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Blackbeard battles Robert Maynard |
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| Killed in a bloody and dramatic hand-to-hand shipboard battle in November 1718 at Okracoke Inlet in North Carolina. The attack was led by Lieutenant Robert Maynard, by order of Governor Spotswood of Virginia. Even after sustaining five gunshot wounds and twenty deep stab wounds, including a slashed throat and a bullet in his chest (fired at close range), Blackbeard fought on fiercely, breaking Maynard's sword in two before finally succumbing to his injuries and falling dead on the deck. His decapitated head was hung from the bowsprit of Maynard's sloop, while his body was flung overboard. (Legend has it that it swam several times, Rasputin-like, around the ship before sinking to the bottom!) By the end of the piracy trials, only two of Blackbeard's crew survived: one man who had joined the crew only the day before and Israel Hands. |  |
In the words of Patrick Pringle, Blackbeard is "probably the most maligned pirate in history. He ... never fought if he could avoid it. ... He did not terrorize his prisoners, and there is not a shred of evidence to show that he ever ill-treated one of them. He threatened murder at [the siege of] Charleston, but did not keep his word when the time-limit expired [and the medicines he demanded were not delivered]. When he took prizes he usually put the crews ashore and burnt their vessels. If this was not possible he merely took the cargoes and let the men keep their ship, although it would have been safer to sink her with all hands. ... Blackbeard fought bravely at the end, but this was the only occasion on which he ever had to fight." |
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Story thanks to Robert Newton