ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, March 8, 1997 TAG: 9703100033
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LANE DeGREGORY LANDMARK NEWS SERVICE
Serving with Blackbeard's crew was no walk in the park.
He locked his own sailors below deck and filled the ship's hold with sulphur just to make them suffer.
He shot his first mate in the kneecap to show who was boss.
He hijacked scores of ships - sometimes solely to steal barrels of rum.
And before he went into battle, this fierce captain tied fuses in his waist-long black beard and set them on fire so that his whole face seemed surrounded by smoke when he boarded victims' boats.
Blackbeard was one of the most feared pirates on the high seas.
His reign over the Atlantic lasted only three years, but his reputation has spanned three centuries. And the booty he amassed has never been found.
But this week North Carolina officials announced they think they've found his ship, Queen Anne's Revenge, off the Outer Banks near Beaufort.
Born Edward Teach in 1680 to a wealthy family in Bristol, England, Blackbeard joined a group of Jamaica-bound sailors fighting Queen Anne's War, one of a string of conflicts for empire between France and Britain. He was a privateer - sanctioned by the government to capture enemy ships.
After the war, Blackbeard kept plundering. He stole a sloop, gathered a crew of 70 and in less than a year ruled the Atlantic and Caribbean.
When he moved his operations to North Carolina in 1718, Blackbeard commanded four vessels and 400 pirates.
``Blackbeard, to me, was the first great practitioner of psychological warfare,'' said Phil Masters, who helped find the ship. ``He created a menacing image. He talked with everyone he met about being in league with the devil, that he was the devil's brother.''
That image - more than his deeds, historians say - helped Blackbeard earn his reputation. Records do not show that the pirate killed anyone until British warships trapped him off Ocracoke during his last battle.
Early in 1718, Blackbeard sailed into Ocracoke Inlet, left his ship in a channel now called Teach's Hole, and took a smaller sloop inland to Bath. North Carolina Gov. Charles Eden performed a marriage ceremony for the pirate.
Worried that Blackbeard would create a pirate colony on the Outer Banks - and concerned that their governor was in cahoots - North Carolina Colonists called on Virginia Gov. Alexander Spotswood for help.
After dark Nov. 21, 1718, English navy Lt. Robert Maynard slipped into Ocracoke with two ships from Spotswood.
At daybreak, Maynard attacked. The two crews exchanged shots. Smoke obscured the pirates' view. In the confusion, Maynard sent his men below deck.
Blackbeard boarded the enemy ship. Sailors sprang from below, surprising the pirates. Blackbeard fell after five bullets and 20 knife stabs pierced his body.
Maynard carried Blackbeard's head to Virginia - where it wound up atop a pole in Hampton.
LENGTH: Medium: 59 lines ILLUSTRATION: GRAPHIC: Map by staff.by CNB