Edward Teach

Life and beginnings

Edward Teach, also spelled Thatch, was born about 1680 and died on 22 November 1718. That Old Style date is 3 December in the New Style calendar. He is better known as Blackbeard. Little is known about his early life. He may have served on privateering ships during Queen Anne’s War before he settled on New Providence in the Bahamas, where Captain Benjamin Hornigold kept a base. Teach joined that crew around 1716. Hornigold gave him command of a captured sloop. The guide says the same year and the same captain, and it calls Hornigold a leader of the Flying Gang. The biography does not use that gang’s name in the sentences about 1716. The two pages meet on the island and the year, and they do not use one vocabulary.^{[1] [2] [3]}

The nickname came from a thick black beard and a menacing appearance. He was reported to have tied lit fuses under his hat. The guide puts the fuses in the beard itself, “at times.” The biography puts slow matches under the hat. This essay does not choose a place for the fire. Both pages agree that the display was meant to frighten.^{[1] [3]}

Defining achievements

Hornigold and Teach took prizes together. Two more ships joined them, one commanded by Stede Bonnet. Toward the end of 1717 Hornigold retired from piracy and took two vessels with him. Teach captured a French slave ship, La Concorde, renamed her Queen Anne’s Revenge, armed her with 40 guns, and crewed her with more than 300 men. He blockaded Charles Town, South Carolina, and ransomed the town. He then ran Queen Anne’s Revenge aground on a sandbar near Beaufort, North Carolina. He parted from Bonnet, settled at Bath Town, and accepted a royal pardon. He soon returned to sea. Alexander Spotswood, governor of Virginia, sent soldiers and sailors after him. On 22 November 1718, at Ocracoke Inlet, Lieutenant Robert Maynard’s sailors killed Teach and several of his crew. The guide says Maynard finally caught up with him on the Outer Banks. It does not give the day. The biography gives the day and the inlet.^{[1] [3]}

The published Republic of Pirates essay is the Nassau base, not this one captain. The Flying Gang page says the gang gathered at Nassau after the War of the Spanish Succession and the sinking of the 1715 treasure fleet, and that Woodes Rogers restored British control in 1718. The civilization guide dates the takeover of New Providence to 1706. Teach’s arrival around 1716 sits inside the later years of that base, not at the guide’s 1706. He is not the republic, and the republic is not his death at Ocracoke.^{[1] [2]}

Legacy and interpretation

The biography says Teach was shrewd and calculating and that he spurned the use of violence, relying on his image. The guide says he had a reputation for violence and stalked the nightmares of sailors. Those two sentences do not say the same thing about whether he killed. This essay keeps both and does not average them into one character. After his death he was romanticized into an archetypal pirate in fiction. The archetype is later than Ocracoke.^{[1] [3]}

Queen Anne’s Revenge was found by divers in November 1996 in Beaufort Inlet. That wreck is the ship he grounded. It is not a relationship score. The agenda in the game uses the ship’s name. A diplomacy rule about who builds naval units is not the sandbar near Beaufort, and it is not the 40 guns.^{[1] [3]}

A closer look

The ability is named Blackbeard. Every naval unit gains a pirate ability: it may cross other civilizations’ borders, plunder trade routes of non-allies, and attack non-allied naval units without a war declaration. Defeating a naval unit pays gold scaled to that unit’s combat strength and captures the unit. Naval maintenance in gold goes up. The biography’s method, as that page states it, was an image that made victims give way. A rule that starts fights without a declaration is not that image. The capture of a unit is not La Concorde. Yields stay on the guide.^{[1] [3]}

The agenda, Queen Anne’s Revenge, raises the relationship with leaders who build naval units and lowers it with leaders who do not. The ship of that name was one hull. A preference for other people’s navies is not the grounding, and it is not Maynard. The Chinese page names the ability and the agenda in its own words. Its article title is written in traditional characters, while the page’s title tag and the narrative use the simplified spelling. This essay uses the simplified name from the title tag and the body. There is one leader entry. Teach and Blackbeard are a name and a nickname, not two personas.^{[3] [4]}

In Civilization VII

The English page places him in the Tides of Power Collection DLC bundle, two leaders, four civilizations, and four wonders. A footnote says the base game is required, that the content is included in that bundle, and that owning the collection means it is already owned. The Chinese page states a DLC bundle with the same contents, but it names the bundle with a different Chinese title from the one used on the other pages in this set. This essay does not treat those titles as two products. The catalog chip follows the English collection name. There is no second persona, and the size of the gold payment is not copied here.^{[3] [4]}

The first step back from the ability is to keep about 1680, the joining around 1716, Hornigold’s retirement at the end of 1717, the Charles Town blockade, and the death on 22 November 1718 apart from a border-crossing rule. The published Republic of Pirates essay is the island base. It is not this wreck.^{[1] [2] [3]}