Shipmates,
At the risk of sounding like a scurvy promoter, if you haven't picked up a copy of Piracy: the Complete History by Angus Konstam, then you should. It does exactly what it says on the box - particualrly for the so-called "Golden Age".
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I'd also like to wade into the debate about Kevin Duffus' new Blackbeard book. I take issue with one description of this as being "well researched".
First, let me repeat what Dave Moore had to say, a man who'se forgotten more about Blackbeard than this new author - Kevin Duffus - has ever claimed to have "discovered". He's an archaeologist and curator at the North Carolina Maritime Museum, and was involved in the excavation of Blackbeard's flagship "Queen Anne's Revenge";
Kevin P. Duffus. The Last Days of Black Beard the Pirate: Within Every Legend Lies a Grain of Truth. Raleigh, N.C.: Looking Glass Productions, Inc., 2008. 239 pages; maps, limited notes, bibliography, and index. US $24.95, cloth; ISBN 1888285230.
The author of this book on Blackbeard is a journalist, not a historian, which is glaringly apparent throughout the book. The overall thesis of the book is nothing new; it is based on the research of genealogists John Oden, Jane Bailey, and Allen Norris, published in 2002 as "Legends of Black Beard and His Ties to Bath Town: A Study of Historical Events Using Genealogical Methodology" in the North Carolina Genealogical Society Journal. This original research, containing numerous suppositions and assumptions, provided the somewhat historically shaky foundation upon which Kevin Duffus constructed his book. The cornerstone of both studies is that one James Beard, an early resident of Bath, North Carolina had a son, whose name, unfortunately, remains unknown. The book postulates that this son's name was Edward and he would become the infamous and notorious pirate captain "Black" Beard—therefore not named Edward Thatch or Teach, as historical documents have informed us for almost three centuries. Unfortunately, very little of the evidence presented supports such a claim, a situation readily (and interestingly) admitted by the author on several occasions.
David D. Moore North Carolina Maritime Museum
Well, I'm afraid I have to agree with Dave. Kevin Duffus makes some bizzare claims, such as the notion that no armed force was ever sent south from Virginia into North Carolina, to aprehend Blackbeard and his crew. Sorry, but that just shows that he's never pored through the archives in London's National Archives.I have, and the reports are there, along with returns, expenses and other detailed accounts. Duffus has a point when he questions the fact that Blackbeard was born in Bristol. As I said in my own book, I've scoured the Bristol archives, and found
no mention of a Teach, Tatch or Thatch of the right period. However, there's also nothing to substantiate Duffus' claim that Blackbeard hailed from the author's own back yard of North Carolina. In fact, a lot of circumstantial
evidence points against it. For a start, if that was the case, how come nobody mentioned it, or used his real name in official colony documents? It also flies in the face of the research of all other pirate historians, including David
Cordingly, Robert Lee and myself. I'm sorry, but while I could describe Mr. Duffus' self-plugged and self-published book as "earnest", I'm afraid I couldn't call it "well-researched".
Angus Konstam
Author of "Piracy: The Complete History", "The History of Pirates" and
"Blackbeard: America's Most Notorious Pirate"
