Cindy Vallar's Blog - Posts Tagged "edward-thache"

Quest for Blackbeard: The True Story of Edward Thache and His World by Baylus C. Brooks

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Who was Blackbeard? The answer to this is far from simple, because many legends surround this elusive person. In Quest for Blackbeard, Brooks sifts through genealogical and historical records to provide a fact-based response to this question. His use of these primary documents, some of which haven’t been seen before, allow him to distill facts from fiction. He does refer to secondary sources, but only to highlight how these narratives diverge from or defend his findings.

Since 1724 and written six years after Blackbeard’s death, a main source on pirates, including Blackbeard, has been Captain Charles Johnson’s A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pyrates ever. Its author was a contemporary, familiar with the political and social constraints of the early eighteenth century. His true identity remains unknown, although Daniel Defoe and Nathaniel Mist are two candidates for this person. Brooks sides with historian Arne Bialuschewski, who makes a good case for the latter being Johnson, and this becomes evident as readers delve into the pages of Quest for Blackbeard. Over time, however, historians have come to recognize that Johnson blurred true history with fiction, so A General History is more semi-biographical in nature. This is why Brooks seeks information from more reliable resources to uncover the truth about Edward Teach, alias Blackbeard the pirate.

While Blackbeard’s piratical career is known, his origins are mired in mystery. Brooks, with assistance from other researchers and genealogists, has uncovered documentary evidence in Jamaica that sheds light on this quandary. Blackbeard’s real name was Edward Thache, although through the years it has been spelled Teach, Thatch, Theach, and Tach – a byproduct of an era when spelling wasn’t uniform. He was probably born in the environs of Bristol, England, and immigrated to Jamaica as a young lad with his parents and sister. His family had wealth and social standing in the island’s capital of Spanish Town (St. Jago de la Vega). During Queen Anne’s War (known as the War of the Spanish Succession in Europe), he served aboard HMS Windsor. While no ship’s logs or muster books support this – and Brooks provides good reasons why this might be – a Jamaican deed provides this information.

History has often been taught in a vacuum, so our understanding of events doesn’t always include the whole picture. In order to truly understand Thache, it’s important to view him from the perspective of the world in which he lived and through the eyes of those who either knew him or were impacted by him. Brooks ably provides this historical context, sometimes diverting from the straight and narrow, but he always brings the focus back to Thache. For this reason, readers simply seeking a book just about Blackbeard won’t find it within these pages. Instead, we are treated to a treasure trove of information that gives a better understanding of Thache’s world, piracy in general, and how politics, the media, and changing attitudes influence how he was and is viewed.

Brooks touches on a wide variety of interconnected topics that may have influenced Blackbeard in varying degrees. These include Jacobites, class, and religion, as well as locations such as Jamaica, the Bahamas, and the Carolinas. Among the many pirates discussed are Elizabethan Sea Dogs, Benjamin Hornigold, Henry Avery, Robert Searle, Charles Vane, Henry Jennings, Samuel Bellamy, and Stede Bonnet. Brooks also spotlights men who either supported or worked against pirates, such as Sir Thomas Modyford, Nicholas Trott, Charles Eden, Tobias Knight, William Rhett, and Alexander Spotswood. By examining all these people within the proper historical context, Brooks suggests we need to revisit and revise our “general modern view of dirty, poor, and destitute pirates, at least their leaders.” (9)

Throughout the 651 pages of this book Brooks shares what other historians and authors have written about Blackbeard. Among these are Peter Earle, Colin Woodard, Marcus Rediker, Mark Hanna, Robert E. Lee, and David Cordingly – names many readers familiar with pirate histories readily recognize. While Brooks agrees with some, he disagrees with others. Authors’ personal biases and agendas influence their writing, and readers should understand these while reading non-fiction. Brooks certainly recognizes this and, for the most part, his presentation is equally weighted; however, his discussions on armchair historians (those with no formal training in historical research) and those who “adopted” Thache as a North Carolinian demonstrate his own biases because the arguments come across more as rants than impartial evaluations.

While revising our understanding of pirates is one of Brooks’ goals in writing Quest for Blackbeard, he states two others. One pertains to corrupt private colonies and the need for “central government control for any progress to commence once . . . Britain dominated in America.” (9) The second pinpoints an epicenter for the dawning of the Golden Age of Piracy: the July 1715 hurricane that resulted in the catastrophic wreck of eleven of Spain’s treasure ships. The information he puts forth in this narrative masterfully supports these goals.

Each of the fifteen chapters begins with a quotation and has numerous subheadings. Footnotes are provided on pages where the source is referred to, but there is no bibliography. This requires readers, who are interested in locating the resource, to find its original footnote for the full citation. Figures (illustrations, maps, family trees, timelines, and charts) are renumbered with each chapter and no master list with page numbers is provided for easy reference. Nor are they always referred to within the narrative. There are three appendices, although the references to them within the narrative aren’t uniformly indicated. (The print in Appendix C is small and may require a magnifying glass to read.) The extensive index, however, mitigates these oversights to some degree.

Quest for Blackbeard is an absorbing account of Brooks’ quest to learn the history behind the legend. He admits that genealogy involves assumptions and identifies where he speculates on some aspects of Thache’s life and his contemporaries. This is why readers will encounter words such as likely, probably, and possibly throughout their reading. But these suppositions don’t detract from the importance of his research. The book is an invaluable addition to any pirate collection, and the “new” historical evidence and thought-provoking conclusions provide stimulating areas for future research and conversation.




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Blackbeard: The Truth Revealed by Robert Jacob

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Everyone knows the story of Blackbeard, or do they? Myth and legend permeate Edward Thache’s life, which is why Jacob delves further to separate fact from fiction in his latest offering. Comprised of thirty-six chapters, this book attempts to examine all aspects of Blackbeard’s entire life. Jacob relies primarily on contemporary documents to accomplish this goal, although there are instances where he uses poetic license to enliven some events for readers rather than presenting a list of dry facts.

As much as he wants to tell Blackbeard’s story from beginning to end, there are occasional gaps in the historical record. When these occur, Jacob does speculate; that speculation, which is usually identified as such, is grounded in facts and schooled hypothesis. If he cannot provide an educated response, he shares existing viewpoints and discusses the pros and cons of conclusions drawn by “historian authors.” (He uses this collective term to denote professional historians, amateur researchers like himself, and authors who write on subjects of interest.)

The opening chapters lay the groundwork for readers and discuss Jacob’s search for information, the many variations of Blackbeard’s name (Thach, Teach, and Thache to name a few), Jacobite pirates, the scavenging of the 1715 treasure fleet, early pirates of the golden age (Benjamin Hornigold and Henry Jennings, for example), and Captain Charles Johnson’s bestseller and the start of the Blackbeard legends. Chapters six through twenty-five examine Thache’s early years to his demise at Ocracoke at the hands of Lieutenant Robert Maynard and his men. Among the topics covered here are Stede Bonnet and his partnership with Blackbeard, Queen Anne’s Revenge, various cruises, the siege of Charles Town, South Carolina, and Thache’s time in places like Bath, North Carolina and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The subsequent five chapters deal with the aftermath of the Ocracoke battle and the politics involved, what happens to the crew, and the charges levied against Tobias Knight, a government official in colonial North Carolina. The final six chapters examine the legends and mysteries surrounding Israel Hands, Black Beard and Edward Thache, and Blackbeard’s wife, as well as some of the stories of the pirate and his treasure.

Sidebar notes define words (an example being reales, a Spanish coin of silver) or provide historical facts (such as 1603-1625 when James I ruled England or HMS Scarborough, a fifth-rate warship, carried thirty-two guns). Eighty-six black-&-white figures (maps, illustrations, and historical documents) are included as is an appendix that summarizes pirate activity (not just Blackbeard’s), vessels taken and what happens to them, and the dates of the attacks. In addition to end notes, there is a glossary, a bibliography, and an index.

In his preface, Jacob identifies this book as “the first comprehensive and definitive look at the world’s most famous pirate.” (xii) This is accurate because he also looks at more than just the historical Blackbeard, whereas Baylus C. Brooks’s Quest for Blackbeard focuses almost exclusively on the historical record and who Blackbeard is and the world in which he lives. Together they make compelling resources for anyone who wants to know the truth and seeks the historical evidence without having to do the hands-on research themselves. The difference between the two books is that the latter is written by an academic historian, whereas Jacob is a reenactor who thrives on ferreting out the truth and sharing that knowledge with readers.

While this is a fascinating investigation into the man who was Blackbeard and the myths surrounding him, there are occasional missteps. Contrary to Jacob’s belief in Arne Bialuschewski’s 2004 theory, there is no definitive proof that Captain Johnson and Nathaniel Mist are one and the same. A copyeditor would have picked up on some of the misspellings, incomplete sentences, and formatting issues. There are times when the phrasing of sentences presents something as fact, when it’s actually Jacob’s belief. One example occurs when Blackbeard and Hornigold are discussing the King’s pardon. “John Martin was certainly in on the discussion, as well as Blackbeard’s current quartermaster, William Howard.” (150) This is supposition because there is no historical record of the meeting that lists who was or wasn’t there.

What Jacob does well is to show his resources and the depth of his research. He clearly demonstrates that the story of Blackbeard is “the most complicated pirate tale ever told. There is nothing straightforward about it. Political intrigue abounds. Challenging relationships within his crew and between him and his partners add to the complexity.” (1)

(This review originally appeared at Pirates and Privateers: http://www.cindyvallar.com/adult-bio-...)



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