Salty Dog
Sailing Master
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191991 Gold -
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Posted: Mon Jan 29, 2018 8:39 pm Post subject: |
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The controversy over the invasion helped bring down Spotswood, who was deposed in 1722. Although Eden was cleared of wrongdoing, his reputation never recovered from his dealings with Blackbeard. He died from yellow fever on March 17, 1722. “He brought the country into a flourishing condition,” his tombstone reads, “and died much lamented.”
Blackbeard had no grave at all. His body was thrown into Pamlico Sound, his head given as a trophy to Spotswood, who had it displayed on a tall pole in Hampton Roads, at a site now known as Blackbeard’s Point. But while the governors have both been all but forgotten, the pirate has lived on, more famous in death than ever he was in life.
The Nassau pirates were self-interested, to be sure, but their idealistic way of organizing themselves, sharing their plunder and settling scores with social betters made them heroes to many common people throughout Britain’s empire. The example they set—choosing to live a dangerous but free life over one of stability and servitude—has proven a captivating one, and the new archival and archaeological discoveries accentuate the incredible (and often unnecessary) risks many of them took, even after being offered a second chance. Many intriguing questions remain unanswered—from the status of former slaves to the origins of principal figures like Blackbeard—but scholars hope the answers are out there, in long-forgotten documents at French, Spanish and Caribbean archives, or beneath shifting sands at the bottom of the sea.
Read more: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/last-days-blackbeard-180949440/#pjqZ1MqYLiJAgqGv.99
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