Blackbeard: myth or record

Much of what people know about Blackbeard comes from one book published in London in 1724, six years after his death, by an author whose identity is still unsettled. This trail sets the familiar story against the surviving record: the ship, the blockade, the wreck, the pardon, the killing at Ocracoke and the print that made him. At each stop, ask what rests on a document and what rests on Johnson.

1. 1 Person Edward Thache (Blackbeard) Begin with the record of the man: what is fixed, what is unresolved, and that he was never tried.
2. 2 Source A General History of the Pyrates (1724) The book behind the legend: genuine documents, embellishment and invention side by side, by an author nobody can name with certainty.
3. 3 Ship Queen Anne's Revenge A French slave ship renamed, and a wreck identified in 2011: the one part of the story that archaeology can now check.
4. 4 Event Blackbeard's Blockade of Charles Town (1718) The blockade of Charles Town: a week of hostages held for a chest of medicines.
5. 5 Event The Grounding of the Queen Anne's Revenge (1718) The wreck on the bar: accident or contrivance, with two period accounts that disagree.
6. 6 Place Beaufort Inlet (Topsail Inlet) The inlet as it was named then, and the site number the wreck carries now.
7. 7 Source Modern Archaeological Reports What the excavation reports can say about the ship, and what they cannot say about the man.
8. 8 Institution The Colonial Governor The governor who sent the expedition across a colonial border, and the question of whether he could.
9. 9 Event The Ocracoke Fight The killing at Ocracoke: who was there, what the reports say, and where the famous details come from.
10. 10 Place Ocracoke Inlet The anchorage still called Teach's Hole, and the tradition attached to the name.
11. 11 Source The Boston News-Letter A near-contemporary witness in print: what the Boston paper reported, and when.
12. 12 Source Execution Sermons, Broadsides and Ballads The trade in pirate death: sermons, broadsides and ballads, and how a reputation was manufactured.