Blackbeard’s True Treasure

[Fox]

Kevin Duffus: His name came up when I was doing my 10-15 pager for my Pirates and Piracy class on Blackbeard, anyone know what he's into besides this article? I think he's local to the Bath region, or at least that's what my befuddled brain wants to tell me

Kevin Duffus' Website

[John Maddox Roberts]

It makes me wonder if many African pirates managed to escape hanging by claiming to have been slaves.

[Daniel]

It makes me wonder if many African pirates managed to escape hanging by claiming to have been slaves.

All the blacks on Bartholomew Roberts' Royal Fortune were ordered into slavery, but I don't think it was because they claimed to have been slaves. They didn't stand trial at all, as I understand it, so they never really even had an opportunity to plead that they were slaves.

Blackbeard's crewman Caesar and Bellamy's crewman Hendrick Quintor were both hanged. Caesar had been a slave before joining the pirates, I think, but Quintor had been a free man since his birth in the Netherlands.

[Tartan Jack]

I believe you have reached an accord. Otherwise, the debate is about the meaning attached to the phrase 'politically correct', which is somewhat off topic. I'm sure that Tartan Jack was not suggesting that aspects of slavery were a good thing, or that one needs to be a raving leftie to believe otherwise.

[/blue beret]

Thanks. That's OK by me. I was letting it go, as it was off topic.

What about: "20th C. contemporary" instead . . .\

(Main aim: trying to think like a common sailor of the early 18th. C for this discussion, rather than an early 21st C. person. On this matter, there is a HUGE difference.

When you get down to it, slavery was part of human history from the beginning of recorded history and wasn't ended until the 1800s

It hasn't ended.

Good point.

I meant in the western world, as an massively organized legal institution. As long as humans seek to dominate other humans, it will probably exist in some forum.

Back to topic:

I think Duffus makes an interesting point in the article. Pirates were in the slave trade, Blackbeard was in the slave trade (as documented by Tobias Knight's documents). I've not seen evidence that such was his main objective, but was certainly a side-element. He captured a slave ship, operated it for 6 months, then wrecked it. I could even see that he COULD have had knowledge of the Beufort inlet before he wrecked the QAR (not that I've seen direct, documentary evidence of that either). North Carolina would make a ready market for such a captured cargo with minimal questions asked.

The question is whether it was a case of "what now" or "that worked well" in the mind of BB after capturing the slaves either on the QAR or another prize . . .

Slavery and the slave trade in relation to GAoP pirates would make an interesting study (for someone looking for such a topic to spend hundreds or thousands of hours on).

[LookingGlass]

Was Blackbeard's Caesar hanged? That's a good question that cannot be answered with absolute certainty. I'm not sure he was.

The only source that states that Caesar was hanged was Johnson's GHP. The "King's warrant for payment of 710 British pounds to Captain George Gordon and others for capture or killing of 'Thatch a Notorious Pyrate' and his crew" (1722 Sept. 19, PRO-T 52/32) lists a Caesar as a convicted pirate along with four known Africans, Richard Stiles, Thomas Gates, James Blake and James White (identified as African slaves in NC Council Journal, hearing of evidences against Tobias Knight Esq., Secretary of this Province, May 27, 1719, NC Col. Rec. II, pps. 341-349).

In his testimony, Knight states that evidence presented against him by the four Africans "ought not to be taken against him for that they are (tho cunningly couched under the names of Christians) no other the four Negro Slaves which by the Laws and customs of all America Aught not to be Examined as Evidence."

Later in his testimony, Knight said, "neither did the said Tobias Knight or any of his family contract any acquaintance with the said Thache or any of his crew nor did deal buy or Sell any with or any of them dureing their whole stay Save only Two Negroe men which the said Knight purchased from Two men who had left the said Thache and had rece'd their pardons and since are gone Lawfully out of this Goverment."

Tobias Knight died within the following few months because the inventory of his estate (Beaufort Co. Deed Book 7, entry 403) was appraised by September 15, 1719. Listed in the inventory are the entirety of his slaves: "negro man Jack age 60 £10, negro man Tom age 40 £20, negro man Pompey age 27 £60, negro man Caesar age 24 £60, negro girl Phillis age 12 £35, Indian boy Scipio age 8 £15." It seems to be most probable that Knight purchased the two men in their 20s from the two members of Thache's crew, who were each valued at a significantly higher price than the others.

Johnson's GHP lists a James Robbins as having been hanged at Williamsburg but Robbins's name does not appear on the King's warrant. A James Robbins first appears in the Beaufort Co. Deed Book on Sep. 9, 1718, when he and fellow "mariner" Stephen Elsey purchase the former 400 acre plantation of Gov. Charles Eden for 3 male negro slaves (this plantation adjoined Tobias Knight's plantation along Bath Creek). This same James Robbins was identified in a deposition (Beaufort Co. Deed Book 4, entry 262) as having, sometime in January 1718/1719 bedded with "both Elizabeth Goodin and Sarah Montague & said Elizabeth asked him why he came to bed with his breeches on and he removed them." If this was the same James Robbins identified by Johnson as having been hanged at Williamsburg, he would seem to have somehow 'slipped the noose.'

A discussion of the repetition of names listed on the King's warrant of convicted pirates, appearing in Johnson as hanged pirates, and appearing in the Beaufort Co. Deed Books during the years following the so-called executions, has appeared here in Twill previously, especially the story of the pirate-cooper Edward Salter. This post is limited to the Africans on Blackbeard's crew and their respective fates.

On the 11th of March 1718/1719, Lt. Gov. Spotswood addressed his Council "that five Negroes of the crew of Edward Tack and taken on board his Sloop remain in Prison for Piracy... [and] whether there be anything in the Circumstances of these Negroes to exempt them from undergoing the same Tryal as other pirates." The Council concluded that "the said Negroes being taken on Board a Pyrate Vessell and by what yet appears equally concerned with the rest of the Crew in the same Acts of Piracy ought to be Try'd in the same Manner." Unfortunately, the trial records have been lost and we don't know the actual disposition of the cases of the five Africans, whom we can fairly assume were Richard Stiles, Thomas Gates, James Blake, James White, and Caesar.

In his History of North Carolina, Vol. II, p.8 (PHILADELPHIA: THOMAS DOBSON, 1812), Hugh Williamson wrote, "The pirates, who survived the action, were tried in Virginia. One of them, Basilica Hand, turned king's evidence; and four of them were executed." Similarly, Rev. Dr. Shirley Carter Hughson (The Carolina Pirates and Colonial Commerce, 1670-1740, Johns Hopkins Press, 1894) wrote, "They [the trials] were held at Williamsburgh, and four of the accused were condemned and afterwards hanged." The sources for both Williamson and Hughson's statements that "four" were executed are not known. Again, the Virginia trial records of the pirates are no longer extant.

It is worth noting that Tobias Knight stated in his testimony that only four of the five "Negroes of the crew of Edward Tack and taken on board his Sloop remain in Prison for Piracy" presented evidence against him. Why did not the fifth man testify against Tobias Knight?

Were there two Caesars? I don't think so.

Should we accept Johnson's word that Caesar was hanged? I'm not so sure.

Edited June 10, 2011 by LookingGlass

[Bos'n Cross]

i will also co-sign that it would seem in most cases....unless guilty of being a leader in, or extremely involved in pyracy(or just too troublesome and "free spirited" to deal with)....black pyrates were simply sold off........its a lot easier, and profitable to do so instead of hanging...though im sure a few of them might have wanted the first option............i do hind of strange that Hendrick Quintor was hanged, yet John Julian was sold off....and Mr.Julian turned out to be quite a bit more trouble than many might have thought him worth....even for a profit......

[PoD]

I found this on the trans atlantic slave trade database. Could this be Blackbeards Queen Annes Revenge?

http://slavevoyages....&voyageid=30090

If so it may also answer the fact of what happens to the slaves aboard. It mentions that they were sold from another ship which may of meant that Blackbeard didnt keep all/any of them after all. It would surely have been logged as the pirates had taken them rather than sold from another ship if that is what had happened.

They had already unloaded the majority of the slaves anyway by the looks of it. Out of the original 516 slaves purchased, only 455 are recorded as disembarking the ship. 313 disembarked at Martinique and 61 disembarked at Grenada. This comes to 374 so leaves 81 slaves unaccounted for which must have been sold from the other ship. This possibly means that 61 slaves died before reaching Martinique. I originally thought that 61 slaves dying was a high number but it seems around average unfortunately.Although it does say the original goal was thwarted so it may be that the pirates took the other 81 slaves that were sold from another ship.

Edited June 12, 2011 by PoD

[Tartan Jack]

That sure looks like it. The names and dates fit. GREAT find!

[Mission]

This possibly means that 61 slaves died before reaching Martinique. I originally thought that 61 slaves dying was a high number but it seems around average unfortunately.Although it does say the original goal was thwarted so it may be that the pirates took the other 81 slaves that were sold from another ship.

Somewhere I read an account by a surgeon who was decrying the deplorable treatment of the slaves on the ocean voyage. (I believe it may have been John Atkin's book A voyage to Guinea, Brasil, and the West-Indies; in His Majesty's Ships the Swallow and Weymouth. Whatever book it was featured a whole chapter on the care and treatment of slaves.) He indicated that if they were fed and treated better, more of them would probably survive the voyage and be salable when the ship reached the Caribbean islands. I didn't copy much of it into my notes as most of that isn't relative to my topic (Pirate Surgeons), but it seems to me he said something as many as 1/3 of the slaves died on many voyages.

I also have the idea (although I'm not sure where I got it) that the slaves were auctioned at the destination(s) and the ones not sold were likely the most weak and sickly and thus the least desirable to those purchasing. So if the majority of the slaves on that ship were sold previously, the remainder may not have been of much interest to any but the most desperate buyers and thus would not have been of great value as readily salable 'plunder' to pirates. OTOH, any sale of stolen slaves would be worth their trouble if it could be made quickly enough. (This is all just conjecture, of course.)

[Daniel]

I found some evidence in Woodard's Republic of Pirates, p. 213 yesterday that makes part of Duffus's thesis very dubious.

When Blackbeard captured La Concorde, he set its master ashore at Bequia and turned the vast majority of the 455 slaves over to him, keeping only 61 for use as laborers, although "a few may have been inducted into the company." If Blackbeard had captured the slaving vessel for the main purpose of selling the slaves, it makes no sense whatsoever that he would simply throw away 87% of his "loot" at the very moment he captured it. His interest in La Concorde must have been its sailing and combat capabilities, not its human cargo.

Duffus is still very likely right in his theory that Blackbeard later sold most of the sixty Africans in North Carolina. The only other reasonable possibility is that the slaves escaped en masse, but if so, their escape was improbably successful; one would expect at least some of them to be caught. But if Blackbeard sold them, it must have been opportunistically; it couldn't have been his main goal when he captured La Concorde in the first place.

[PoD]

Thats quite interesting as it seems to account for the 61 slaves that I mentioned were lost during the voyage.

Does anyone have a date for when the concorde was actually taken? It would be interesting to see if this ties in with the information we have from the slave trade. I am wondering if the ship had made 2 deliveries already or if the deliveries were made from a different ship which would tie in to Woodards version of events.

It does then seem odd that the figures would suggest that no slaves whatsoever had died on the trip from africa. I am now wondering if Woodard had seen the figures listed in the slave trading documentation and jumped to the conclusion that Blackbeard had taken the unaccounted for 61 slaves. The only reason I would question it is that 374 of the slaves can be accounted for and reached their original destination but the records say that 455 slaves disembarked the ship. This now leaves 81 slaves unaccounted for that actually disembarked the ship and 61 slaves that were lost between picking them up in africa and arriving in the americas (this is getting confusing ha ha). So the total number of unaccounted for slaves is 142 (81 that apparently disembarked and 61 lost on the voyage).

From a purely speculative point of view, I recall one version saying that Blackbeard gave the crew of the concorde his old ship but not sure if this is true or not. If the concorde was a lot bigger ship that the one blackbeard attacked it from then maybe there wasnt room for all the slaves on that ship.

[Daniel]

PoD: The voyage you identified is indeed the voyage where Blackbeard captured La Concorde. Woodard clearly identifies Pierre Dosset as the captain and Rene Montaudoin as the owner, matching the data from the Slave Voyages database.

There were 61 slave deaths crossing the Atlantic: 516 slaves were loaded at the Bight of Benin, but only 455 were left when Blackbeard captured the ship, which again matches Woodard. Blackbeard captured the vessel on November 17, 1717 Old Style (Woodard, 210). Woodard says that Blackbeard gave Captain Dosset a sloop in exchange for La Concorde, and left all but 61 of the slaves with Dosset at Bequia. Dosset renamed the sloop the Mauvaise Recontre ("Bad Encounter") and transported the slaves from Bequia to Martinique in two separate voyages (presumably the 40-ton sloop couldn't carry all the slaves at once).

As you point out, the Slave Voyages database suggests that 374 slaves were left with Dosset on Bequia, and thus that Blackbeard kept 81 slaves (455 minus 374) aboard, not 61 as in Woodard. The database further would seem to suggest that Dosset landed 313 of the slaves on Martinique, but that when he went back to Bequia he then took the last 61 slaves to Grenada, not to Martinique as Woodard would have it. Another possibility is that Blackbeard did indeed take 61 slaves aboard the new Queen Anne's Revenge, leaving Dosset with 394, and that twenty of those left with Dosset died or escaped on Bequia, so that Dosset only managed to get 374 of them to market on Martinique and Grenada.

In any event, Woodard quotes verbatim from the depositions of Blackbeard's crew to show that, when Blackbeard offloaded the treasure of Queen Anne's Revenge onto the sloop Adventure after the wreck at Beaufort Inlet, "'forty white men and sixty Negroes'" went aboard the Adventure. Woodard, 256. So I would conclude that Woodard's figure of 61 slaves aboard Blackbeard's vessel is not based just on the slave trading documentation: it's based on eyewitness evidence. We're really just missing 20 slaves: either 1) Blackbeard took 81 aboard at Bequia and somehow lost 20 of them between there and the loading of the Adventure at Beaufort Inlet, or 2) Blackbeard took only 61 slaves aboard at Bequia, and Dosset lost 20 of the remainder while bringing them to Martinique and Grenada. If the first option is correct, the missing 20 slaves could be among the more than 200 crew that Blackbeard abandoned at Beaufort.

[PoD]

yes thats the conclusion I would come to as well. I think i may buy Woodards book as it seems to have the most information in it.

[LookingGlass]

If Blackbeard had captured the slaving vessel for the main purpose of selling the slaves, it makes no sense whatsoever that he would simply throw away 87% of his "loot" at the very moment he captured it. His interest in La Concorde must have been its sailing and combat capabilities, not its human cargo.

The aforementioned "evidence" cited in Woodard (p.213) hardly makes the thesis "very dubious." The statement that because Blackbeard did not retain all 455 slaves means that his interest in La Concorde was in "it's combat and sailing capabilities" can be said to be just as speculative. No author or historian has yet to cite source documents that prove one way or the other why Blackbeard sailed from the Delaware capes directly to the north of Barbados in November 1717 and captured an inbound ship from Africa. Woodard's notes offer no sources for the statement, "As he looked over his new prize, Blackbeard knew he had finally found a proper flagship..." There also seems to be little consideration as to how the addition of 455 slaves to Blackbeard's company of 200 to 250 pirates (letter of Charles Mesnier, Intendant of Martinique, and deposition of Thomas Knight,Jan. 6, 1718, CSPCS Vol. 30, #298. ii) would have stressed the ship's provisions and water, nor does it take into consideration the physical condition of the majority of the slaves. It is possible that the value of the 61 slaves Blackbeard's company gleaned from the La Concorde's cargo were worth considerably more than a greater number of slaves they left behind with Captain Pierre Dosset. Furthermore, it might safely be assumed that the 61 Africans from La Concorde's cargo could not speak English nor had useful skills other than performing the laborious, menial tasks. They were unlikely to have been assimilated into the pirate crew. As for the question of whether the capture of La Concorde was for her cargo or her fighting capabilities, it must be noted that the slaves remained with Blackbeard longer than the ship. Granted, it could be argued against the "true treasure" thesis that once the QAR was wrecked, there was no longer any need for the majority of the slaves, hence they were sold at Bath. However, I submit that neither argument is superior as in providing the best explanation for why Blackbeard and the 40 or so crew who sailed with him from Beaufort Inlet delivered slaves to Bath, a plantation community that had few slaves.

Other questions remain unanswered. How were the slaves accommodated aboard the QAR during the 7 months after departing from Bequia? So far, few shackles have been recovered from the wreck, although much of the wreck remains on the ocean bottom.

There is little uncertainty as to possibility that "the slaves escaped en masse." A pamphlet attributed to the Virginia House of Burgesses reprinted in Virginia Magazine of History and Biography (XXII, pps. 414-415, 1914) states, "Understanding that there was a good deale of money and a great many Negroes in the case, [spotswood] persuades the King's Men of War to surprise and Kill the men within the Country of Carolina."

Edited June 21, 2011 by LookingGlass

[Daniel]

The aforementioned "evidence" cited in Woodard (p.213) hardly makes the thesis "very dubious." The statement that because Blackbeard did not retain all 455 slaves means that his interest in La Concorde was in "it's combat and sailing capabilities" can be said to be just as speculative. No author or historian has yet to cite source documents that prove one way or the other why Blackbeard sailed from the Delaware capes directly to the north of Barbados in November 1717 and captured an inbound ship from Africa. Woodard's notes offer no sources for the statement, "As he looked over his new prize, Blackbeard knew he had finally found a proper flagship..." There also seems to be little consideration as to how the addition of 455 slaves to Blackbeard's company of 200 to 250 pirates (letter of Charles Mesnier, Intendant of Martinique, and deposition of Thomas Knight,Jan. 6, 1718, CSPCS Vol. 30, #298. ii) would have stressed the ship's provisions and water, nor does it take into consideration the physical condition of the majority of the slaves. It is possible that the value of the 61 slaves Blackbeard's company gleaned from the La Concorde's cargo were worth considerably more than a greater number of slaves they left behind with Captain Pierre Dosset.

We have one irrefutable fact that is not speculation: Blackbeard abandoned at least 82% of the slaves. Assuming that sixty to eighty slaves outvalued the other 374 would be speculation, and there is nothing to support it. Concorde had had an ordinary length middle passage of 66 days, and an ordinary number of slave deaths (11.9%, compared to an overall average of 12.1%), so there is no reason to infer that four fifths of them were too sick to sell for ordinary values. Dosset successfully transported all 374+ remaining slaves to Martinique using just the 2-3 tons of beans that Blackbeard spared him from the sloop's supplies; had he taken those beans aboard the Concorde instead, Blackbeard could have transported the slaves himself.

You are right that there is no direct evidence that Blackbeard's interest in the Concorde was her combat and sailing capabilities, though Blackbeard's considerably more aggressive behavior after obtaining her (attacking Guadeloupe and Charleston, although he had never previously directly attacked port cities) is certainly consistent with that theory. However, abandoning a cargo is direct evidence against his wanting that cargo.

[LookingGlass]

I'd like to refresh my memory about the Guadeloupe event. What is your source for the statement that Blackbeard attacked Guadeloupe?

As for Charleston, I don't think it can be said that BB attacked the town. None of his vessels crossed the bar and entered the harbor.

[Mission]

an ordinary number of slave deaths (11.9%, compared to an overall average of 12.1%)

Where did you get that? (And for what period of slave trading are those numbers valid?)

[Daniel]

an ordinary number of slave deaths (11.9%, compared to an overall average of 12.1%)

Where did you get that? (And for what period of slave trading are those numbers valid?)

On slavevoyages.org (great, great resource, I tell you). It's for the entire period, 1514-1866. You are, of course, quite right to point out that the mortality rate was not steady throughout the entire history of the trade; it went down over time. For the time period 1708-1728 (about three thousand recorded voyages over a twenty-year period), the database says the average death rate was 15.3%; factoring out voyages where the ship sank with no survivors or otherwise didn't make it to the Americas cuts the mortality rate down to 15.0%. Any way you slice it, though, the Concorde's 11.9% death rate was no worse than average.

[Daniel]

I'd like to refresh my memory about the Guadeloupe event. What is your source for the statement that Blackbeard attacked Guadeloupe?

As for Charleston, I don't think it can be said that BB attacked the town. None of his vessels crossed the bar and entered the harbor.

The attack on Guadeloupe is from Woodard, p. 216. He says Blackbeard sailed into the harbor, captured a ship, and set the town afire with cannon shots. His endnote for that page is not particularly good; it cites Thomas Knight's deposition, but only specifically mentions Nevis rather than Guadeloupe.

As for attacking Charleston, Blackbeard reportedly did enter the harbor with the intention of bombarding the town until dissuaded by his men's report that the ransom chest of medicines was forthcoming. No dispute, this was not a storm-the-town-and-loot-it operation on the lines of Woodes Rogers at Guayaquil or Henry Morgan at Maracaibo. But it certainly is a good deal more aggressive than anything Blackbeard (or anyone else from the Flying Gang) had yet attempted.

[LookingGlass]

Yes, writers such as Konstam and Woodard have suggested that Blackbeard threatened to sail across the bar and attack the town of Charleston. When a source is cited, the source is often Johnson's GHP. However, 19th century historian Edward McCrady wrote, "It is altogether improbable that Thatch would have ventured his 40 guns against 100 which lined the fortifications of the town, and risked his vessels in the harbor where they would have had him under such a disadvantage" (McCrady, The History of SC Under the Proprietary Government 1670-1719). I am more inclined to trust McCrady.

As for the colorful account of the bombardment and burning of Guadeloupe town found in Woodard, p. 216, the Calendar of State Papers provide the following information.

Governor Hamilton to the Council of Trade and Plantations. "In my turning up to windward we did see another pirate ship and a large sloop which we were informed when we came off of the Island St. Eustatius by a sloop sent express from St. Christopher's were two other pirates that had two days before taken some of the trading sloops off of that Island and sunk a ship loaden with white sugar etc. just under Brimstone Hill which they had taken under Guadaloupe shore. The ship is commanded by one Captain Teatch, the sloop by one Major Bonnett an inhabitant of Barbadoes, some say Bonnett commands both ship and sloop. This Teatch it's said has a wife and children in London, they have comitted a great many barbarities; The ship some say has 22 others say she has 26 guns mounted but all agree that she can carry 40 and is full of men the sloop hath ten guns and doth not want men... Signed, W. Hamilton. Endorsed, Recd. 7th, Read 11th March, 1717/18"

Deposition of Thomas Knight. "These and the ship they had taken out of Guardalupa spying some vessels in Nevis, and among the rest took one for the man of warr, they said they would cut her out, but the Captain being ill prevented it etc. Confirms preceding. They report the Captain of the pirates name is Kentish and Captain Edwards belonging to the sloop, and they report the ship has 150 men on board and 22 guns mounted, the sloop about 50 white men, and eight guns, and that they burnt part of Guardalupa, when they cut out the French ship. Signed, Thos. Knight."

The "man of warr" Knight referred to has been suggested to be the HMS Scarborough, which Johnson claimed Teach had engaged "for some hours." We're reasonably certain that did not happen. Unless someone can produce a French document that verifies the burning of the town by Thatch, Teach, Teitch, Capt. Kentish, Blackbeard, etc., we can't be certain that happened as well.

Edited June 21, 2011 by LookingGlass

[Fox]

"The Coulston and Society, both of this port [bristol], were plunder'd by two pirates of thirty Guns each, at Sera Lione. They took thirty seven slaves out of the Coulston, and a considerable Quantity of Gold. They did but little Damage to the Society. It is thought they design to range the Coast, and then go to Brasil with their Negroes"

The Post Boy, 31/7/1718

[Mission]

Found this about a slave taken and then being sold Dow and Edmonds book The Pirates of the New England Coast 1630-1730.

“A Salem bark, William Lord, master, homeward bound from Jamaica, was also at anchor [in Tarpaulin Cove in Vineyard Sound, MA] in the Cove and as she was evidently more than they [Thomas Pound’s pirates] cared to tackle, [Thomas] Hawkins went on board and offered to trade sugar for an anchor. Captain Lord was ready to trade and he also purchased for 12 [pounds], the negro that had been brought from Virginia,

__

and gave a draft on Mr. Blaney of the Elizabeth Islands in payment.” (Dow and Edmonds, p. 60-1)

.)

[Fox]

I'm glad this topic has been bumped. I found further evidence of Blackbeard and slavery in N.C. a while back and have been meaning to post it. When he later had to defend his actions in N.C., Captain Brand wrote:

"...that during the time I was in North Carolina I was att the governer's house; that when I applied myself to him for a parcell of sugars and slaves that did belong to Tach, he Order'd the Martial to deliver the slaves, and the Naval Officer the sugars to me."

(Ellis Brand to the Admiralty, 12 March, 1719. ADM 1/1472)

So, some of the 60 black men taken by Blackbeard from Topsail Inlet to Ocracoke were sold as slaves (such as those sold to Tobias Knight), some were kept as slaves by white members of the company (such as those owned by William Howard), and some were kept in the ownership of BB himself, and eventually turned over to Brand.

[Mission]

It seemed like the only place to put that comment I found because it seems like the only topic we have about pirates selling African slaves. (We have several topics on indentured servants, but that's a whole different topic - I don't even really see them as technically being slaves as there usually seems to have been a reason they accepted their servitude and there was a way for them to get out of it. This was not the case for the African slaves for the most part.)

The evidence for Blackbeard selling slaves seems fairly conclusive at this point, but it's nice to have further original support for this. Many misguided people seem to think that pirates were somehow divorced from the times and behaved like cheerful egalitarians in every case.

[LookingGlass]

While re-reading various published sources to see if other writers had noted David Herriot's deposition at the Charleston trial of Bonnet's crew regarding the slaves Black Beard took with him upon departing Beaufort Inlet following the scuttling of the Queen Anne's Revenge, I came across the following statement in Patrick Pringle's book "Jolly Roger," p. 199: "His men had been seen in Philadelphia, and in August 1718 the Governor of Pennsylvania issued a warrant for his arrest. He [black Beard] returned to Bath with a cargo including eighty or ninety slaves stolen from the French, which he sold openly. Then he went out again, ostensibly on a trading voyage to St. Thomas, and took two more French ships near Bermuda."

While Pringle got the sequence of events out of order, he has been the only writer that I am aware of, prior to my published op/ed column in the Raleigh News & Observer in June 2011, to have stated that Black Beard sold slaves at Bath. Being myself a writer of non-academic books admittedly limited in end notes, I can't complain too much that Pringle doesn't tell us from where he got his information about the slaves. His number is 20 to 30 slaves too many compared to David Herriot's deposition (40 slaves) but it is close enough to believe that Pringle's source must have been reasonably valid and from a source other than Herriot. It is too bad we don't know where he got his information in 1953.

I have previously postulated the idea that James Robins (listed in Johnson's GHoP as being a hanged member of BB's crew but who is not listed on the King's warrant and who appears in Bath after his hanging), and his partner in Bath County real estate, Stephen Elsey, were among the 15 or so pirates who arrived in Bath with Black Beard but left the crew. Robins and Elsey, identified as "mariners" in the Beaufort County deed book, purchased in September 1718, Gov. Eden's former 400 acre plantation for the price of 3 slaves named Barsue, Lawrence, and John. Now, after re-researching the deeds of Bath I have discovered that Elsey also purchased a 188 acre messuage tract near Bath on 15 July 1718 for "two male negro slaves called Pamptico and Pungo." (Pamptico and Pungo were the names of the two largest rivers in the area.)

The date of Elsey's first purchase is roughly 2 to 3 weeks following Black Beard's arrival at Bath after wrecking the QAR. The transaction is also the first time that the mariner Elsey appears in the rather comprehensive deed book.

Perhaps, most significantly, it is also the first transaction that documents the purchase of real estate in exchange for slaves appearing in the Bath/Beaufort County deed book since records began in 1696. Circumstantial, of course, but it is conspicuous that slaves are used for the purchase of real estate for the first time, 2 to 3 weeks after Black Beard's arrival with a cargo of 60 slaves, by two mariners, one of whom is listed by Johnson as being a hanged member of Black Beard's crew.

This also leads me to suspect the obvious, that the division of slaves among the crew members must have followed similar percentages as other types of treasure. Captain Thatch had 4 slaves (Richard Stiles, Thomas Gates, James Blake and James White). Quartermaster William Howard is known to have had 2 slaves at Norfolk. For some reason, Robins and Elsey had, at least, 5 slaves.