.

2$200 Million Off The Coast Of Key West

In 1622, the Spanish galleon Nuestra Senora de Atocha was heading back to Spain when it was caught in a hurricane off the coast of Key West. Many ships perished in the hurricane, all of which were carrying an enormous cargo of gold, silver, and gems that has been valued to fetch around $700 million today.

But most of the loot has already been found. In 1985, treasure hunter Mel Fisher found $500 million of the buried treasure less than 160 kilometers (100 mi) off the coast of Key West.

Experts believe there is still plenty of treasure to find. The original captain’s manifest states there are still about 17 tons of silver bars, 128,000 coins of different values, 27 kilos of emeralds, and 35 boxes of gold.

1The Treasure Of San Miguel

In 1712, Spain assembled one of the richest treasure fleets to ever be assembled at that time. By 1715, Spain had amassed a fleet of 11 ships, all filled to the brim with silver, gold, pearls, and jewels, which are estimated to be worth about $2 billion by today’s standards.

The plan for the ships was to leave from Cuba for the mainland just before hurricane season hit, hoping the hurricane season would be a deterrent to pirates and privateers. It turned out that leaving so close to hurricane season was a mistake. Just six days after leaving the shores of Cuba, all of the ships had sunk, thousands of sailors had died, and every bit of gold, silver, and jewelry was doomed to lay at the bottom of the sea.

Since then, seven of the ships have been recovered, but experts believe only a small amount of the valuables on the ships has been found.

The one ship that has yet to be found is the San Miguel—the ship that experts believe contains most of the treasure.

But where is it? Well, most of the ships that have been found have been located off the eastern shores of Florida, although some of the ships may have made it farther out to sea before sinking.

sᴡᴏʀᴅ Pɪʀᴀᴛᴇs ᴏғ Cᴀʀʀɪʙᴇᴀɴ

 ᴛʜᴇ Mᴏsᴛ ʙᴇᴀᴜᴛɪғᴜʟ sᴡᴏʀᴅs Fᴏʀ ᴘɪʀᴀᴛᴇs 

Pɪʀᴀᴛᴇs ᴡᴇᴀᴘᴏɴs ғᴏʀ ᴄᴏᴍʙᴀᴛ

Pirate Weapons and Distance

The type of pirate weapons used depended on when or if the surrender came:
!-Negotiations could happen quickly after a cannon's warning shot or a precise hit to break the main mast or bowsprit.
!!-It could involve getting a little closer and ruining sails, lobbing grenades, or picking off a few with muskets.
!!!-The bloodiest conflicts were the last-resort, close-contact, melees that came during and after boarding, when hell was unleashed with all sorts of items.

Medium- to Long-range Pirate Weapons

Reputation: the number one choice among pirate weapons to inspire fear, intimidation, and hopefully, surrender! A fierce reputation was a weapon without boundaries. Flying on the winds of conversation among captains and crews, merchants and mariners, it could circle the globe and practically force people to decide in advance to surrender, if ever they would meet up with anyone resembling its description.

Pirate flags were one of the best advertisements for reputation.

Cannons and Artillery: Cannons required four or more men apiece to load, aim, fire, and reposition. By 1700, many improvements for loading, aiming, accuracy, range and speed helped make these pirate weapons more formidable, and its blast of an iron ball 700-1000 yards still turned wooden ship parts into deadly splinter missiles and took down masts with rigging.

Several types of shot for 50-500 yards were mainly meant to disable the ship somehow:

• Bombs- hollow iron balls filled with powder and topped with a fuse. The goal was explosion on impact, which was timed by the length of the fuse and when it was lit... an exact science, I'm sure. It could almost achieve the same distance as a standard cannonball, but when it arrived, it made a much prettier sound.
• Bar Shot- big iron bars that would make large holes as it passed through any part of the ship. The lack of a predictable trajectory would dictate a much shorter range than a bomb or whatever.
• Chain or Knipple Shot- pairs of small iron balls joined with chain or a small bar that would rotate through the air and mince any sails and rigging that they tangled with, but did little damage to decks or hulls- a good medium-range choice.

Pirate Cutlass Replica without Scabbard 32 Inches Overall, Forged Carbon Steel NetlinkEnterprises.com Pirate Cutlass With Scabbard Features include a brass full bowl guard, pommel and wood handle. 30.5 Inches Length NetlinkEnterprises.com Pirate Pistol 9 inches long with twin hammers and double action trigger. CostumeCraze.com Pirate Squirt Gun It's a pirate's life for any buccaneer carrying the pirate squirt gun! CenturyNovelty.com

Medium- to Close-range Pirate Weapons

Stinkpots were small clay pots usually filled with burning sulfur (and sometimes plant gums and rotten fish!) that were thrown onto the deck. A crude form of tear gas, it was hoped the smoke and fumes would overwhelm the victims' desire to fight (or maybe they would vomit themselves into submission).

Hand grenadoes or grenades were named for the Spanish word for pomegranate, which they resembled. They could be small glass bottles or little pots made of clay, wood, or iron that were filled with black powder mixed with broken glass or scraps of iron and lit with a fuse. Good for shrapnel wounds and shock value.

Anti-personnel cannon rounds:

• Bundle Shot - packs of short metal bars to make short work of a crew or passengers...hurts as bad as you think.
• Grape shot - bunches of little cast iron balls wrapped in canvas or burlap that would make bunches of folks look like Swiss cheese at close range. Grape was often used with a boarding party or to resist one.
• Canister or Case Shot - a box or cage or canister filled up with grape, bundle shot, or stones to get the fight over with.
• 
  Just anything- scrap iron, nails, spikes, and yes, when everything else is gone...gold coins! Can you imagine how many of the enemy were trying to catch this shot out of mid-air? Surgeons were said to have cut the coins out of the corpses! Definitely the most expensive of pirate weapons ever....

Pirate Guns! Lots and Lots of Guns!:

• Swivel Guns - These portable pirate weapons were like large rifles or small cannon that could be set in place in their sockets on the rail at whatever point the attackers were attempting to board. A blast of small cannonballs could certainly eliminate most or all of the first wave of intruders.
• Muskets- The musket was valued for having more long-distance capacity than the blunderbuss or musketoon - something the Buccaneers valued when attacking the Spanish. Later versions (1800's) with rifled barrels proved a bit more tricky to load. Its longer barrel and single-shot capacity were of no great disadvantage while on land raids; at sea they were used in the early point of a boarding attempt and more often to pick off helmsmen and officers. It was no doubt a great challenge to have good marksmanship when both ships (and the target) were bobbing up and down with the waves.
• The Blunderbuss - This muzzle loading 'thunder gun' was like a large shotgun with the firepower of a one-person cannon. The bore of around two inches fanned out to a goofy funnel shape at the end of the barrel, thought to help disperse the small pellets over a larger area. About half the length of a musket with a kick like a mule, this gun was literally fired from the hip or another part of the body that could handle the recoil. Its two principal uses were for boarding parties and personal defense.
• The Musketoon... was very similar in operation to the blunderbuss mentioned earlier. It was much shorter than the musket but shared the same barrel shape- another close-range equalizer for boarding and general purpose tail-whooping.
• A Flintlock Pistol was highly valued because of its size and maneuverability: a capable pirate weapon in boarding, close-quarters, and disputes in the tavern. A muzzle loading single shot gun was still time-consuming to use, but after firing, the butt end was good for pistol whipping. Flintlocks were often discorded when the fighting got brisk, when the main pirate weapon became the cutlass.


• Multi-barreled pistolsused varying arrangements of locks and triggers to fire the fixed or rotating barrels. These odd pirate weapons were in demand in spite of being bulky, costly to make, and often unpredictable in use.


• Pocket Pistols - These forerunners of the Derringer were tiny muzzle loaded guns of convenience that were placed where they could be retrieved quickly and easily for a last-minute gut or face shot. They are the grandfather of what did in President Abraham Lincoln (besides the stupid doctors poking around in his brain with long probes).
• Volley Guns - Whether in pistol or rifle form, these pirate weapons would fire their several barrels at once, forming a kind of dotted line that you were daring any boarders to cross. Remember, there ain't no breech loading of these things, so the operator would need to ask for a time-out in the battle just to reload.

Close-range Pirate Weapons: cutlasses, knives, etc.-

The Cutlass is the weapon most associated with the pirates and was probably more common among them at times than even a flintlock pistol. Here is the one thing that would keep working after all the guns were discharged; a pistol took precious time for a reload, but another slash wound was just an arm swing away. With cutlasses being shorter than swords or sabres and having a broader, sturdier, curved blade, they were ideal for fighting in the close confines on or below deck.

They were believed to have evolved from the 'Boucan' hunting knife of the FrenchBuccaneers, and the blades needed to be sturdy for the other tasks on the ship like cutting down doors, cutting lines, and dividing pieces of eight. Their handles offered some cushioning with leather wrapped on the bone or ivory stock. (There was also a straight type of cutlass called a shortsword or a stabbing dagger.)

Daggers and Dirks, the smaller knives-

• The Dagger was a small multi-pupose knife that was used at supper and slaughter as well. With a straight blade, it was for thrust and puncture, not slash and gash like the cutlass.
  It is notable that the dagger always had a cross bar or hilt to keep the hand off the blade and swords off the hand. The hilt's most important function came into play during a cutlass fight, because it could 'catch' the strike of the blade. The user could deflect the blow, swiftly swing the cutlass to the side, and answer with a hard cutting motion of his own.
• A Dirk was a particular type of small knife that was designed and used mostly for throwing. It is often depicted as being smaller than a dagger (compare to the Bowie knife or stiletto).
• Scabbards- Many pirates being ex-navy men of one degree or another, they brought with them much of the training and expertise of their former occupation. Having clean weapons was ingrained in the pirate of average mettle, and scabbards for your knives was a must.

Boarding Hooks were used with lines to pull ships closer, which were then lashed together for the boarding.

Other Pirate Weapons-

Boarding Axes, with a two or three-foot handle and a combination of sharp blade and blunt hammer side, were used to cut the ropes of boarding hooks, bring downs masts and rigging, and generally tear through anything like doors, hatches or locks. Even though they were a useful tool, their size and shape did not make them a very good pirate weapon (but someone would always prove to be the innovator).

The Marlinespike (or 'hand fid' if wood) held the Most Favored Pirate Weapon status among those with mutiny on their mind. These nifty picks made of steel, wood, or bone were essential in the various jobs involving ropes and lines, but somebody with crabs in their breeches would inevitably grab one and try to be mean about who's in charge, when do we get paid, and such.