Did the infamous North Carolina free booter maroon some of his crew on Bogue Bank near the site of present day Fort Macon?
Until recently, probably many of the visitors to Fort Macon State Park have never thought much about the historical events which occurred within sight of Beaufort Inlet during the century before the fort was constructed. In the summer of 1718, the pirate Edward Thatch, better known as Blackbeard, ran two of his ships aground on the bar just off this inlet. Some of the pirates who were left behind later declared that Blackbeard had lost the vessels as part of a plan to break up their company. Planned or not, Blackbeard was able to effectively reduce his crew but leave the area with most, if not all, of the plunder that his large crew had accumulated up to that point. On his way out of the area, he marooned a number of pirates who undoubtedly disagreed with the plan. Were these unfortunate corsairs abandoned on the bank in the vicinity where the foundations for Fort Macon were laid a hundred years later?
We don’t know for sure about the early life of the man who became a pirate icon. His home is generally accepted as Bristol, England, but there is some evidence to suggest London and even Philadelphia as his place of origin. Even his real name is shrouded with questions. Edward Teach is the way most authors have referred to the pirate, but a close examination of the documents generated during the period of his activities reveal his name as Thatch (or some phonetic derivation thereof, i.e., Thach, Thache, etc.). In fact, it is spelled one of these ways well over ninety percent of the time. One source reported that Thatch served as a privateer out of Jamaica during Queen Anne’s War (1702-1713), but this has not been substantiated by any other documents. In any event, information concerning the man’s background before launching his piratical career remains vague.
The first mention of a pirate by this name appears to have been in the Boston News-Letter in October-November 1717. He was almost certainly sailing as a pirate earlier and under the command of Benjamin Hornigold, but the documents are silent before this date on anything concerning Blackbeard. On the other hand, we can trace Hornigold’s pirating activities back to as early as 1714, though we cannot say for certain when the two joined forces. Also during this period Major Stede Bonnet joined with Hornigold and Thatch. Most sources have reported that Bonnet did not join with Blackbeard until Spring of 1718, but documents prove that he was with the two other pirates off the Delaware Capes and Philadelphia as early as October, 1717.
Pirates were some of the original “snowbirds”. When the weather started to get cooler off the ports of Boston, New York, and Philadelphia, the pirates began making their way south. We have reports of these pirates taking ships all along the route to as far south as St. Vincent just west of Barbados in the Windward Islands of the West Indies. Here Hornigold and Thatch captured the French slave ship Concorde out of Nantes, France and heading toward Martinique with a cargo of slaves. Blackbeard was immediately placed in command of the slaver and soon after, Hornigold and some of his crew left the company to claim the recently issued King’s pardon which would absolve the pirates of all of their crimes. However Thatch added more guns to his prize with every ship he plundered thereafter and he soon had a floating fortress with reportedly forty cannon. He renamed the ship the Queen Anne’s Revenge and soon had a flotilla of four vessels and between three and four hundred pirates. We lose touch with Blackbeard after this for about three months. He appears again in early April around the Bay of Honduras where he takes several more ships before heading north past Cuba, past the Bahamas, and up the eastern seaboard. This voyage can easily be argued as Blackbeard’s greatest pirating achievement.
Around the middle of May 1718, Blackbeard’s flotilla arrived off the colonial port of Charleston, South Carolina. After taking the pilot boat and almost every ship coming in and out of the port for at least a week, Thatch dispatched a ransom demand to Governor Robert Johnson for a chest of medicines. It has been debated for years why the pirates settled for this paltry amount of loot when they were obviously in a position to demand much more. The pirates also took what was reported to have been between £1,000 and £1,500 worth of gold and silver coins from the ships while off Charleston, but it still remains a mystery why Blackbeard settled for this comparatively small amount of loot.
Less than a week after leaving the waters off Charleston, the pirate flotilla arrived off Topsail Inlet, later Old Topsail, and presently Beaufort Inlet. David Harriot, who had been the original captain of the sloop Adventure when captured by Blackbeard near the Bay of Honduras, provides the best description of the events in a deposition recorded shortly before he was killed during an escape attempt from Charleston several months later and published in London in 1719.
...about six Days after they left the Bar of Charles-Town, they arrived at Topsail-Inlet in North Carolina, having then under their Command the said Ship Queen Anne’s Revenge, the Sloop commanded by Richards, this Deponent’s Sloop, commanded by one Capt. Hands, one of the said Pirate Crew, and a small empty Sloop which they found near the Havana.... That the next Morning after they had all got safe into Topsail-Inlet, except Thatch, the said Thatch’s ship Queen Anne’s Revenge run a-ground off of the Bar of Topsail-Inlet, and the said Thatch sent his Quarter-Master to command this Deponent’s Sloop to come to his Assistance; but she run a-ground likewise about Gun-shot from the said Thatch, before his said Sloop could come to their Assistance, and both the said Thatch’s Ship and this Deponent’s Sloop were wreck’d; and the said Thatch and all the other Sloop’s Companies went on board the Revenge, afterwards called the Royal James, and on board the other Sloop they found empty off the Havana.
“Twas generally believed the said Thatch run his Vessel a-ground on purpose to break up the Companies, and to secure what Moneys and Effects he had got for himself and such other of them as he had most Value for. That after the said ship and this Deponent’s sloop were so cast away, this Deponent requested the said Thatch to let him have a Boat, and a few Hands, to go to some inhabited Place in North Carolina, or to Virginia, there being very few and poor inhabitants in Topsail-Inlet, where they were; and desired the said Thatch to make this Deponent some Satisfaction for his said Sloop; Both which said Thatch promised to do. But instead thereof, ordered this Deponent, with about sixteen more, to be put on shore on a small Sandy Hill or Bank, a League distant from the Main; on which Place there was no Inhabitant, nor Provisions. Where this Deponent and the rest remained two Nights and one Day, and expected to perish; for that said Thatch took away their Boat.That said Thatch having taken what Number of Men he thought fit along with him, he set sail from Topsail-Inlet in the small Spanish Sloop, about eight Guns mounted, forty White Men, and sixty Negroes, and left the Revenge belonging to Bonnet there...
In addition to the many significant details revealed in this document, it is interesting to examine his statement that about seventeen of the pirates were “...put on shore on a small Sandy Hill or Bank, a League distant from the Main; on which Place there was no Inhabitant, nor Provisions.” Was this small sandy hill or bank the east end of present-day Bogue Bank? Or were the pirates marooned on a sand bar within the inlet itself? Several 19th century charts of the area indicate that such dry shoals existed at times in the inlet and even had names. The 1738 James Wimble chart that shows the inlet in some detail just two decades after the event indicates that the recognized channel during the period was positioned just off Bogue Bank. With this in mind it would appear that the east end of Bogue would have been the most logical place to maroon anyone any distance “from the main” on their way out of the harbor.
The only other source to mention this marooning in any detail is A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pirates first published by a Captain Charles Johnson in 1724. Johnson wrote in a later edition that in the process of leaving the area, Blackbeard “...takes seventeen others and maroons them upon a small sandy island, about a league from the Main, where there was neither bird, beast or herb for their subsistence, and where they must have perished if Major Bonnet had not two days after taken them off.”
After wrecking two of his ships and marooning part of his crew, Blackbeard left the Beaufort Inlet area and traveled north to Ocracoke where he set up his base of operations for the next few months. He was eventually killed in November 1718 by an expedition sent down from the neighboring colony of Virginia. To examine all of the legends, myths, and folklore surrounding the various exploits of this notorious pirate, one would think that he must have been “a-pyrating” for at least several years. And indeed he might have been, but after investigating his life strictly from the primary source documents, we can only trace his activities for about fourteen months. Even so, we should feel fortunate that many of these historical events took place here in North Carolina. And indeed, we now have the opportunity to further these investigations through the archaeological record as we continue to develop the Blackbeard Shipwreck Project and initiate the excavation of what is believed to be the remains of his flagship Queen Anne’s Revenge just offshore and within sight of the ramparts of Fort Macon.
Visitors to Fort Macon will be able to easily observe any boats working over the site once the excavation begins.
But while you are watching this work over the next few years, take time to look around at the “small sandy hills” surrounding the fort and try to envision a handful of pirates wandering around through the dunes wishing they were anywhere but there.
David Moore is a nautical archaeologist and maritime historian for the North Carolina Maritime Museum and is currently on the Board of Directors of the Friends of Fort Macon.