Blackbeard’s treasure
Blackbeard was a terror of the Caribbean and the Carolina and Virginia coasts in the early eighteenth century. A master of public image before it was a profession, Blackbeard – whose real name was Edward Teach or Thatch – grew his beard long and decorated it with burning slow fuses, giving himself a sulfuric aroma and image when confronting a victim. He once shot a man in the knee as they sat drinking together, explaining that he had to do such things from time to time to remind his men who he was. Of his treasure, which was considered based on his pillaging, he once said, “…nobody but himself and the devil knew where it was, and the longest liver should take all.”
Blackbeard’s career as a pirate was relatively short but notoriously violent for both his victims and his crews. By 1717 he sailed as part of a fleet of pirate ships seizing vessels from all nations at will, and eluding the vessels dispatched to capture him. In 1718 he blockaded the harbor at Charles Towne in South Carolina, taking any vessels attempting to enter or leave the harbor, ransacking them all. He then threatened to kill the prisoners from these ships, unless the city provided him with needed medical and other supplies. When his demands were met he released the prisoners and blithely sailed off.
When Governor Eden of North Carolina announced a pardon for all pirates who surrendered prior to September 5 1718 he availed himself of the opportunity, first running some of his ships aground and then marooning about two dozen other crew members. By these acts, he greatly reduced the number of men with whom he would have to share the plunder they had attained. He accepted the pardon and stayed for a time in Bath, North Carolina, after mooring his ship near Ocracoke Inlet, one of his favorite anchorages. During this time he disposed of some of his treasure, where and when remaining unknown.
Bored with life ashore, he soon returned to piracy, operating in the Caribbean and near the mouth of Delaware Bay. He also ventured into the Chesapeake Bay. The Governor of Virginia, which was a Crown Colony, was unimpressed with the pardon from North Carolina, a proprietary colony, and ordered the fitting out of an expedition which tracked down and killed the pirate in Ocracoke Inlet in November 1718. They returned with Blackbeard’s head displayed from the bowsprit of one of their two ships, but no treasure. Some of the loot taken from the pirate’s most recent actions was recovered, mostly cotton, sugar, and indigo. There were no hard species.
Blackbeard’s treasure, which he claimed to have hidden, has been rumored to be in the mudbanks near Sullivan’s Island near Charleston, buried in or near Bath in North Carolina, on Oak Island in Nova Scotia, off Delaware Bay, on Tangier Island in the Chesapeake, and in numerous other locations along the east coast of the United States and the Caribbean. To many scholars, the idea of buried treasure is ludicrous, despite Blackbeard’s clear intent of increasing his share by reducing his crew and his statement that only “the devil” knew where his loot was hidden. That would certainly lead one to infer that it is hidden somewhere.