Was Blackbeard (Edward Thache) Benjamin Hornigold’s Protege or his Peer?
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A number of writers have stated that Edward Thache (Theach, Thatch, Teach, Tach) (Blackbeard) was Benjamin Hornigold’s protégé. I believe Thache was Hornigold’s peer.
My conclusion is based on what little contact Hornigold and Thache had between 1713 and 1718 and the fact that when they did have contact, Thache had his own sloop and crew.
Background
Edward Thache, Jr., was born in Spanish Town, Jamaica, around 1683 to “Capt” Edward and Elizabeth Thache. Shortly after his mother died, his father married Lucretia Axtell from the prominent Axtell family in Jamaica. Thache’s father was a mariner but he also owned a plantation. When Thache’s father died in 1706, Thache was serving in the Royal Navy on the frigate Windsor, conveniently stationed at Port Royal, Jamaica.
Shortly after his father's death, Thache deeded his inheritance, which as the eldest male child would have included his interest in the plantation and its slaves, to his stepmother, Lucretia. He appears to had little interest in going back to care for the plantation, supervise the slaves, and support his stepmother and her three small children. At 23 and in the navy, Thache was now free to devote his life to the sea.
Benjamin Hornigold was not born in the New World but in Ipswich, England, a port city, about 60 miles up the coast from London. Hornigold was several years Thache’s senior.
Thache and Hornigold between 1713 and April 1716
The following tracks Hornigold and Thache on their respective paths looking for an opportunity for Thache to be Hornigold’s protégé.
Benjamin Hornigold found himself in Port Royal as the Queen Anne’s War was winding down and privateering was becoming illegal. An unemployed seamen could find little to do in Port Royal and a rumor was spreading that further north, about a week’s sailing, there was a small island, New Providence Island, in the Bahamas and it had a beautiful harbor at Nassau. What was even better was the fact that during the war, the French and the Spanish had attacked Nassau and had driven away most of its settlers, the British government in the Bahamas had collapsed so Nassau had no government, and the British navy was busy elsewhere.
That summer, Hornigold and his friends, John Cockram and John West, sailed to Nassau, purchased sailing canoes, what were called periaguas, hired 20-30 seamen who would row and handle the sail for each canoe, and went pirating.
They sailed for about six months and were quite successful. One report stated that Cockram’s canoe captured silks that cost the Spanish merchant 32,000 pieces of eight (at a purchasing power of 4 pieces-of-eight to one English pound sterling, that would be a little less than 8,000 pounds), West’s canoe raided a Cuban plantation and captured 14 slaves valued at 2,100 pieces of eight (about 7,100 pounds), and Hornigold’s canoe seized merchandise costing the Spanish merchant 14,000 pieces of eight. (about 3,500 pounds).
Around Christmas 1713, West, Cockram and Hornigold divided their plunder: West took his share and left piracy; Cockram took his share and sailed to Harbour Island, located about two miles off the northeastern coast of Eleuthera Island, to marry the daughter of a well-established merchant, Richard Thompson, Sr.; and Hornigold, fearing a Spanish attack on Nassau, took his share and followed Cockram to Eleuthera Island.
Hornigold struck up a friendship with Jonathan Darvell, who had lived on Eleuthera Island for many years. Darvell was too old to sail but he had a small sloop, about 15 tons, the Happy Return. He knew Hornigold had sailing experience so he offered to let Hornigold sail the Happy Return for him. Darvell’s young son, Zacheus, wanted to sail so he and his brother-in-law, Daniel Stillwell, became the crew along with Hornigold’s friends from Port Royal, James Bourne and Ralph Blankenship. Their cruise was extremely successful: 46,000 pieces of eight (about 11,500 pounds) from the shores of Florida and Cuba.
Shortly after Hornigold returned, Daniel Stillwell wanted to try his hand with the Happy Return. He sailed with his brother-in-law, Zacheus Darvell, Matthew Lowe, John Cary, and Benjamin Linn. They returned disappointed because they did not have the success that Hornigold had.
That fall, Hornigold and Thomas Terrill and another of Hornigold’s friends, bought a shallop, an overgrown rowboat with a sail and several sets of oars, from an Eleutheran settler and continued their piracy around Cuba. They captured a small vessel and a periagua belonging to a Cuban noble. These vessels were overflowing with goods and money.
The Spanish threat lessened and Hornigold returned to Nassau. Around Christmas, Thomas Walker, the former Vice Admiralty Judge of the Bahamas, sailed from Nassau to Eleuthera Island, captured Daniel Stillwell and brought him back to Nassau along with the Happy Return. Walker arranged to send Stillwell to Port Royal for trial as a pirate but Hornigold rescued Stillwell. Hornigold’s actions further established him as the leader of the non-Jacobite pirate faction in Nassau.
Between New Providence Island and Jamaica is a long island, Cuba. Havana, the capital, is located on the northwestern coast.
The Spanish mine and smelt silvers from the mines in Mexico, Peru, and Bolivia. The silver makes its way to Havana and twice a year, a fleet sails up the Florida Straits and across the Atlantic to Spain.
On July 24, 1715, the Spanish plate fleet, eleven Spanish vessels and a French escort, left Havana for Spain. Spain was in dire need of its cargo: two years of silver. A week later, July 31st, all eleven Spanish vessels were caught in a hurricane and wrecked along the wrecks off the florida coast. Their wreckage stretched for four miles. Spanish divers rushed from Havana to salvage what they could. They set up two storehouses near San Sebastian Inlet between what is now Melbourne Beach and Vera Beach to temporarily hold their salvage before it could be transported back to Havana.
As these events were unfolding in the Caribbean, anecdotal reports surfaced that Thache was a “mate” on a Jamaican brigantine that had put into port in Philadelphia. At the confluence of the Delaware and Schuykill Rivers, Philadelphia had become an important Atlantic port prior to the Queen Anne’s War and a part of the slave triangle with sugar and slaves coming up from the Caribbean. With the port becoming active again after the war, the seamen were a welcome sight. One could picture Thache and his friends parading down a Philadelphia street in their finest looking to be welcomed.
Thache was sailing as a “mate” on a Jamaican brigantine and Hornigold was the captain of his own sloop and crew and having success as an established pirate. He captured Captain Abraham Lamb’s Blackett in October and the Mary of Jamaica and a small Spanish sloop in November. After plundering the Blackett, he let it sail off. The Mary and the small Spanish sloop were less fortunate. Hornigold traded his current vessel for the Mary and had his prize crew sail the small sloop to Nassau to be ruled a forfeiture and sold by his agent.
By late August, the Spanish in Havana knew about the wreck of the Spanish plate fleet and were busy salvaging what they could but it was not until late November when word of the wrecks spread up and down the Atlantic coast. Nassau Harbor, ideally situated, was a safe haven two to three-days sailing from San Sebastian Inlet and it became a destination for those wanting to fish the wrecks. The few residents who had stayed in Nassau found themselves overrun by those who made their lives difficult at best. They too began to leave.
It's one thing to fish the wrecks, it's another to let someone fish the wrecks for you. The latter was the plan of Henry Jennings, a Jamaican landowner and a Jacobite sympathizer. He (Bersheba) and his friend John Wills (Eagle) procured commissions—letters of marque—from the governor of Jamaica, Lord Archibold Hamilton, that authorized them to hunt pirates. Jennings assembled a small fleet along with 150-300 soldiers and sailed from Port Royal. On the day after Christmas, his men marched to the storehouses at San Sebastian Inlet, drove away the 60 Spanish guards, and stole an equivalent of £87,500 in silver and gold (roughly 350,000 pieces of eight). They sailed to Nassau to brag about their take and then back to Jamaica.
Meanwhile, in early January 1716, Hornigold was sailing the Mary of Jamaica, not to fish the wrecks but to capture a Spanish sloop to replace the Mary. He had learned the name of the Mary’s owner and felt a moral duty to return it. Having succeeded in seizing another sloop, Hornigold sent the Mary back to its owner and spent February fitting his new vessel, renamed the Benjamin, for piracy.
By early 1716, Thache had returned to Port Royal and had acquired a sloop, possibly the Adventure, and crew of his own. Nassau Harbor was a destination.
The First Reported Contact between Hornigold and Thache
Sometime around the end of April 1716, Thache, Hornigold, and Jennings were all in Nassau Harbor.
Hornigold did not stay in Nassau Harbor for long. In May, he sailed the Benjamin in consort with the French pirate Olivier LeVasseur sailing the Postillion to Hispaniola to spend the 1715 hurricane season. In August, Sam Bellamy who was sailing with Hornigold fomented a mutiny and all but twenty-six of Hornigold’s crew sailed away with Bellamy on Hornigold’s Benjamin. Hornigold sailed to Nassau in the small Spanish prize vessel he had captured on his way to Hispaniola.
Contact in December 1716
By November, Hornigold had acquired another sloop, the Delight, and had set sail again. This time he sailed alone. On December 3rd, he captured a merchant ship, a galley, bound from Jamaica to Bristol, England: John Quarry was the captain. A week later, December 10th, he captured a 40-gun Spanish brigantine. Three days later, December 13th, around eight in the evening, the Delight was off Cape Donna Maria on the western end of Hispaniola when it captured the brigantine Lamb: Henry Timberlake was the captain.
An hour after Hornigold’s boarding party arrived at the Lamb, they were joined by another sloop, about the same size as the Delight, eight guns and about 90 men. The captain of that vessel, Edward Thache, sent a canoe with several men over to the Lamb. They too gathered provisions and ferried them back to their vessel. Thache made no attempt to personally board the Lamb.
Four hours or so later, about two or three in the morning, Captain Hornigold and his boarding party returned to the Delight and released Captain Timberlake and the Lamb.
Captain Timberlake wasted no time returning to Jamaica where he gave a deposition concerning the events of December 13th-14th. Timberlake stated that Thache and his sloop were there and had sent a small boarding party in a canoe. Timberlake’s deposition was the first public record of Thache as a pirate and the first public record of a Thache/Hornigold connection.
Was Thache sailing as Hornigold’s protégé, in consort with Hornigold, or just passing and took the opportunity to restock his sloop’s provisions?
The Lamb was over 400 nautical miles from Port Royal, Jamaica, and the Caribbean Sea is a large body of water, 1.063 million square miles so the latter option is a needle in a haystack.
Timberlake stated in his deposition that the Delight seized the Lamb around eight in the evening. The sun set at around 6:00 pm plus an extra half an hour of twilight so the seizure of the Lamb was made after dark.
Thache’s sloop appeared an hour after Hornigold’s boarding. Sailing at about 4 knots, or 4 nautical miles an hour, Thache’s sloop would have been within visual contact with the Delight had the tracking begun during daylight. The proximity of Thache to Hornigold in the dark is more than coincidence. More likely than not, they were sailing in consort. Although Timberlake noted Hornigold’s two earlier seizures, he did not connect Thache to either. That was just as well because Timberlake was not there and therefore any reference he would have made would have been a third-party declaration to prove an unwitnessed fact. Besides, who would have told Timberlake?
Thache and Hornigold may have continued to sail in consort for a few more days before Hornigold returned to Nassau and Thache went his own way. But clearly, Thache was not sailing with Hornigold as his protégé.
Hornigold and Thache had Limited Contact in 1717 and 1718
Over the next two years, Thache and Hornigold met briefly only three times.
August 1717: Thache was in Nassau Harbor when Major Stede Bonnet arrived in his battered sloop Revenge.
October 1717: Hornigold, now sailing a brigantine Ranger, met Thache off the Virginia capes.
May 1718: Thache made a brief appearance in Nassau Harbor to show off his new ship, a three-masted galley, Queen Anne’s Revenge, before blockading Charles Town.
Hornigold never sailed in consort for long durations with Thache as he did with Cockram and West, Bellamy and Williams, LeVasseur, and Napping. Had Hornigold been Thache’s mentor, they would have had a closer association and spent more time together.
How Did the Idea of Thache Being Hornigold’s “Protégé' Start?
One need only look to Charles Johnson, A General History of the Pyrates (1724):
Edward Teach was a Bristol Man born, but had sailed some Time out of Jamaica in Privateers, in the late French War; yet tho’ he had often distinguished himself for his uncommon boldness and personal courage, he was never raised to any command, till he went a-pyrating, which I think was at the latter end of the year 1716, when Captain Benjamin Hornigold put him into a sloop that he had made prize of, and with whom he continued in consortship till a little while before Hornigold surrendered.
The Definition of “Protégé''
A “Protégé'' is “a person who is guided and supported by an older and more experienced or influential person.” With Hornigold being only about three years older than Thache, both being in their early 30s at the war’s end and with Hornigold, an unemployed seaman, and Thach, the son of a plantation owner and mariner protégé.
Endnotes
1. Brooks, Baylus C., Blackbeard Reconsidered, Mist’s Piracy, Thache’s Genealogy (2015).
2. Brooks, Baylus C., Dictionary of Pyrate Biography: 1713-1720, 561 (2020).
3. See Captain Matthew Musson’s letter to the Council of Trade and Plantations read into the record on July 5, 1717.
4. The late April/early May 1716 date is determined by considering when Hornigold, Jennings, and Thache were in Nassau at the same date and when that date was before Thomas Walker moved his family from Nassau to Abaco Island and then to Charles Town, South Carolina.
Captain Matthew Musson, who had been issued a commission by the governor of South Carolina to hunt pirates, wrote to the British Council of Trade and Plantations that he met with Thomas Walker and others on Abaco Island who told him that
“five pirates made ye harbour of Providence their place of rendezvous vizt. Hornigold, a sloop with 10 guns and about 80 men; Jennings, a sloop of 10 guns and 100 men; Burgiss, a sloop with 8 guns and about 80 men; White, in a small vessel with 30 men and small armes; Thatch, a sloop 6 gunns and about 70 men.” [Emphasis added.]
I assume Walker was reporting a first-hand observation. Hornigold, Jennings, and Thache would have been in Nassau Harbor before Walker moved to Abaco Island, at least a month or two before his son’s deposition in Charles Town on August 6th. Therefore, the Walkers left Nassau by June 1716.
Hornigold returned to Nassau with the Marianne on around April 11th. Jennings sailing in consort with Leigh Ashworth, arrived in Nassau Harbor on around April 22nd. Jennings and Ashworth did not stay in Nassau for more than a week or two and they did not return to Nassau before Walker and his family left for Abaco Island.
Therefore, Hornigold, Jennings, and Thache were together in Nassau sometime during the last week of April or the first week of May 1716, a date seven months before Hornigold seized Timberlake’s Lamb.
Although Musson was stating a fact he did not witness, his statement does lead to the conclusion that Thache was in Nassau Harbor the last week of April or the first week of May, 1716, with his own sloop and crew. Hornigold was there as well but they were both captains of their own vessels. Thache was not sailing with Hornigold as either a protégé or in consort.
5. Nicknamed La Buse, the mouth, for the way he verbally attacked his opponents, and La Bouche, the buzzard, for the speed and ruthless way he attacks his enemies.
6. Although Captain Musson had noted that Thache’s pirate sloop was in Nassau Harbor in late April or early May 1716.
Sources
Brooks, Baylus C., Blackbeard Reconsidered: Mist’s Piracy, Thache’s Genealogy (North Carolina Office of Archives and History, Raleigh, NC 2015) (monograph discussing Thache’s genealogy)
Brooks, Baylus C., Dictionary of Pyrate Biography: 1713-1720 (Poseidon Historical Publications, Lake City, FL 2020)
Frey, Martin A., Captain Hornigold and the Pirate Republic (Bring ‘Em Near Press, Tulsa, OK 2022)
British History Online American and West Indies: July 1717, 1-15. (Captain Matthew Musson’s letter to the British Council of Trade and Plantations read into the record on July 5, 1717