EDWARD DRUMMOND (b. Bristol, 1680 - m. Ocracoke, 1718)
Funny how legends are about characters that were actually very different from how the paint. An example of what I say is undoubtedly the famous pirate Blackbeard, who has spent prototype in history as a profession in his day was his last legs and that had nothing to do with the growth achieved in previous centuries and was beginning to look more like what would become smugglers and gangsters.
is believed that Blackbeard, whose real name was Edward Drummond, born in Bristol in 1680 in the midst of a lower middle class family and it seems that very young enlisted as a merchant seaman. Nothing is known of his career to that during the War of English Succession sailed as a privateer in the West Indies, and changed his name to Edward Teach, probably thinking back once the real return less controversial activities. The case Drummond or teach is that learning the craft over the pirate captain's orders Hornygold and must have done well because it was soon in command of his own ship, a captured French merchantman which he renamed Queen Anne's Revenge . Once the war ended in 1713, Teach followed orders Hornygold as a pirate until he filed for an amnesty for George I in 1716 and left in front of the business. In the two years after he built his reputation Teach prototype Pirate of the Caribbean, but the truth is operated rather little in the sea but rather in the waters of Virginia and the Carolinas, on the coast eastern North America, which at that time were more popular. Nor is it true that mainly devoted to plunder English ships, in fact his solo career began with the collapse of British merchant Great Allen off the American coast and the subsequent battle with the British warship Scarborough, which had to flee with tails between their legs but earned him his nickname Blackbeard. Teach in the waters of Honduras signed a treaty to operate with another pirate who had become quite famous in those days, Stede Bonnet, a planter of Barbados's crazy that that was done to escape a filibuster wife too irritating. Blackbeard soon realized that his colleague did not really know much about navigation, so that became the real leader of this society that dealt with British freighters and then sell the loot in the American colonies at lower prices, making the Americans were quite willing in principle to the pirates, who were receiving in their cities and felt something like a romantic hero.
In January 1718, Blackbeard was presented with a fleet of four ships to Charleston for a week was devoted to plunder as many ships entering the port, making the way with a number of hostages that ended up changing for medicine for his men before the impotence the governor of the city. Previously they had been robbed of all their property and valuables that soon after sold, along with the loot from the ships approached, the colonists of North Carolina. Carolina learned that the king had issued a pardon for pirates another so that, after stealing the loot from Bonnet, sank the Queen Anne's Revenge and established himself as a planter in Bathtown. It had to claim that their booty in fact come to plunder English and French and not the king himself gave him a pardon, which does not seem to have been denied by the Americans who knew about their misdeeds. Seeking respectability, Teach married daughter another planter in the area (although it is said that fourteen women had other "legitimate"), but it seems that the sedentary lifestyle did not like too much because in June 1718 he sailed again with his men and went on to sell "protection" sailing ships through the area in the manner of the Chicago gangsters of the 20's. Although this business does not satisfy him for long and soon returned to plunder the ships directly, then selling their goods in collusion with Governor Charles Eden and his secretary Tobias Knight. Finally, in October, began to loot with a small sloop, the Adventure , plantations cotton on the banks of the James River in Virginia. The governor of this state, Alexander Spotswood less tolerant than Eden, quickly sent two frigates to the mouth of the river, but Blackbeard miraculously managed to slip away and took refuge in the bay of Ocranoke. On November 20 she met another sloop commanded by Lieutenant Maynard who, after a fierce battle, cut off his head and returned triumphant to her Bathtown hung on the bowsprit of his ship.
And as with this type of character, his death was only the beginning of the legend. The stories told in life on the giant boats that approached the cannon fuses lit tied his beard, and had no pity for anyone who successfully repaid, began to come to life. His pact with Satan, surely he advertised himself in his day to raise the terror instilled in the crews of the ships and, above all, the treasure allegedly buried after sinking the Queen Anne's Revenge , have made him appear in the popular imagination as the archetype of the pirate, but actually the time when galleons full of gold was looted by other hackers had spent many years and their prey were most of the time shipments or items were manufactured in Great Britain bound for the American colonies. Still, There are still people looking for a treasure that will almost certainly never existed.
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