The Ballad of Blackbeard

HISTORY This Week

The HISTORY® Channel

History, Education, Society & Culture

4.6 • 3.9K Ratings

🗓️ 21 November 2022

⏱️ 38 minutes

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Summary

November 22, 1718. Early morning, off the North Carolina coast. The pirate Blackbeard, peering over the rail of his ship, is startled to discover that a pair of British naval ships are after him. He rouses his hungover crew and gives the order to flee to the open sea. The pirating life is treacherous: filled with double-crosses, shifting alliances, and violence. The best pirates cultivate harsh reputations in order to scare their foes into surrendering without a fight. And no one is feared more than Blackbeard. But now the authorities have decided to hunt him down. How did Blackbeard become a legend, the one pirate we all remember? And where lies the truth within this treasure trove of stories?

Special thanks to our guest, Eric Jay Dolin, author of Black Flags, Blue Waters: The Epic History of America's Most Notorious Pirates. Dolin’s latest book is Rebels At Sea: Privateering in the American Revolution.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	The History Channel, Original Podcast.
0:04.7	History this week.
0:06.5	November 22nd, 1718.
0:13.2	I'm Sally Helm.
0:19.1	A calm morning in the shallow waters of North Carolina's outer banks.
0:24.0	Floating off the narrow strip of land that is Oquacoke Island, there's a ship.
0:28.5	The Adventure.
0:31.1	It's captain is notorious in these parts and beyond as a pirate.
0:37.6	You might even know his name today. Blackbeard.
0:43.2	He and his crew are probably happy that the weather is calm because last night they all got
0:48.7	good and drunk. This morning they're doing their best to sleep it off as the ship bobs gently in the
0:54.2	water. But then they hear a racket nearby. Splashing sounds,
1:01.4	bunks and butts, something is afloat. Blackbeard can soon see that two more ships have
1:09.3	entered these shallow waters and they've gotten stuck. Run aground on the sand.
1:16.8	The crews of the Ranger and the Jane are pitching things overboard to try and get themselves a float.
1:22.5	And Blackbeard realizes, wait a minute, those ships are after me.
1:31.9	For the crew of the Adventure, there's no more time to sleep. They stumble to their posts and
1:36.8	try to steer toward the open sea. They make for the mouth of the channel, shooting at the ships behind.
1:43.8	But the Jane and the Ranger soon get unstuck and they follow Blackbeard's ship.
1:49.2	Finally, one of them, the Ranger, maneuvers around to block the Pirates path.
1:57.3	Blackbeard can see on the deck of the Jane, a British naval officer. He's Lieutenant Robert
2:04.3	Maynard, a grizzled veteran of these waters and their semi-lawless ways, though he's all of 34
	...

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