Timesuck with Dan Cummins - 28 - Blackbeard the pirate!

Episode Date: March 27, 2017

In just a year as captain of his own fleet of pirates, Blackbeard made one hell of a name for himself. A name that's lasted to this day. Pistols, cutlasses, looting, plundering - even the lawless Buccaneer island of Tortuga and pirate city of Nassau explored on this swashbuckling edition of Timesuck!

In 1724, a British author by the name or at least pseudonym of Captain Charles Johnson wrote a general history of the robberies and murders of the most notorious pirates. The first definitive, written account of the pirates of the Caribbean. The real ones, not Johnny Depp, not Ian McChain, no, this is the book that introduced Blackbeard to the world and became the primary source for future biographies of the notorious 18th century sea marauder. Johnson's description of Blackbeard is epic. Captain Teach assumed the nickname of Blackbeard, for the large quantity

of hair which, like a fright for media, covered his whole face, and frightened America, more than any comment that has appeared there in a long time. This beard was black, which he suffered to grow to an extravagant length. As to breath, it came up to his eyes. He was accustomed to twist it with ribbons, and small tails, and turned them about his ears. In time of action he wore a sling over his shoulders, with three brace of pistols, hanging in holsters like bandoliers, and stuck lighted matches under his hat, which appearing on each side of his face, 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.

Who the fuck was this fruit loop? Lit matches under his hat, ribbons in his crazy hobo hipster zizi top here, three different pistols hanging off his chest. Was this guy real pirate? Or some dude who just took his community theater role way too seriously? Well, shiver me timbers and have asked he time suckers to the dread in horror that awaits all you who trespass on this yohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohohoho edition of TimeSuck. You're listening to TimeSuck. Weak. Weak.

Weak. Weak. Weak. Weak. Weak. Ahoj TimeSuckers. Thanks for continuing to suck a little harder each and every week. Spreading some of that sweet, sometimes salty suck.

The co-workers, family, friends, enemies, traveling salesmen, Jehovah's Witnesses, ghosts, apes, capable of sign language, space lizards, controlling our every thought and move. Love all the new subscriptions, messages for show ideas sent to Admin at Timeside Podcast.com. And of course, the iTunes reviews, sweet Jesus you guys want to suck some Elrond. You want to suck yourself some Hubbard, so bad. Scientology episode is dropping this Friday. That's right, bonus episode this week. Friday at noon, Pacific time, because you all took the iTunes reviews

from 300 to 400 in the lightning fashion. The third Reich, 300 bonus review episode, was released March 10th. Now three weeks later, Scientology Edition comes out March 31st. Thanks for making the, the extra suck happen. And when we hit 500 episodes, we're going to explore none other for our next bonus episode than Pablo Motherfuck an Escobar. How about that? Huh? Here I wrote to some enemy to others, drug lord

to all. We're going to dig into his complicated history, find out if Pablo worked for the CIA, among other interesting details of his life. Well thanks to Sarah Lilly via TimeSuck email for suggesting a time suck on Pirate Stronghold like Tartuga, which we'll get into today, and to Serene via the TimeSuck message board for suggesting Blackbeard himself, who she called the quote, Decade of the Sea, which made me a smile very much. Excellent thanks to those of you who clicked on the PayPal button on timesockpodcast.com, donated to the show. Thanks to those who clicked on the Amazon button, helped out the show.

I shot for some batteries, maybe some laundry detergent, maybe some ginseng knives, maybe some butt plugs. I don't know, whatever you're into, that's your business. Thanks for all those orders of that classic first generation time-sock t-shirt made out of a 100% real baby skin. I know we sold out of some sizes, but don't worry I'm getting more made as you listen to this episode and those of you who encountered insane shipping rates last Monday Know that that problem is now fixed thanks to those of you who brought it to my attention There was a glitch in the store, you know one of those little troubleshooting bugs as you first open something and

You're no longer gonna be asked for you know $25 to ship a single goddamn $25 t-shirt. It's a little steep, a little rich. You may get some blood on your shirt now though because my sweet merch man was savagely beaten for this air. I'm talking like within an inch of his life beaten. Yeah, I have no worries. He'll ship those shirts from his intensive care room hospital, hospital room, oral stomps, goddamn headed. And remember it says on the website that the size is run a little bit small, so if you normally wear a large get an extra large, unless you like rocking that baby skin tight, so tight. Then in that case, you know, you do you mama, you live your life. And now before we set sail on today's sweet sweet episode,

let's catch up real quick on some time-sucker updates All right first update comes from several time-suckers Bryce rich Michael Moss Nick Eber Chris Glover Christopher James host of the fun and movie nerds We trust podcast and I'm sure some others I missed. Let me know that Shaq has joined the Flat Earth Revolution. That's right, Shaq Kilo Neal, the MDP, most dominant player of his generation, the man who barely made half his career free throws. The man who would have never made it into the NBA at all, if he was six foot six or shorter. The rapper known as Shaq Diesel. He is a flat earth believer. He's on the NBA, flat earth dream team,

along with Kyrie Irwin. On his podcast, seven feet and 350 pounds of dumb. Wait, that's not the right title. It's the big podcast with Shaq. Shaq says, quote, it's true. The earth is flat. The earth is flat. Yes, it is.

Listen, there are three ways to manipulate the mind. What you read, what you see, and what you hear. In school, first thing they teach us is, oh Columbus discovered America. But when he got there, there were some fair skin people with long hair, smoking on some peace pipes. So what does that tell you? Columbus didn't discover America.

Columbus did not discover other European settlers, you fucking half-wit. Seen people with a bit lighter shade of skin does not equate to running into the descendants of Viking colonists. What's fucking peacepie, by the way, I have to do with anything. Not sure where he got that info from.

Probably read it in a text sent to him from noted historian, Kyrie Irving. Okay, so then he goes, so listen, I drive from coast to coast and this shit is flat to me. I'm just saying, I drive from coast to coast and this shit is flat to me. I'm just saying I drive from Florida to California all the time and it's flat to me. I do not go up and down at a 360 degree angle and all that stuff about gravity. Have you looked outside it land lately and seen all those buildings? You mean to tell me that China is under us? China is under us. It's not. The world is flat.

That's a fuck. First off, you idiot. No one goes up and down at a 360 degree angle because 360 degrees isn't an angle. It's not the world is flat. That's a fuck. First off, you idiot. No one goes up and down at a 360 degree angle because 360 degrees isn't an angle. It's goddamn circle. You wouldn't go up and down, you go around. Oh my god, kind of like how shitty half thoughts float around your big dumb giant head.

Shack is worth roughly $350 million. He made almost 300 million off NBA contracts alone. Proving yet again, that rich and successful do not equate to intelligent or insightful. What the fuck? This is why we need to figure out how to curb the cost of higher education and make critical thinking classes part of every single degree's core curriculum.

Of course, the road is flat. You're giant in Bacel. It's a very big globe. The curve is undetectable. Over short distances. God damn it. In the recent words of astrophysicist, Neil deGrasse Tyson, the earth isn't fucking flat. I love that he said that.

All right, a bunch of updates on the ISIS episode. Too many to get into here, but I'm just gonna say that everyone, whether they agreed or not, was super cool. I learned a lot more about Islam from the messiest I got in ISIS and the issue of Islamic extremism is complex, you know, to say the least. Maybe ISIS is a bigger threat to the West than I realize. I've never been over there, like a lot of my listeners have, many of whom were deployed,

so I don't have that first-hand military perspective. And, you know, on one outside, other actual members can actually truly understand their exact motivations and intentions. Beware of puppy scams is another update. A time-sucker named Stu wrote in and told me that he and and actually truly understand their exact motivations and intentions. Beware of puppy scams, this is another update. A time sucker named Stu wrote in and told me that he and his wife got scam by an Nigerian con artist, posing as a puppy breeder. This guy Stu paid $280 to have a Siberian husky ship from Maryland, but then it didn't show up.

The fake breeder then messaged to say that there was a problem with shipping that the cargo area on the plane in Maryland was too hot in Maryland in the winter And they needed to get an air condition crate. That's gonna be another 800 bucks Still was listening to the Nigerian email scam podcast episode is this shit was going down Told his wife do not send the $800 Got on the phone figured out to get a hold of this dude on the phone tore into him

Liddy mops at a head a bunch of co- coworkers calling from about 10 different numbers, or he called him from coworkers' phones, about 10 different numbers. And I'm sure he's probably talking to some dude in the logos Nigeria, thousands of miles from Maryland. It's just fucking some asshole. Well, he didn't get his $280 back, but it saved, pretty saved, $800 thanks to TimeSuck. So, time suck man, save him TimeSuck is money, I love it.

And finally a quick big foot update. This is from TimeSucker Pat Naval who sent me the following information on Facebook. And I'm sharing it just because I love it. And finally, a quick big-foot update. This is from Time Sucker Pat Naval who sent me the following information on Facebook. And I'm sharing it just because I find it so goddamn funny and interesting. Bigfoot maybe is real, after all. I just didn't understand him when I recorded my Sasquatch versus Loch Ness Monster episode.

So Pat says, bigfoot, according to some quote-unquote researchers, researchers, I love that Pat put researchers in quotes there, is a fourth-dimensional being that can travel through space and time. According to others, Bigfoot may actually be one of the protectors, slash guardians of a species of aliens known as the gray. The gray are a species of aliens that have large black eyes and gray skin, much like the aliens depicted in modern media. And others believe that Bigfoot is actually the pilot

for these aliens' ships, UFOs sent down from Earth to scout the planet. Other researchers believe that Bigfoot is an engineered race of aliens sent down to Earth to scout the planet. Going with this theory, they believe that Bigfoot can travel through the fourth dimension to relay information.

And then quote, Spads wrote, they can master interstellar space travel but have no idea how to make a fucking radio. Exactly. These quote unquote researchers go on to say that every big foot siding correlated with UFO siding. And then parenthetical, most of the websites I obtained my research from were no better than the websites that had the word crystal in the site name. Ha, man, it's so good.

So good. Grownups, not living in mental institutions, doing research on the link between Sasquatch and Extra Terrestrials. Fuck a love weirdos. How boring would the world be without them? Man, Sasquatch. He's a- he's a space ape. Well, thanks for the extra suck, time suckers. [♪ Music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background We all did. Alright, so let's get into the million gold, billion question.

Who the fuck was Blackbeard? I don't know. Thanks for listening everybody, that's all for today. Actually, no one really knows for sure who Blackbeard was. Early records of his life are fuzzy at best, but I think it's kind of cool. Like, it adds to the mistake of his legend, you know? He wasn't born.

He just walked up from the bowels of hell, formed. Just out of matey dropped out of weapons. I am the dread demon pirate black beard. Yeah, no goofy throwback Thursday picture of a young black beard with like no beard, lanky, odd adolescent body, full of full of acting on his face, but peach fuzz where a thick black beard should be, you know, home cut, mullet, where a pirate's hat should rest. No, no childhood scrapbook to kind of shit on old blackbeards, Mystique. Most historians believe he was born in Bristol, England

in 1680. In a recent 2015 book on the pirate, Blackbeard reconsidered Miss Piracy, Thatch's Genealogy, by Bayless Brooks, Carolina historian who dug into Blackbeard, reconsidered, Miss Piracy, Thatch's Genealogy, by Bayless Brooks, Carolina Historian, who dug into Blackbeard's family history more thoroughly than anyone else from what I can tell. Brooks seems positive that Blackbeard's real name

was Edward Thatch, although Captain Johnson and other historical authors ascribe his last name as being teach. Well, Thatch or Teach was most likely born in Bristol and then his family moved to Jamaica at some point during his childhood. Spain had formerly ceded Jamaica to the British in 1670 after the British took it over in 1665.

Remained to British colony all the way until 1962, by the way. And this thatch was listed as a mariner or sailor in the Royal Navy aboard the HMS Windsor in 1706. It's the first actual record that seems to float around to this guy. Well, a lot of guys were mariners back in 1706, which was smack in the middle of the Golden Age of piracy, a historical period of plank walking.

Actually, there's not actually a lot of plank walking references, I think it's a Hollywood thing. But it lasted roughly from 1650s to the 1730s in and around America's. This period of history began with the end of the European Wars of Religion in 1648. Between 1524 and 1648, a series of wars broke out as Europe was being reshaped by the Division of the Catholic Church, Lutheran Church, and Calvinist within the Holy Roman Empire. A series of treaties were resolved between May and October 1648, and what became known is the peace of Westphalia, ending the 30 years war in the Holy Roman Empire, and the 80 years war between Spain and the Dutch Republic.

And numerous other battles. 109 different delegations were represented. 109 groups of people who were like, can we please stop this shit? Can we, we are tired of killing each other? Can we please, can we please focus on killing some Indians instead? And everyone was like, yeah, it's good, that's good, I like that.

Yeah, let's go get those savage heathens, take some of their shit instead. So yeah, so now Europe has done terrorizing itself on its own soil for a little while, at least in mass. And it focuses on what it has started at the end of the 15th century with Columbus's initial voyage, terrorizing indigenous people and counter to broad. And of course, it goes back to fighting each other, but at least it's doing it in the

Americas, instead of within Europe for a couple minutes. And because Europe was now focused more intently on colonization, a lot more ships were heading out to sea. Ships bringing slaves from Africa to work all the new colonial plantations, transporting various goods to and from the Americas. In the late 17th century, the trans-Atlantic triangular trade routes were developed. And here's how that worked. Sugar cane and the product sugar cane created such as sugar and rum. It became important exports for the new Caribbean colonies.

Rum in particular, the drink I think is most associated with pirates. I don't picture blackbird thrown back to killer shots. I have a gin and tonic, maybe vodka soda. I'm empire, it's not knocking back Margaritas. The drink of rum, drink of rum straight from the rum bottle. And rum became very popular in order to get support for the massive consumer demand for it, or in order to support the massive consumer demand for it,

along with the growing demand for sugar in general, you know, we love a sugar, those teeth aren't going to rot themselves out. More plantations had to be developed, and so more slaves were imported to work these plantations. This demand helped establish the transatlantic triangular trade, which saw the movement of manufactured goods such as guns, luxury goods, cloth, beer, and iron to be exported from Europe to West Africa, where they were traded with local kingdoms and tribes for slaves that would be sent to the new world. From West Africa, luxury goods such as gold, ivory,

spices, and hardwoods would all be brought back to Europe. The slaves from West Africa were then brought to the Caribbean and British North America, where they were sold to various slave markets, ships within pickup products such as sugar cane and its products such as sugar, molasses, and rum, and how to either British North America or back to Europe. They were headed to British North America. Emergence could also pick up goods such as whale oil, furs, and hides along with natural resources such as lumber, indigo, tobacco, silk, even rice, before heading back to Europe to sell everything at a massive profit.

And if you wonder why I didn't mention cotton, well cotton really didn't get going in the American South until later in the early 1800s. Goods would also go from North America to West Africa such as rum, iron, gunpowder, cloth, and tools. So a lot of valuable shipping floated around the Atlantic all of a sudden, a lot of boats, a lot of carrying a lot of goods. And so with the rise of all these valuable goods being shipped around the Atlantic to regular trade routes being set up to get these goods to the proper ports, the rise of pirates followed. You know, just a little yo ho ho ho a pirate's life for me. Still love that Disneyland ride, by the way.

Pirates of the Caribbean, a lot of good memories, scaring the hell out of my son, Kyler on that one. He'd always be like, Dad, don't scare me this time. I'd be like, yeah, no, sure, no, of course not, of course not. And then as soon as we'd push off in the dark and the little boat, I'd just start mumbling stuff like, man, man, I can't. I can't believe they captured some real pirates who snuck in here last week. And he'd be like, dad, stop it.

I'd be like, no, no, no, it's nobody deal, it's nobody deal. I mean, we're safe. They only killed a few people. I mean, he'd be like, dad, I'm like, no, no, dude, it's, we're fine. No one's even died in this ride since yesterday. Oh, memories, oh, sweet memories. Okay, so the first wave of pirates were the Buccaneers. And Buccaneers is an anglicized version

of the French word Buccane. And Buccaneers were as defined by Maryam Webster, any of the free-booters, praying on Spanish ships and settlements, especially in 17th century West Indies, broadly pirates. So you know, West Indies Caribbean. And to build some context for the world of piracy and the Caribbean climate, Caribbean, whatever, however you want to say it, the Blackbird was born into, let's set sail. Let's drop right into a cold, black heart of a little time-stop timeline.

Shrap on those boots, soldier. We're marching down a time-sub-time line. Okay, so 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue. Spain had settled the large island of Hispaniola, present-day home of Haiti, and the Dominican Republic, 22nd largest island in the world, way back, Christopher Columbus back in 1492, and immediately fucked up life for the native Teno people, who numbered somewhere between 500,000

and a million when he got there, and then by 1507, you know, there was 14,000 left, just 15 years later, wow, went from, you know, possibly a million to 40,000. That's some serious colonial genocide. Enslavement, smallpox, redistribution of their natural resources to European colonial goals, did not do the Teno people any favors.

Well, the Spanish shuttle in control, most of the Caribbean, but other European players like England and France, for example, you know, they want to make some of that sugar money too. Make some of that sugar calf. Make some of those syrup dollars. Maybe print some of those sweet bills. They want some of that kinki-sadore gold. Spaniards have been gathering up in Mexico and South America, shipping across the sea. And other European players, they take some little colonization shots for their damn

sales. Well 1625, France settlers established a colony in the nearby island of St. Kits. They'd like his Spaniard to, but there's too many Spaniards. So they say along, go a little further, eventually they find the little island that Columbus had named Tortuga because it reminded him of a turtle shell.

There's only a few Spanish colonists on the island, so they start setting up a shot. 1629, the Spaniards decides that they don't like to French hanging around on Tortuga. Speaking their French bullshit, taking American jobs, trying to keep America from getting great again. Wait a minute, I'm being confused. The Spaniards, but they don't like to silly French folks, you know, setting up sugar

plantations, throwing their weight around like the only place, and they attack the French. And they force the French colonists living there to flee into the woods and hide, creating a new breed of French hillbillies, which sounds awesome. 1630, Spanish forces fortified the island of Tertuga, but not being a large island, 69 square miles, 69, ultimate suck number. A lot of these square miles are rocky and not suitable for farming. So rocky crag, about 15 miles off the northern coast of present day Haiti, isn't a priority for the Spanish.

And when they go over, you know, to fuck over some Indians in North American mainland, see what kind of cultural damage they can do on the Florida Peninsula, those French hillbillies, snuck on back down to them, their woods, manners. Woo-woo! You know, we're gonna take over the fort, man. Go get those Spaniards. Go now. Go, go, go get. We have taken back sea forts. Go get, we are taking back sea forts. All the Spaniards and the French, they go back and forth for a couple years. But not all the French forces fighting the Spaniards are actually French military. Basically, the semi-stranded French colonists don't have proper support from the French government area. There's a little island with a few little French hillbillies.

Isn't like a priority for France. They're not going to be like, hey man, send all of our fucking ships to Tortuga. Say those hillbillies, those Creole hillbillies. I guess it's not technically Creole, but that's what I think of in my head. And so these, so these militants kind of on the run, they become the first true Buccaneers, you know, and they kind of, you have to kind of fight the Spanish, you know, by themselves. And the first is Buccaneers, you know, they're just a little French hill folk kind of hiding from Spanish soldiers, you know, little guerilla warfare, you know,

fighting done on land. But eventually they get some ships, some ships equip with some guns, and then they start attacking some Spanish ships. And they start having a little bit of success, you know, which gives them even more ships, so many ships, lots of ships. And now some of this attacking is done on survival, but when they take the loot, the ships are carrying us, they're sending it back to France, who's not helping them anyway. It's like they're aid in the monarchy, they just keep it. You know, and then they sail their goods

to other colonists in the area. They got a little business going. So now the Spaniards, of course, see them as a problem, see them as criminals, obviously. But the French see them as some sort of like patriotic militia, advancing France's colonial interests by frustrating Spain's colonial efforts.

So, and soon, it's not just the French. You know, the British settlers have now arrived on the island in small numbers. Many of them attack in the Spaniards as well. Everybody's attacking the Spaniards. Soon, various mariners from France, England, Denmark, and elsewhere all seeking adventure and possible fortune arrive on the island of Tortuga to live as Buccaneers. And soon, not only did France and England not mind the Buccaneers attacking the Spanish,

but then as they became more skilled in warfare and captured larger ships, various European countries gave certain Buccaneer captain's letters of marquee, which is a written permission, given the owner, governmental authority to capture or destroy property belonging to a certain group or nation. So now they're official hired guns of England, France, etc. These Buccaneers are now privateers.

Privateer defined as an arm-ship owned and officer by private individuals holding a government commission and authorization for use and war, especially in the capture of enemy merchant shipping. Right? So basically the France is like, yeah, man, yeah, if it's a Spanish merchant trying to make a little money, go get them. You go get that conquistor, son of a bitch. Go fucking, you go get, oh Johnny Sanchez, take his ship.

Oh fucking Ponce, Ponce Deleo, what's his name? You know, I don't think Ponce Deleo has shit to do with this. 1639, the French colonist of Tortuga requested the French governor of St. Kits, Felipe de Poinsie, de Poinsie. Well, this is a little name. Mr. de Poinsie, you have a telegram, Mr. de Poinsie, the request French governor, yeah, de Poinsie, to send reinforcements and supplies to the Tortuga governor, Jean-Lévasur. That's French shit right there, man. I don't know how I can get it from French, but Jean-Lévasur, and he does,

and the French expand existing Spanish fortifications into Forte de Rocher, on a rocky outcrop overlooking a natural harbor on the island. Now, being aware of the numerous earlier Spanish raids, La Vassur, and engineered by trade, he builds one hell of a fort. This is super awesome. He builds a pirate fort that young boys

fucking dream about. God, I wish I had a fort like this. I still wish I had a fort like this. I would spend so much time in this fort, if I had it. I would just hang out, you know? I would just fucking recon books, my fucking Spanish, whatever, not even Spanish, my French island rocky cliff fort. But check this out, it was erected on the flat top of the hill that was crowned by

steep rock about 30 feet high. Love us your shaped terraces into the hillside that could hold hundreds of men, little fighting terraces. On top of the rock, he placed his own palace, several canons, a storehouse for ammunition, a carved stairway, reaches halfway up the rock, and then visitors had to climb the rest of the way by a ladder, which was raised or lowered from the top. How cool is that? I want to fart like that, man. I really want it. You know, I can just stay up there. I got my graphic novels, I can just have like my laptop, you know, I can just watch some Netflix, now I get to fucking Wi-Fi in there, you there, if my kids and my wife are being cool,

if they're being fucking cool, and they're gonna wanna watch the show, I wanna watch all lower the ladder, but they're being annoying, and they wanna watch some bullshit, you know, then the ladder stays up, okay? The ladder stays up, and me and my little dog Penny, we hang out, and we wait for them to decide

if they're gonna be cool. And me and Penny, we're gonna have matching pirate hats. I'm gonna have a pirate hat, Penny's gonna have a little tiny matching pirate hat Maybe Penny is gonna wear a little eye patch little puppy eye patch. I don't know All I know is that I'm really enjoying this fantasy right now Well the real fort was even supplied by water gushing forth from a natural spring on top of this hill. God, it's fucking great The vassier I can see it now what I would do is now I would get a drone

I would have a little thing of drones. They could just go get food for my drones. I don't even have to ever leave it. I'll just shit off the edge of the cliff. Whoever's living below can deal with that. You know what I mean? Now, the vassur, he's constructed an impregnable fortress. He then cut all of his ties with France

and during the next decade or so, just ranged over the island like a Buccaneer king. He's a pirate king. It's awesome. It takes a percentage of all the Buccaneer loot brought into Tortuga, masses of small fortune and stolen jewels and treasure. Oh man. Having created infrastructure on the island, the land surrounding the fort became worthy plantation fields and La Vasseur also sold plantation land to entrepreneurs. Also before cutting ties with France, you know, he wrote to France, check this out, he offered to take their quote undesirable ladies.

If the French prison system wished to empty their dungeons of female prostitutes, thieves, and petty criminals. Oh my God, you see, he had too many dudes on the island who was getting to be too much of a sausage fest and shit was getting reckless. You know, too much testosterone on the island, too many fucking fights breaking out.

So he's like, let's sail over some prostitutes, let's sail over some, some disreputable women. Let's get him over to on the island, too many fucking fights breaking out. So he's like, let's sail over some prostitutes. Let's sail over some disreputable women. Let's get him over to the pirate island, sell these boys down a bit. Levas were hooked at the arrival of women. We'll get some of the bucket years to settle down a little bit. Maybe have a more manageable life at Platon, working those little plantation things,

having starting families. A few did. Most men helped fast to the life of stealing from the Spanish. It was way more exciting. So in a matter of a few years, the town of Coyón has grown up around La Vazura's, rock forts, taverns, and ends abound. These were wild, lolless, rough, and dirty places

full of drunkenness and wickedness of the most varied forms after a night of carousing and visiting houses of prostitution men would lay drunk at unpaved streets. Occasionally, after drunken skirmishes, be slumped up against buildings with bleeding to death, fights and grudges over anything, were settled routinely with cross swords, pistols, ambushes, knives, daggers, throat cuttin',

every other form of revenge, placed down to fucking terrifying, and awesome. Thanks to the Vasura, Tortuga became like the pirating capital of the Caribbean. God, that is so insane to be just to picture this place, right? Just this crazy little town on this little island with this rock fortress and just brothels and bars and people just trading their stolen loot for a night with a lady of the night or you know some rum just fuck, ah, insanity. Well before long the Spaniards, they were getting tired of having their ships fucked up by Tortuga's pirates and they feared in time

their French might achieve a position strong enough to force the Spanish out of his Panyola in much the same way that they had done on Tortuga. You know in his Panyola, much much bigger island, much more room for crops and goods and everything, much more important to them. And so the Spaniards at Santo Domingo sent ships with 500 men to destroy the new fort. Well, the artillery stationed at the fort sank one of the ships, scattered the rest when the Spanish troops eventually landed

away from the harbor and they fell into an ambush, lost almost 200 men, fled back to their ships, and then fled back to Spain, Yola. Wow, so news of this victory spreads to the Vassioares reputation far and wide, and now Tortuga becomes more of a haven for anyone who haven't trouble with the law. Like the island of Tortuga became, quote,

the common place of refuge for all sorts of wickedness, the seminary of pirates and thieves. Wow, man, what a crazy place. Like if I could just like know that I wouldn't get hurt, I so would want to get into time machine and just fucking pop into this little Tortuga town Right just for a little bit check it out check out the fort then get out of there, you know before I get a dagger in the back Okay, the 1640s throughout the next several years of the 1640s

Tortuga pirates continued to harass the Spanish not only were the Tortuga and Buckingeers plundering vessels along the shipping lanes Around his Benyola and this rounding area, they were also provisioning their ships for the journeys by raiding the his Benyola farms. They're just fucking taking everything. Just doing what they want to do and sneaking on back to Tortuga, giving it a little wave of the flag to the rock fort dude and that dude's like, yeah, you guys are thieves? We're like, yeah, we're thieves. Like, we'll get in here then.

You know, if you're coming there like, hey, you guys are thieves like, no, he wouldn't steal everybody's stuff. Get the fuck out of here. This is Tortuga,, son of a bitch. You get on back to his bandola, where people respect law. 1653, protected from the outside world of Assur was eventually killed by a couple of his own henchmen. Oh man, Assur left the fort to, that's his first mistake. And last mistake, he left his fort.

Once you get a super cool rock fort, the first rule of having a super cool rock fort is don't leave the super cool rock fort. That's the first, second, and third rules of having a super cool rock fort, the first rule of having a super cool rock fort is don't leave the super cool rock fort. That's the first, second, and third rules of having a super cool rock fort. Well he did leave. He went to inspect a warehouse with two of his lieutenants and one of them was enraged by the fact that earlier Lafissure had stolen away his young mistress and abused her. And the guy stabbed him. You know, stabbed him with some daggers, killed him.

Well, you know that's another mistake, you know, if you're going to leave your killed him. Well, you know, that was another mistake, you man. You know, if you're going to leave your rock for it, you definitely don't leave it with a fucking dude who you would just stolen his young mistress away previously. And somehow, you know, I don't even want to know what that means. You know, ah, not smart, man. He's drunk on power. I thought it was above death. Well new governor, Chevrolet, Dave Fontanay, was sent by Depointee.

Depointee is still around. And where is his fancy silk blouses? He was sent from Depointee from St. Kits to try and clean up Tortuga. However, once he got there, he realized, oh man, it's fucking pretty cool being Lawless. And so he just welcomed Buckeneers and the raids continued. Fontenay was as ruthless as his predecessor, but only ruled for a short time. For the Spaniards, man, the pesky Spaniards are not going to

give up on it. Once again, they decide to head back to Tortuga and they win. Now they drive the pirates out. They found it a new colony in 1655. And then for the next 20 or so years, Tortuga just kind of bounced back and forth between the Spanish and the French. New waves of Buckeneers kind of coming and going before eventually a new pirate hotspot, you know, petite, uh, petite gov, uh, petty gov, there we go, replaced Tortuga as the haven for pirates in the Caribbean, you know, so you know, eventually, you know, Lanark City gives way to fucking Vegas, you know, whatever, whatever, whatever, now would you want to use there? 1690s, by the end of the 17th century, the age of the Buccaneers

kind of began to draw to a close as most European countries stopped using these privateers. The Dutch made piracy illegal in 1673, the English followed suit in 1680, and then the French finally came in and made it illegal in 1697. A lot of the French waited another 17 years after the British. You know, I'd just, well, maybe, maybe the pirates are not so bad, eh?

Maybe the pirates are just, how you say, misunderstood. I have no idea what accent that was. I don't know why I thought I could pull off a French accent. But now there was a cultural piracy. And legal or not, some of these guys are not going anywhere. There's too much money to be made.

They establish a trade for themselves. It's because the government's like, now you can't do that job anymore. They're not gonna be like, okay, that's fine. Uh-huh, you get a little taste for that pirate boat, you're not gonna give it up. Just cause some king, five thousand miles away, says to quit it. And so the buckeners and privateers become true pirates,

doing as they wished. They expanded out from the Caribbean. In the 1960s, a lot of these pirates headed further east, all the way to the Indian Ocean, all the way to the Red Sea around Middle East there, you know, around the Coast of Saudi Arabia, between Saudi Arabia and Africa. Plunder and merchant ships belonging to the East India trading company, among many other

merchants taking cotton, silk, indigo, dye, salt, tea, opium, balsax, I don't know, whatever, whatever they felt like taking. 1713, 1714, piracy begins to hit its height following the end of the Queen Anne's War, which had been fought since 1702, alongside the war of Spanish succession between the British French and Spanish over essentially who got to have what in the Americas and sort of basically boils down to so so at the end of the war there's these thousands of semen from these you know from all these countries including Britain's paramilitary you know kind of privateers and they're all relieved of military duty and that that's, they're unemployed now.

That's not good. The result is you've got a large number of trained idle sailors at a time when cross-Atlantic colonial shipping trade is booming. And one of these sailors is Blackbeard. So let's bounce on out of this timeline and talk about the dickhead of the sea. Good job, soldier.

You've made it back. Barely. So if you remember from earlier, Mr. Edward Thach was listed as a Mariner or Sailor in the Royal Navy aboard the HMS Windsor in 1706. I don't mean that as Mariner or Sailor like he's one of the others. It's just I'm trying to say that Mariner means Sailor. And I always say that because I didn't know that because I don't mean that as Marinor or say like he's one of the others. It's just I'm trying to say that Marinor means sailor. And I always say that because I didn't know that, because I don't know a lot of stuff before it.

And until I looked at stuff up, which is part of the reason I love this, doing the show. And then by 1714, at the latest, he's no longer employed by the British. The 18th century author Charles Johnson, that guy who wrote the, you know, the first big book on pirates, claimed that teach or thatch, you know, he called him teach, because a lot of the papers did because of some printing error, which for some time is sailor operating from Jamaica on private

heirships during the war, and that he quote had often distinguished himself for his uncommon boldness and personal courage. Well, at what point during the war, Thach joined the fighting is, and keeping with the record of most of his life before he became a pirate unknown. But it sounds like he was a fierce soldier. And when you hear about the end of his life, this description seems very accurate. He definitely didn't go down without a fight. So shortly after the war's end and all likelihood, that's moved from Jamaica to new Providence. Now known as the Bahamas and found seafaring work in Nassau. A little

history about Nassau. In 1695, Governor Nicholas Trott rebuilt the town of Charles Town, which had been destroyed by a Spanish attack in 1684, added a fort and both were called Nassau. However, the new fort was heavily damaged in Spanish attack in 1700, and the colonists eventually abandoned the fort in 1703 after a French and Spanish attack. So many attacks back then. Everyone was getting attacked all the time. Due to abandonment of the fort, a new providence soon became a home base for pirates. A new Tortuga, Tortuga, do. By 1713, there were over a thousand pirates in Nassau and they outnumbered the 400 to 500 law abiding inhabitants. In the fall of 1715, Nassau's pirate population grew from dozens to hundreds.

Well, I mean, that's not by dozens, that's kind of dang it. Sorry, right, right, the dates on these things bounce around so much from a little article. But anyway, 1713, excuse me, not 1715. Initially, it grew from dozens to hundreds. After an early hurricane, wrecked the annual Spanish treasure fleet on the nearby beaches of Florida, scattering bodies and gold coins across what has since been called the treasure coast. At the end, Henry Jennings, another former Jamaican privateer, arrived

in Nassau with 87,000 pounds and recovered Spanish treasure. Wow, man, bring it some money to that area. Prostitute, smugglers, escape slaves, adventure seekers, all flow into NASA, which expands into a city of huts and tents, kind of an open air loss of Vegas, and tropical deadwood all rolled into one. That sounds fucking great. That sounds maybe even better than Tortuga.

Sounds like you got a better island to be on, you know? I like a tropical deadwood. That sounds sweet. Again, as long as you have a good stab to shot. Well, after showing up in Fort Nassau, the former privateers brokered a black market trading network with unscrupulous English merchants at Harbor Island and Alutera, two Bahamian islands, 50 miles north east, from this well-defendant and supplied position, the pirates could spring out into the Florida Straits, a major see-away that due to prevailing winds,

most Europe-bound ships were compelled to use. So they could go there, capture some prizes, get some of that pirate booty, quickly carry them back to the safety of their base. And I should note that during the chaos of colonization, when colonists are constantly being taxed by one foreign government and attacked by others, a lot of people didn't mind the pirates. You know, they didn't see them as any worse, or maybe sometimes even better than the government they were under, and definitely better than the other governments

trying to attack them. A lot of them kind of thought of themselves as Robin Hoods of the sea, quote, they vilify us, the scoundrels do, when there is only this difference, the pirate Sam Bellany once told a captive, they rubbed the pole under the cover of law, and we plunder the rich under the cover of our own courage. That's fucking pirate talk right there.

These pirates in the second decade of the 18th century were a force to be reckoned with. They had ships just as well armed as the British, French, and Spanish navies. And oftentimes more well-trained and battle-tested men aboard these ships. Well, around 1716, that joins the crew of Captain Benjamin Hornigold,

around an armed pirate who operated from new provinces, safe waters. See, one of those nasa, something nasa almost. One of those nasa, it pirates. Well, in 1716 Hornigold placed a thatch in charge of a slupe he had taken as a prize in a previous attack. Now, a slupe is a small, one-mash ship,

a foreign-aft main sail, and a jib. They had a crew of usually no more than about 75 men up to 14 cannons. Pirates loved them because they could outmaneuver larger ships. They probably were as much fun to travel on. They didn't have the accommodations inside. A little cramped cramped in there. Early 1717 Hornigold and Thatch, each captain in the slupe set out for the mainland. They captured a boat carrying 120 barrels of flour out of Havana. Shortly thereafter took 100 barrels of wine from the Sloop out of Bermuda. A few days later, they stopped at Vessel's Sailing from Madira to Charlestown, South Carolina. Took some more shit.

In September of 1716, that's in Hornigold and countered steed Bonnet. A landowner and military officer from a wealthy family who had turned to piracy earlier that year. Bonnet's crew of about 70 were reportedly dissatisfied with his command. He didn't, yeah, it wasn't a good pirate. You just sound like maybe like a rich dude, who wanted to be a pirate, you know, kind of a wannabe. And so with Bonnets permission,

that took control of his ship, the Revenge. The pirates, Flotilla, now consists of three ships. That's on Revenge, that's his old swoop and Hornagold's Ranger. By October, and if it was still a group of boats or ships, by October another vessel had been captured and added to the small fleet. The swoops Robert of Philadelphia and good intent of Dublin were stopped on 22nd, the 22nd of October, 1717.

Their cargo holds were emptied. As a former British privateer though, Hornigold would only attack his enemies, like his old enemies. He wouldn't attack the Brits. But first crew, the site of British vessels filled with valuable cargo passing by unharmed, became a little too much, you know? They didn't want to go fucking half pirate.

They didn't sign up to be pirates, to be like part-time pirates, you know? They wanted to fucking, they wanted to fuck everything up. As part of the fun of being a pirate, is you know, you get to go after everybody. And at some point, toward the end of 1717, Hornigold was demoted. Now whether Thatch had any involvement in this decision is unknown, but Hornigold quickly retired from piracy. He took a ship ranger and one of the slups even Thatch with revenge and the remaining slup. Well, Blackbeard didn't waste time once he became captain to get busy with some serious pirate.

Over the first three weeks of October, 1717, thatched terrorized the approaches to the Chesapeake Bay, Philadelphia, and New York Harbor, never saying more than 48 hours in one place, captured at least 15 vessels becoming the most feared pirate in the Americas practically overnight, traumatized captains pouring into Philadelphia and New York with tales of woe, cargo thrown into the sea, pirates leaving vessels in their crews to run aground if they're hacking down their mass and cutting loose their anchors. An entire cargo of indentured servants whisked away, perhaps because they wanted to join

the pirate ranks, as so many other members of capture chips did. Pirates now swarm in America and increase their numbers by almost every vessel they take. For the Delphi merchant James Logan wrote to friend and London after Blackbeard's raids. If speedy care be not taken, they will become formidable, and they know our government can make no defense. And then on the November 28, 1717, the man soon to become known as Blackbeard

uses two ships to attack a French merchant vessel off the coast of St. Vincent. They each fired a broadside, crosses bullw killed in several of its crew, forcing the captain to surrender. The ship was locked on cord, a large French guinea-men carrying a cargo of slaves, and that would turn it into its signature vessel. Thatch and his crew sailed it from south along St. Vincent and the Grenadines to Biquia, where they disembarked her crew in cargo and converted the ship for their own use. The crew of Le Concorde were given the smaller of thatches to slupts and thatch immediately

renamed Le Concorde the Queen Anne's Revenge. Remember the Queen Anne's War? Now this is the Queen Anne's Revenge. That's a fucking badass title. Equipped her with 40 guns and now controlled one of the most famous and feared pirate ships of all time And for for thatch a gay black beard it was the perfect pirate ship Quote slavers had all the right elements. They were large extremely fast and could carry a lot of ornament

They could easily be converted to a large totally open flush deck They could house many people and allow them to easily move around during boarding action. So that's from a pirate expert named Daniel. I didn't write down his last name, so whatever. Blackbeard brought his ship to remote Anchorage where his crew refitted her as a pirate frigate, renaming her Queen Anne's revenge. Like I said, they kept food and valuables of course, but what of her human cargo? Well pirate vessels were among the few places in European America where slaves could free themselves. A remarkable number of pirates were of African origin, according to accounts of captives

and pirates brought to trial. There were more than 30 Africans and Bellamy's crew, Sam Bellamy the pirate, and in the months after capturing the Concorde, witnesses report as many as 70 serving with Blackbeard. Most of these Black sailors were on pirate ships,'re not slaves. Set an expert on that area. We have an account of a group of rebellious slaves on one of the islands rowing offshore to join a pirate ship. And the pirates knew they could count on them to be totally committed and fight to the end because their only other option was a life of plantation slavery. Yeah, I mean, yeah, fuck yeah, that's your options. You can fucking pirate or plantation slave. I'm gonna I'm gonna go with fucking pirate. Like I would normally be scared of shit to be pirate But if that's the only other choice, I'm like,

ah, alright, give me a cutlass and throw me on the boat. Maybe, actually, I don't know. I might just fucking work the field on, honestly, because I get so sick on the water. I mean, not saying it would be any fun at all to be a slave, because I know it'd be fucking terrible, but if it was like, fucking being on a plantation and having, even having a dickhead boss

and being treated horribly, or always being on a boat, I think I would actually fucking be in the field. I get so sick, so sick on a boat. I don't know what I was thinking, I could be a pirate for a second there. I've been on one boat in the ocean and it was like a three hour ride

and I threw up or felt like I was going to throw up again for two and a half hours of the three hours. It's fucking terrible. Okay, but not everyone was seen as a half hours of the three hours. It was fucking terrible. Okay, but not everyone was seeing this potential recruit of the 455 slaves who were still alive when Blackbeard intercepted Luckencord, all but 61 were given back to Captain Dossett, along with a small slupe, which used to ferry them

back to Martinique to be sold at auction. So, you know, I don't know. Shouldn't make a pirate sound too idealistic. So around this time, the moniker of Blackbeard is born. When another captain, he had captured a scribe to his quote, a tall spare man with a very Blackbeard which he wore very long. The legend, yeah, that's how the legend of Blackbeard

got started. And Blackbeard understood the power of appearance in creating his fearsome legend. He understood it helped strike fear into the hearts of his enemies. He was tall with broad shoulders. He wore knee-length boots, dark clothing, big wide hat, sometimes a long coat of brightly colored silk or velvet.

May not have had an eye patch or a wooden leg or a parrot, but he did have all those pistols hanging off his chest. He carried a bunch of knives openly, had his cutlass, to his short curved sword, favored by pirates. He was a fucking scary looking son of a bitch. We're talking about imagine, you have to be to command a fleet of pirates. We had that big beard with all the ribbons in it

and yet when he went into battle, he had lit fuses hanging off his fucking hat to make him look like he came out of hell. But I get it though, you know. You don't gain respect of other pirates if you're like, hey guys, do you guys want to go some Do some Pirate in today? Oh my goodness, it would be so much fun

to do some Pirating, right? Hey guys, let's get some snacks and some juice and fuel up for our ventures and then let's go see what fun We can have today for our priority in trips. No No one's gonna follow that guy anywhere. You gotta be scary You gotta intimidate other intimidating pirates into following your scary ass out of the high seas You know the guy the guy who's like, hey guys Did anyone bring they don't have applesauce? I can make it if you don't have it that guy's fucking getting sent off in a little

He's nice. He's a nice guy, but he's getting sent off in a little, he's nice, he's a nice guy, but he's getting sent off in a fucking boat. You know, he's getting left on the beach. Okay, you gotta have a scary pirate flag too. Blackbeard's flag, man. He had a scary one. It has white horn skeleton on a black background. The skeleton's holding a spear pointing to a red heart.

The red blood drops near the heart. Skeletons holding a glass making a toast to the devil. Skeleton obviously stands for death, stands for enemy crews who choose to put up a fight. The speared heart meant that no quarter would be asked or given. You're not gonna be given quarter. You're gonna be fucking killed if you're giving a fight.

Blackbeard's flag was designed to intimidate, oppose, you ship crews into surrendering, and it probably did. It probably started running giving a fight. Blackbeard's flag was designed to intimidate, oppose, and ship crews and just surrendering, and it probably did. Probably it's running without a fight. All right, and then there's a lot of other stories, mostly undocumented, you know, possibly just the stuff of legend, possibly real about how scary Blackbird may have been.

Let's talk about a few of those. Now before I get into exactly how scary these stories are, whatever these stories are, there are historians who think it's bullshit. According to historian Colin Woodward, who wrote Republic of Pirates, published in 2008, quote, in the dozens of eyewitness accounts of his victims, there is not a single instance in which he killed anyone prior to his final fatal battle with the Royal Navy." He says, blackbeard's fearsome reputation as a violent cutthroat was made up by authorities

to legitimize the hunt for him. Maybe, maybe. I mean, there is a lot of other stories saying he did a bunch of awful things. So, so who knows, you know, we don't have a time machine. But there definitely are some colorful legends and vivid contemporary newspaper portrayals of him being a cruel and terrible stories that made sea captains and sailors of his day fear him. Like one tale claims he shot his own first mate saying, quote, if he didn't shoot one or two, oh, sorry, I thought there was blackboard talking for a second.

The newspaper, the local newspaper said, if he didn't shoot one or two crewmen now and then, they'd forget who he was. Another legend is that having had too much to drink, he said to his crew, come, let us make a hell of our own and try how long we can bear it. And then they went into the ship's hole, they closed the hatches, filled several pots with

brimstone and set it on fire. As soon as the men were coughing, gasping for air from the sulfurous flames, all except blackbeard scrambled outside. When blackbird finally emerged, she just snouled, damn ye, ye yellow bellied cowards. I'm a better man than all ye milk shops put together. That's an expert excerpt from an old book from Captain Charles Johnson, I mentioned earlier, at the beginning, general history of the robberies and murders in the most notorious pirates.

Colin dude's milk sops, man, that's some harsh shit. Milk sop is a person who is indecisive and lacks courage. I feel like it's the 18th century equivalent of a pussy. Stop being such a milk sop. Get back to work, you big baby. Another black bird legend is that before he sailed upon his adventures, he married a young creature about 16 years of age, and this was supposedly his 14th wife in this tale, and then he lays with her all night, and then 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 all of them one after another before his face. That one sounds a bit over the top. I'm going to chalk that one up to some sensationalistic journalism to sway public opinion away from him. My favorite legend concerns the possibility of Barry Treasurer, who doesn't love a Barry Treasurer tale, a biol accounts Blackbeard's wealth was immense by mid-1718 and popular accounts suggested that he was very fond of varying parts of his treasure all along the Carolina coast. The most melodramatic stories revolving around this claim

that he would choose a sailor to row him to land with the treasure chest, but then would return rowing himself alone. Two men leave, one man returns. That's the deal you make when you deal with Blackbird. Ah, matey. Ah, who knows if any of that is true, right? What is true is he stole and looted a lot in early 1718. With the Queen Anne's revenge at the center of his flotilla, Blackbeard raced up the lesser

Antelise, the island chain ringing the outer arc of the Caribbean, like a string of pearls leaving fear and destruction in his wake. Events described in the testimonies of some of those who have been held captive and letters to colonial officials whose islands he terrorized. He said fire to part of Guadalupe Town burned a fleet of merchant vessels in the shadow of the British fort of St. Kits. Because the governor of the Leeward Islands to abandon a tour of his colony aboard HMS Seaford for fear the frigate would be captured.

Blackbeard and his crew repaired the St. Croix, burned an English loop for amusement, just for amusement. They've gone fucking full pirate now. Just burn in other people's ships for shits and gitticals. Then they sailed for Puerto Rico, where in early December, they learned shocking news from the Catherine of Emergent Slope. They'd seized. They learned that apparently King George I had decreed that any pirate who surrendered to a British governor by September 1718 would be partened for all piracies committed before January 5th.

And could even keep their plunder. That shows how sick a pirate's shit the crown was. They were just like, you could keep the fucking treasure! You could keep it! Just for fuck's sake, please stop burning our ships down for fun, you assholes! How are we supposed to terrorize and subjugate the natives and overtax our own colonists? If you guys keep taking and-or-burning all of our shit! How are we supposed to terrorize and subjugate the natives and overtax our own colonists if

you guys keep taking and or burning all of our shit? Well this potential pardon timed out well for Blackbeard. Blackbeard has spent much of a February, March and April of 1718 and the islands off Honduras and Belize season ships filled with wood and molasses instead of gold and silver. He wanted that Spanish gold and silver. Instead, he got some Mexican wood. No, he didn't give it. He wasn't a Mexico. He got some Honduran wood, some Honduran molasses.

And a large flotilla of pirates are not interested in molasses. They didn't sign up for molasses reds. All right, they want that cursed gold. They want the jewels in their plunders. Ah, matey. Surprise, I haven't said that a hundred more times by now. Despite capturing a huge number of vessels, now it's in my head, sorry, now it's in my head.

I'm a T, I just wanna say it over and over. But I won't. His enormous crew had fairly little wells to show for. Morales poor, especially when they ran out of rum for a little time. That's really no good man, that's no good. You got hundreds of bloodthirsty dudes out at sea with no gold, no cursed gold,

to buy some womanly comfort when they reach their little fucking pirate town in Nasa however. And now they got no rum to drink away the reality that they have no gold. A damned confusion amongst us, Blackbeard, a reporter of the Rowe's Journal, which was found and remarked on by naval officers after his death and quoted by the author of the general history of pirates, but has since been lost. Rogues of Proctin, great talk of separation. Fucking Rogues, man. Man, you always gotta watch your back for Rogues when you're out of the high sea when you're

pirate captain. That's probably one of the worst parts about being the pirate captain is keep an eye out for Rogues. While he was able to replenish the liquor supply and head off mute and knee blackbeard was desperate for some real treasure well in the spring Blackbeard appointed a queen and revenge or pointed it Queen and

Queen and revenge north his four vessel fleet dropped into Nasa perhaps to sell goods Then even tried their luck a dive in among the Spanish treasure fleet wrecks nearby Florida coast, reduced to scavenging instead of some proper plundering. And May, he makes a bold move out of desperation. Block haze the entrance to Charleston's harbor for a full six days. Captures everything else all that comes or goes. Unfortunately, the cargo's he intercepts are useless. Mostly barrels of pitch, tar, rice, improvising, black beard, seas, passengers instead. Standing word to the town that he wished to ransom them. In the end, his crew of 400 left the area with plunder worth less than 2,000 pounds. And now, after surely bringing some heat from the British on themselves, after the Charleston blockade, they needed a hideaway.

And the creeks and inlets of poor, sparsely populated North Carolina had hideaways in abundance. So what happens next is a matter of scholarly debate. We do know that on June 3rd, 1718 about, you know, a couple months before the pardon deadline, Blackbeard guides his fleet into top-sale inland, home to the tiny hamlet of Fishtown, now Bufert. Bonnets revenge and the fleet's two other slupes went first, negotiating the narrow, common-shaped channel to the village, Queen Andrew Venge runs a ground, apparently well under full sail.

The pirates try to get their flagship off the show, but only manage to sink one of their sleuths in the effort. We know that Blackbird, Blackbird. The Blackbird singing in the dead of night. Buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh. How's that, huh? You probably thought, how the hell did he get all the Beatles to hop on the mic there? How did he get the Beatles to hum a song that they've forgotten their words to even know they wrote it? How did he do that?

No, Blackbeard, he sends Bonnet away with the revenge before marooning, dozens of his remaining crew on a large sandbank. He then set off in the remaining loop with his closest crewman, quote, 40 white men and 60 Negroes, and under the, and all the company's plunder takes all the treasure. Now one of his captains, David Harriet later told authorities, it was generally believed that that ran his vessel aground on purpose to get rid of the riff raft, man. This guy fucking cut down on the riff raft. He's got a lot of riff raft. I feel like that's a, you know, common problem when you get a big old pirate flotilla going.

You know, more pirate you get, fucking the more riff raft you're gonna get. You know, you have probably three riff raft for every solid pirate. And he wants to save that remaining treasure where he has left, you know, it's been slim pickings the last few months. He wants to save it for his best mates.

Now they're all crammed aboard the small Spanish built slupe black beard and his remaining followers head for their final sanctuary, the tiny hamlet of bath. North Carolina located up in narrow creek from Pamelaco Sound, a day's sale from Buford. It's a frontier-seller settlement just over 10 years old and compromising fewer than two dozen homes. It had only 100 residents, but it was also in effect

the capital of North Carolina and counted governor Charles Eden among its residents. Now no eyewitness accounts of the initial meeting between Blackbeard and Eden have survived, but it must have gone well. Eden was a wealthy English nobleman who governed an impoverished colony spread out over what was literally a backwater,

vast tracts of pestilent low-line cypress forests, pierced by sluggish teacolor creeks, inlets and swamps. Most of the, it's approximately 20,000 colonists, were just panelists outnumbered by a grieved Indians who just six years before had nearly wiped bath and the rest of the colony off the map. Black maids men, they wanted a pardon. Remember, there was that pardon earlier that they've been talked about. They kind of

ignored the part about your supposed to stop them in crimes. And then you could get your pardon, September. There's like, wow, let's just, we're going to keep you in the crimes part. We're going to keep robbing shit. but then what we would also select the pardon. They wanted one and they wanted it to even include their blockade of Charleston, you know, and that happened after, they were, you were supposed to stop by January 5th,

that happened well after that, but they're like, I don't care, this is the deal, we would like. And they offered the colony something to return. First, with their arrival, the population of Bath is going to double. And the newcomers now are going to be armed combat veterans, men who could help defend the settlement from the angry Native Americans, or whoever else, if war resumed. Second, they had money, and they had the means and inclination to bring in more. So long as Governor Eden refrained from asking too many questions about where it came from.

And in the end, Eden granted all of them a pardon, and later a legal title to the slew they derived in. So a lot of people, what he think he did is even though he loved the Queen Anne's revenge, he marooned that, or ran it around, mar debunked the sailors, so we could cut down on who he had to split the loot with. And then took it, took kind of his best guys that he could still use as a fucking crew to commit more pirate acts, go get a pardon for everybody, and then after getting the pardon, commit some more pirate on the side.

Well, Blackbeard and several of his men, they settle in Bath, build some homes, and lead what might appear at a distance to be honest lies, but come on. That's not gonna happen. Blackbeard even marries a local girl, a fact that reaches the years as a role Navy officers and nearby Virginia who noted the development and their dispatches to London. But in reality, the pirates were intent on slipping down the creek into the open sea to prey on vessels passing up and down the eastern seaboard, you know, to and from Chesapeake Bay. Once a pirate always a pirate. Now if Blackbeard had shaved his crazy fucking

ribboned lunatic beard, started going by Ed or Eddie, maybe you could believe he changed his ways. But come on, he's still a Blackbeard. He's still a Yoho hoonet. As later court testimony reveals, Blackbeard set up a camp on Oracoke Island on the outer banks, where they could sort of sort their plunder,

repacket for shipment and sale back in bath. It was the perfect arrangement, a new nasa, only better that it had a sovereign government, and therefore the pirates might well have assumed that they were not going to be subject to British invasion. Well, that's not going to last very long. Blackbeard may have had Eden in his pocket, but the lieutenant governor of Virginia was another matter. Alexander Spotswood had been keeping tabs on Blackbeard for months, even standing spies into North Carolina to quote, make particular inquiry after the pirates. Merchants had bombarded him

with complaints about Blackbeard. Well, when he learned of the Rose Emilia incident, Spotswood later wrote, I thought it necessary to put a stop to the further progress of the robbers, because this was, I guess, just one robbery too many. He didn't have the authority to send an expedition into another colony, but Spotswood was not one to be constrained by legal and ethical niceties. Legislators were already working to have him thrown out office for various power grabs and for squandering tax

revenue on Williamsburg's fantastically opulent new governor's palace. Through blind trust, he would ultimately give himself 85,000 acres of public land. Jesus. An area that came to be known as Spotsylvania County gave himself a fucking county by nefarious means. He contacted the captains of two naval frigates

at Anchor and Hampton Roads and Hatson Audacious and Illegal Planned to wipe out the fearsome pirate. Because remember, he's doing illegal stuff on the slide, but he was given a pardon. So you're not supposed to come after him. And these are kind of important details about spots, I think, by the way. It just goes to show that pirates weren't the only plunderers back then. The local governors were stealing more shit than the pirates probably ever could.

Governments, giant religious institutions, big businesses, that they're always the biggest thieves. We're among the biggest thieves, not that all of them are. But like how the banks got $700 billion in taxpayer money to bail them out back in 2008, out of the financial crisis, they themselves created. $700 billion is way more than the combined sum of every dollar that has ever been robbed

by any bank robber in US history. Fucking assholes. And none of those CEOs are high level shareholders, you know, worth tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars are ever gonna give a penny of a back. Uh-uh. Anyway, not knowing if Blackbeard would be in Bath or on Orcroq, the Naval Captains launched a two-pronged invasion

of their southern neighbor, one led a contingent of armed men overland on horseback, arriving at Eden's house and Bath six days later. The other dispatched 60 men under Lieutenant Robert Maynard, if this guy has a middle name, it is fucking badass, or psychopath, you're gonna find out why later. And two small unarmed slups, the crooked spots would have provided.

They arrived at Oracoke five days later, Blackbeard's slup was anchored there. All right, so this is the big battle. Volume morning, Lieutenant Maynard's men attack. Blackbeard's crew of 20. He's got just a small little crew hanging out with him right now. I had spent the night drinking, just getting drunk on some rum, on that pirate rum.

And it might have been surprised that Anker had one of Maynard's slopes not run aground coming into the Anchorage. Well, after one of Maynard's slopes runs aground in Blackbeard's spot, there was a shouted exchange between the two captains from their boats. I think it's awesome. Maynard, a spot, there was a shouted exchange between the two captains from their boats. I think it's awesome. Mainers account stating, at our first salutation, he drank damnation to me and my men, who

he called cowardly puppies, saying he would neither give nor take quarter. Jesus, man, what a badass. I'm going to drink to your death, throws back some, you know, some slur cowardly puppies. Maybe that was like the asshole at that time. And then just says like, dude, we're not going to take, we're not going to be surrendered. We're not going to, you're not going to take us alive. And we're not going to let you live. Wow. Blackbeard, man, taunt them from the deck. Call them cowardly puppies. Almost as bad as a milk shop. But by the time the naval sailors got their small vessel free, Blackbeard had gotten

his loop underway and greeted them with the broad side that killed or injured many of them. They pulled up fucking, you know, the side of the ship facing the other side of the ship, cannon's fire, boom, melee, you know, on the on the mainers ship. But as the pirate sailed for open water, a musket ball severed a haired on their slew causing a sail to drop in a critical loss in speed. The second slew, Lieutenant Maynard's caught up to them, only to receive another rod side of deadly grape shot in a salvo of hand grenades, but can throw an old pirate hand grenades

in seconds 21 members of Maynards crew were killed or wounded. Staring down at the smoke-vailed carnage, Blackbeard concluded the battle of the one. He ordered his slupe to come alongside Maynard Slupe and board it so his men could take control of it. Blackbeard was the first, I love that man, he ordered his slupe to come alongside, made her slupe and board it so his men could take control of it. Black beard was the first, I love that man. He was the first step aboard. Not gonna send some little, some little scallywag on the board this ship first.

He's not a man, I don't care man. I'm gonna go out first. That's like the general of an army marching out in front. It's crazy. Get it, rope in his hands to lash the vegetables together. Not crazy was pirates boarding your ship by the way. Man, that must have sucked. It must have been terrible. You know, see some black flagged ship floating your way. You know you can't outmaneuver it.

You can't hide from it. You can't outgun it. And suddenly they're floated right up next to you. Boards thrown down, dirty, crazy looking cackling pirates running across planks. I'll fucking scurvy looking. Hound to your ship loaded up with knives, cutlaces, crazy eyes, pistols, rifles. Literally nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. You can wait for the pirates, hope for the best, or you can dive into the cold, dark, shark, and fester waters of the Atlantic.

Fuck that. Remind me, never, to be an 18th century sea merchant. Well, Blackbeard and his men, they run aboard the slupe, preparing to plunder another ship. This is as they've done 100 times before. But this time, little surprise, surprise, motherfucker. Maynard and a dozen un-interred sailors were hiding. Lainian weight for Black Britain's crew. And suddenly, they just rush up the pop-up from the hold where they've been hiding down there and they engage the pirates in hand-to-hand combat. Oh, it's all

now. His pirate sword fight. Now, in a scene they would inspire many Hollywood movies, the dashing naval lieutenant and the arch pirates face each other. Soared's drawn, Maynard made the first sword thrust, the point of his sword against Blackbeard's cartridge box, bent, bends his sword to the hilt, Blackbeard broke the guard of it and wounded Maynard's fingers, but did not disable him. Whereupon he jumped back and threw away his sword and fired his pistol, which wounded Blackbeard. Then a crew member struck in between them with his sword and depending on the account, either slash Blackbeard's throat, killing him immediately, or cut his face badly

before being attacked by another pirate himself, and then Blackbeard tried to load his pistol one last time before slumping over and dying from blood loss. Various accounts say that when Blackbeard finally did go down. He went down with, quote, five shot in him and 20 dismal cuts in several parts of his body. That's a quote from Maynard. And then the second sleep arrives to overwhelm the rest of Blackbeard's men. And then Maynard cuts Blackbeard's fucking head off.

Cuts head off. And a needing proof of Blackbeard's death in order to claim the bounty offered by Governor Spots would were still only a hundred pounds, by the way, cheap ass. Hangs Blackbeard severed head from the front of the ship and sails at home. Returns to Virginia with 14 prisoners, nine white, five black, Jesus man.

This lieutenant Maynard sounds maybe even more ruthless than Blackbeard himself. Blackbeard's body, by the way, never given a grave. His body was just thrown into a panlical sound. His head, given as a trophy to Spotswood who had it displayed on a tall pole and Hampton roads. A site now known as Blackbears Point. While the governors have been all but forgotten, the pirates lived on, man, more famous and death than ever was even in life. And he was pretty famous in life that last year.

Now, another pretty cool legend about his death. Uh, one of my favorites man is that his, his headless body after being thrown overboard, swam itself between two and seven times around Maynard ship before finally sinking. That's fucking crazy. That's nonsense. That's an awesome legend. You know, just people telling that in old taverns and in the early 1700s out there on the court, Carolina said, oh, blackbird, I was there. I was there. They threw his headless body off into the water and then it swam around the ship for seven times before sinking. Sometimes you can still see its swimming today. It's hard doing that pirate's voice too long. Ever since his death, it's been said that Black Bridge Ghost haunts the spot, now known as Teach's Hole. It keeps you in referred to as Teach, by the way, just because of that.

Again, it was like a fucking newspaper fuck up. And so if you, when you hear, you're like, why do you keep referring to him as that? That's actually from everything I've researched, the appropriate, proper last name of Black Bridge, but Teach is what became common. So Teach teaches whole. Many people have reported seeing a strange light moving beneath the water in the teaches whole cove. This ghostly light is thought to, thought by sound to be Blackbird's spirit, swimming through the water, searching for its missing head.

There's even those who believe that on stormy nights you can hear Blackbird's voice calling out the wind. A night's when an angry wind is roaring and the hard rain is coming down. Many people have heard a horrible roaring sound coming from the hidden cove. They say that it's an unearthly noise. And if you listen just right, it sounds like a pained human, bellowing, where's my head?

Well, that's it. That is blackbeard. That's the first pirate time suck, you time suckers. Someday, I'm sure we'll do another, man. I like talking about pirate stuff. Maybe William Kid, talk about his very treasure legends. And while pirates are considered the bad guys of history, it's hard not to sympathize with the pirates too.

For example, pirate crews were being treated better than the British Navy crews were of their day. Blackbeard may have been less corrupt than Lieutenant Governor Spotswood, for example. Furthermore, pirate crews on their ships were under, they were thereby choice, as opposed to the Navy crews, many of whom had kind of enforced into service,

been pressed into service. Pirate ships were also essentially democratic institutions. The pirate captain would be elected by the crew and generally selected on the basis of competence and fairness as a leader. I don't know the Blackbird selected that way. He sounds like he maybe ruled just by fear. The captain's decisions on where and when to sail would be put to a vote. His authority became absolute only during battle.

Again, this was a stark contrast to the British Navy at the time where the captain's seat of the ship was based more on being born into the right family than on ability to competely lead a crew. It's also important to remember what the pirates were stealing and who they were stealing it from. A large portion of the vessels passing to the Atlantic at this time were holding enslaved human beings as cargo. When intercepting a slave ship, pirate crews could routinely

and would routinely free those otherwise destined for a life of unimaginable misery. These men would be offered the opportunity to join the ship's crew with chances of there being able to return home, being pretty slim. It's an offer many of them took up. Record show that as much as half of any given pirate ships crew in the early 18th century

would have been composed of freed Africans. Even Blackbeards trusted second in command who died fighting with him. It teaches hold in that final battle. Well, it was an African-American known as Black Caesar. So while many pirates did kill in plunder, they were killing and plundering from people who were themselves killing plundering and slaving and exploiting lands, which had been invaded and were held by force.

So it seemed to offend the authorities so much about the pirates was not their tactics, but the someone else was getting the cut of the same action. Man, it isn't that the same old story, right? Governments hate thieves, mainly because they don't like competition. And with that, let's yooo ho ho ho ho into some top five takeaways. Time suck, tough five takeaways. Number one, don't go calling somebody a milk shop unless you are ready to fight. And there are fighting words. Even worse, I'm telling someone they're a cowardly puppy. Number two, Tortuga in the 1640s and Nassau around 1715 sound like a couple of great places to

be a young, horny, tough, adventure-seeking, good time having dute. Pyridine, drinking, horing, no loss. Sounds like a good place to get some really cool stories or not live very long. 3. Who gives a shit if Blackbirds's real last name was Teach or Thatch? All the matters is the name Blackbeard and the fear it projected. A fear enhanced by wearing lit fuses under his hat and battle carrying a chest full of pistols and being such a bad acid took five bullets and 20 sword slashes to take him down. Number 4. Early pirates were known as Buccaneers and privateers and were given legal freedom

to attack whoever they wanted as long as it wasn't someone from their own nation. And then those government-sponsored pirates inevitably turned on their own governments and were declared thieves. Kind of like how Panama's Manuel Noriega was trained by the CIA, CIA, who were cool with him, trafficking drugs, until he stopped following US orders, and then he was a ruthless dictator of Panama. Ah, gotta get rid of him now. He's not a puppet.

Maybe a Manuel Noriega time-set up down the road. Number five, Blackbeard was only known as Blackbeard for one year. Did he took over the pirate reins from former privateer Captain Benjamin Hornagold as the end of 1717? And then he died on November 22nd, 1718. At roughly the age of 38, make God, he did a lot of shit in a year.

He attacked so many places, flared all around, you know, the fucking Atlantic, even gotten pardoned for a little while, even settled down for a tiny bit, over, you know, over on the coast, Carolina coast. Did that in the year in his late 30s, man, immortalize himself forever, gave Johnny make and gave me some good time scared my kid at Disneyland. Thanks, Blackbeard. Time, suck. Top five takeaway. Well, thanks for going on a pirate adventure there, Mades. Hope you had as much fun as I did. That was a good time, man. That was a good time. I got some tour dates coming up on Easter weekend, April 14th through 16. I'll be at hilarities in downtown Cleveland. I'll be at the Tempe improv Thursday and Friday only, April 6th and 7th. I'll be at punchline in San Thursday and Friday only April 6 and 7. I'll be at

punchline in San Francisco May 10 through 13. That's the club where I recorded the Chinese affection LP. Love that club. A bunch more tour dates on the website. Click stand up tour and more on timesockpodcast.com. And enjoy the next few days everyone. Only a short time until Friday when I invade your brain with some dyneetics. Friday is time to get clear, it's time to get audited. Right, it's time to go full Travolta, it's time to go full Tom Cruise. Until then, use that Amazon button when you do your online shopping,

treat yourself to a tight new time sub-teach shirt, four X and five X, some bigger shirts being added to the shop as you listen if they're not there already, I heard your requests working on it. And send me some picks of you wearing those hot cotton blends. And most importantly, keep those minds wide open and keep on sucking. Oh, shit.