His kingdom of horror only lasted for two years (1716-1718), but Blackbeard caused such a shock in the imagination of people of the time that his age was known as the Golden Age of Piracy. His real name was Edward Teach and although little is known about his early life and his youth, he was probably born in Bristol, England. It is said that he had 14 wives, but there are no official records of this, though it is known that his last wife was Mary Ormond, born in Bath, in North Carolina.

He became a renowned pirate, his cognomen derived from being very tall and a shocking look: he liked showing off with a three-cornered hat with feathers and well armed with several swords, knives and a holster with three guns of different calibers. On top of that, he attached fuses to his thick beard and lit them when fighting. Those who saw them fighting used to say that he looked like the demon, with his horrific look and all the smoke around his head. In that sense, he was the real creator of the “Pirate look”.

He became a sailor at a very young age during the Spanish Succession War (1700-1713), and sailed the Caribbean, near Jamaica, as a corsair. At some point he joined the crew of a British pirate called Benjamin Horningold, who retired from piracy in 1716 taking advantage of a British amnesty for English corsairs. Teach became the Captain of the Queen Anne’s Revenge and pirated the Caribbean and the North American Atlantic coast for two years. His favorite tactic was to search for merchant ships and get them through dangerous sailing canals, which he knew well, to attack them and steal all the valuable objects, food, liquor and weapons.

Teach captured six vessels and defeated the war ship of the Royal Navy Scarborough, which was armed with 30 cannons. By means of his powerful fleet that he commanded along North America Atlantic coast, Blackbeard established several pirate settlements in Bahamas, South Carolina and

North Carolina, paying its Governor Charles Eden regularly in exchange of impunity. In May 1718, his flotilla blockaded the port of Charleston for a few days and kidnapped a group of prominent Charleston citizens which included Samuel Wragg (a member of the Council of the Province of Carolina).Teach informed the prisoners that his fleet required medical supplies from the colonial government of South Carolina, and that if none were forthcoming, all prisoners would be executed, their heads sent to the Governor and all captured ships burnt. The drugs were gathered and Teach released the captured ships and his prisoners and sailed away.

Apparently he wasn’t as fierce as it was said. Anyway, traders of Atlantic strategic places lost their patience and asked the Governor of Virginia for help. The Governor sent Maynard in command of two armed sloops. The captain reached the pirate fleet near Ocracoke Island on 2nd December 1718, when most of Blackbeard’s crew as on mainland. Maynard’s crew and cannons were more superior to those of Blackbeard’s (3 to 1) and were defeated. Teach was fired five times and had some sword wounds before dying. Maynard beheaded him and placed his head on Hampton square.

The cache:

Not many people know that Blackbeard sailed across the Mediterranean sea searching for galleons to rob, where he captured a fantastic Spanish galleon. As there wasn’t enough room on his ship to keep the loot, they landed and hid a case with some of the loot on the Torrevieja cliffs so they could get it in the future, but that never happens because Blackbeard died soon after that. The case is still there, waiting for someone to find it.