04x08 - Blackbeard's Lost Treasure

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Tonight, a pirate treasure

worth millions.

Blackbeard looted

dozens of ships

and was able

to walk away scot free.

And it’s still missing,

despite centuries of searching.

We know where he att*cked ships,

where he hung out,

where he stopped for a time,

but in none of these places

has Blackbeard’s treasure

been found.

Now, we unearth the top theories

around this legendary orb.

Blackbeard goes

from public enemy number one

to best friends

with the governor overnight.

All of Blackbeard’s treasure

now it’s somewhere

at the bottom of the ocean.

Many of Blackbeard’s

former crew members

believed that Blackbeard

had made a deal with the devil.

What really became

of Blackbeard’s lost treasure,

and where could it be?

November 21st, 1996,

Beaufort Inlet, North Carolina,

a dive team led by historian

Phil Masters

is attempting to find

a lost, centuries old treasure.

Diver to surface.

Diver to surface.

The dive team is looking

for a very specific pirate ship,

which may have been

the most notorious

pirate vessel of all time.

The ship is called

the "Queen Anne’s Revenge,"

and it was helmed by

the notorious pirate Blackbeard.

Blackbeard is probably

the most famous pirate

ever to live,

even though his actual

pirate career

was quite short

in comparison to others.

He was most active

between 1717 and 1718,

during the golden age of piracy.

Blackbeard is one

of the best known figures

of colonial American history.

But today, 300 years later,

we really don’t know much

about his identity,

origins, or even motivations

for becoming a pirate.

There’s a lot

of questions and mysteries

about Blackbeard’s background,

the first of which

is his own name.

There’s a few different accounts

that spell it differently.

In the majority

of the official records,

his name was written

as Edward Thatch,

uh, which has since

become Teach.

Other people said

he was a Captain Drummond.

Somebody interpreted

the wording in a later document

to believe that his last name

was Kentish.

The fact is,

there were many pirates

who actually went by aliases.

So his identity

and his real name

are very much in doubt today.

Much like his name,

Blackbeard’s early life

is unknown.

The first time

we hear about Blackbeard

is about 1716,

and this is when he was

sailing under the pirate

Benjamin Hornigold,

and Blackbeard

was Hornigold’s protégé

and became Hornigold’s

second in command.

Less than a year

later, Hornigold promotes

Blackbeard to captain

of a small sloop in his fleet,

with a crew of 70 men.

How does a man become

the captain of a sloop?

First of all,

he almost certainly

would have been better educated

than most of the men

that he was with.

He was able to read and write.

He was able to navigate.

These were not characteristics

that were common

among most men at that time.

Benjamin Hornigold

and Blackbeard,

the two of them as pirates,

are sailing up and down

the American Eastern seaboard.

They were wreaking havoc against

a lot of merchant ships,

and they’re especially active

between the Carolinas

and down to Cuba,

and that’s because there’s a lot

of major trading routes.

They’re looking

for things they can sell,

like textiles, spices,

different types of alcohol,

such as wine and rum,

anything they could sell

at a high price.

And coming out of the Caribbean,

where so much of this

is being traded,

it’s ripe for the picking.

Despite their success,

Blackbeard and Hornigold

are soon at odds

with each other.

Blackbeard

and Benjamin Hornigold

had some philosophical

differences

about how to conduct piracy

and really what it meant

to be a pirate.

Benjamin Hornigold,

specifically,

did not want to att*ck

British shipping.

But, of course,

that means that his men

lost out on lots

and lots of plunder.

It upset a lot of the men

in Hornigold’s crew.

Blackbeard, on the other hand,

he’s more gung-ho.

He wants to rob any ship,

he’s indiscriminate

about who he att*cks,

and so he wants more

of that freedom

to be able to really

hit other ships hard.

By 1717, Hornigold

is forced to retire,

and Blackbeard is declared

head of the fleet.

He immediately sets out

to make a name for himself.

Blackbeard projects

this fearsome image, right?

He’s this big, bold person.

He wears dark clothes,

he’s got the dark crazy hair,

the big black beard.

The whole point

was to be terrifying.

Blackbeard knew

he was gaining a reputation

very quickly

because of his looks,

and he began to capitalize

on it in a way.

If you’re a sailor or a Navy man

and you see this crazy man

coming at you,

you are gonna give up

your ship right away.

By late November,

1717, Blackbeard commands

three ships

with nearly 200 crewmen,

including

the "Queen Anne’s Revenge".

At the height

of Blackbeard’s power,

he had more men,

more g*ns and more ships

than any other

pirate captain sailing.

So with this heavily armed

fleet of ships

that he has,

including his flagship,

the "Queen Anne’s Revenge,"

Blackbeard is

basically unstoppable.

During this period,

Blackbeard was

an amazingly successful pirate.

He’s captured,

you know, dozens of vessels

as they were approaching

major east coast ports

and is raiding

almost all the shipping

trying to go in and out

of the Caribbean.

In late May and early June,

Blackbeard eventually

makes his way north,

and blockades the port

of Charleston.

He besieges the harbor

of Charleston for a week.

Ships coming in and out,

he would intercept them.

He he actually holds Charleston

for for ransom,

and they pay it.

Blackbeard’s success

doesn’t go unnoticed.

Blackbeard is becoming

a lot more famous,

which means a lot

more authorities are starting

to look for him

in various places.

At the time,

the pirates were that powerful,

that numerous

and that dangerous.

So the king had decided

the only way

to defeat the pirates was

to divide and conquer them.

Or, in the case of Blackbeard,

to send a privateer named

Woodes Rogers to capture him.

When Blackbeard was blockading

the port of Charleston,

one of the residents

informed him that Woods Rogers

had departed England

and was on his way

to the Bahamas

to become the governor

to break up this pirate republic

that had been established.

I think Blackbeard knew

Woods Rogers was after him,

and so he goes up

at Topsail Inlet,

which is today Beaufort Inlet,

presumably to fight

a well-armed enemy,

and he hits a shoal

and runs aground.

Another of Blackbeard’s ships,

the "Adventure",

comes to his aid,

but it’s too late.

This is pretty bad

for Blackbeard.

It is more than likely

most of the loot,

most of the real valuable goods,

especially if it’s

Blackbeard’s flagship,

were stored

on the "Queen Anne’s Revenge."

At this point,

Blackbeard’s treasure

is estimated to be

tens of millions of dollars.

His own ledger reads

about twelve and a half,

but it’s incomplete,

suggesting that there’s

possibly more

where that came from.

So this leads to the question

What happened to the treasure?

The most logical place

to look would be

at its last known location,

on his ship,

the "Queen Anne’s Revenge."

Despite knowing

the general location

of the wreck,

no one is able to find

the "Queen Anne’s Revenge."

Once the ship is abandoned,

it probably wouldn’t take long

for it to start falling apart.

It was already

in pretty bad shape,

and it’s relatively warm water,

so any wood that’s exposed

is going to be eaten

by the teredo shipworms.

And I would say within

a year you might not see

much of it above water,

and, within ten years,

you wouldn’t even know

it was there.

Then, in 1987,

obsessed treasure hunter

Phil Masters

starts a new mission

to find Blackbeard’s flagship.

Phil Masters has had

success in this inlet before,

finding other treasure wrecks.

And since we know

that Blackbeard’s ship

went down in around

the same spot,

Masters assumes this is

a good place to look for it.

Finally, on November 21st, 1996,

he located it.

This discovery is a huge deal.

It makes international news.

It’s been 278 years that people

have been looking for this ship,

so discovering it means

we might actually

have some insight

into the treasure

that Blackbeard actually had.

The excavation

efforts start in 1997.

Once the the wreck was found,

then it was up

to the archaeologist

to come in, grid off

the whole area,

and to tediously go

through each square that had

been marked off,

dredging the sand up

and running it through

screen after screen.

Soon, they begin

bringing up incredible objects.

This is amazing.

There’s just stuff everywhere.

We’re finding

all kinds of weaponry.

At least 40 cannons,

uh, 20 have been pulled up.

We found grenades,

medical instruments,

side plates for g*ns,

the plates that they ate off.

It’s a treasure trove

of that time period.

What they don’t find

is Blackbeard’s treasure.

So even though there’s

no gold doubloons

or jeweled cups

or anything like that,

it is a treasure

of historical artifacts.

Still, the team believes

they’re on the right track.

There has been a small amount

of gold dust or small nuggets

of gold that have

been recovered archaeologically

from the wreck

of the "Queen Anne’s Revenge."

And there may still yet be

a chest of gold

or silver or jewels.

The archeology

on the "Queen Anne’s Revenge"

has recovered roughly half

of what we we think

is down there,

but it’s going to take

a while to get it done.

If Blackbeard had

the large amount of valuables

and loot and plunder,

doesn’t appear to have

been left

on the "Queen Anne’s Revenge."

But would Blackbeard take off

and leave the treasure behind?

I don’t think that makes sense.

When notorious pirate

Blackbeard crashes off

the coast of modern-day

North Carolina

in June 1718, a mystery begins.

So what happens to all

of Blackbeard’s treasure?

This is one

of the really big mysteries

about him, because

we really have no idea.

The most logical place

for Blackbeard’s treasure

would be its last known place,

which, of course,

was on his ship,

the "Queen Anne’s Revenge."

When the announcement came

that the "Queen Anne’s Revenge"

had been located, it was huge.

Everybody’s interested

in Blackbeard’s Flagship.

Unfortunately, no hoard is found

amid the wreckage

of the "Queen Anne’s Revenge."

But evidence suggests

Blackbeard’s vessel

didn’t sink immediately

after running aground.

That gave Blackbeard

about a week to ten days

to get everybody off

the "Queen Anne’s Revenge,"

and then he could put

a salvage crew aboard

so that they could recover

anything of value

that they wanted to retain.

Could Blackbeard

have moved his loot?

Of course, in 1718

there were no banks.

There were no place

to to put your money,

uh, or your gold

if you had accumulated it.

And it absolutely makes sense

that it might

have been hidden somewhere,

hoping that they would be able

to go back and retrieve it.

Shortly after wrecking his ship,

Blackbeard surrenders,

taking advantage

of a new legal policy.

The pirates were that dangerous.

There were so many of them

that the King

was willing to issue a pardon

that would absolve

any pirate who took it

from all of their crimes,

and they would be able

to keep their treasure

and go peacefully

into retirement.

On September 5th,

1717, England’s King George I

makes a royal decree.

The terms are,

"If you stop plundering

and turn yourself in,

we’ll stop hunting you."

And many pirates

take him up on the deal.

Generally, if a pirate is going

to get captured,

they will be put on trial

and they will hang.

That is almost guaranteed.

So a pardon will allow a pirate

to survive

and also keep their goods.

It takes Blackbeard

a while to come around,

but once he wrecks his flagship,

the "Queen Anne’s Revenge,"

he decides the pardon

is the best option.

Once he officially retires,

Blackbeard moves

to Bath, North Carolina.

While the "Queen Anne’s Revenge"

is unsalvageable,

he’s allowed

to keep his smaller ship,

The "Adventure,"

for his own personal use.

Blackbeard arrived

in Bath in July of 1718

and bought a fine house

where he would host

these grand parties

and invite his neighbors

and the plantation owners.

He lives

at a place called Plum Point,

oddly enough, right next door

to the Governor, Charles Eden.

The house hasn’t survived,

but the site

makes headlines in 1928.

It was around Christmas time

of 1928,

and all of a sudden,

newspapers all across

the country

were reporting that Blackbeard’s

famous pirate treasure

had been found.

The story is originally

attributed to two fur trappers.

North Carolina at that time was

very overgrown,

a real wilderness.

It would have

been perfect for fur trapping.

The fur trappers

came upon a hole

that was about eight feet deep,

covered with lots of trees

and branches and leaves,

that sort of thing.

They go down to investigate,

and they discover down

at the very bottom

there’s this brick vault

sitting there.

At first, the fur trappers think

this might have been

part of a foundation,

but then,

upon closer inspection,

they saw that the bricks

were a lot of different

shapes and sizes, suggesting

that they were hand-made.

And they’d been stuck

together with a lot of mortar,

more than would

be used for a house.

And in that mortar,

there was an indentation,

the remnants of what

very much looked

like an old sea chest.

The trappers thought

about, "Who would need

to bury a chest here

in such a great hurry?"

I mean, Blackbeard is really

the only choice.

But the sea chest is gone.

The trappers estimate the chest

would have been

about 40 inches wide

and 30 inches deep.

The trunk itself would have been

a large wooden object.

It would have had

a heavy lid on it,

and it probably

would have belonged

to Blackbeard or maybe

one of the other sailors

on his ships,

because every sailor,

including a pirate,

had their own personalized trunk

where they could keep their own

special goods and treasure.

Searching nearby,

the trappers find more clues.

Right next to the hole,

these two fur trappers

found a tripod and a pulley,

but they also found

an indentation in the sand

that appeared

to run right down to the beach.

And, in fact,

the fur trappers did describe

that they had seen footprints,

and they had seen

some disturbed earth

and disturbed foliage.

It could have been

that the fur trappers

may have just missed the people

who had taken the trunk away.

Unfortunately,

the trail of evidence

stops at the water.

This raises so many questions.

Was this Blackbeard’s

long lost treasure?

Who dug the hole?

What did they find?

Where did they take

what they found?

But, to me, the biggest question

of all is,

how did these people

know where to dig?

By 1928, people had been digging

all over this property

for hundreds of years,

and this didn’t seem

like a lucky find.

They dug one hole,

and they seemed to have

brought the exact

right tools they would

have needed to dig this hole.

People in this region

passed down

all sorts of stories

about Blackbeard.

Maybe someone actually

had some information

about where he had hidden

his treasure.

And then, on the other hand,

maybe Blackbeard decided

to leave a treasure map behind.

Maybe, in this case,

X actually did mark the spot.

The trappers were unnamed.

Obviously, the thieves

are unnamed.

We don’t have any more

information about this hole

other than from this one

newspaper article.

And it’s led

some people to wonder

if these fur trappers

were even real,

or was it something

that the newspaper decided

to print for fun

in order to get sales,

maybe capitalize

on a local legend.

So this also creates

an even larger mystery

behind what was going on in 1928

around Blackbeard’s former home.

If the story is fiction,

it may have

a well-known inspiration.

Well, certainly,

Robert Lewis Stevenson

had a great impact

on the public’s perception

and interest in pirate treasure

with the publication

of of "Treasure Island."

We all think that all pirates

bury their treasure,

but actually,

there is almost no record

of any pirate burying treasures.

But no matter

how much I have learned

about piracy,

when I think pirates,

I think of buried treasure,

I think of peg legs,

I think of hooks.

Other theorists

believe the trapper’s tale

is partially true.

It’s certainly possible that

Blackbeard buried some treasure.

What’s unlikely

is that he buried

all of his treasure in one spot.

It’s more likely

that he would have

spread it out

over multiple locations.

Blackbeard would do

this to reduce risk

or just because

it’s more practical to have

a little bit in a lot

of different places.

A single chest, 30X40 inches,

can hold a lot of loot, right?

You know, you’ve got

silver and gold,

but it’s not nearly enough

to hold everything

the Blackbeard had.

There’s definitely

more treasure out there.

And it seems like

if somebody was able

to find this treasure,

other people might be

able to find the rest.

During

his two year reign of terror

along the Atlantic coast,

virtually no port is

safe from Blackbeard

and his pirate crew.

Blackbeard’s most famous

territory was the Bahamas,

the Virgin Islands,

and the Carolinas.

But there’s evidence to suggest

he went as far south

as South America

and as far north

as New Hampshire.

If we’re trying to think

of different places

that Blackbeard may have

buried his treasure,

there are loads

of different possibilities.

People think

that Blackbeard traveled

around with all

of his treasures, and I think

we get this idea from movies

like "The Goonies"

and "Treasure Island,"

where there’s just piles

of gold and jewels,

but if you think about it,

that’s not practical.

Part of the problem with this is

gold is very, very heavy.

A box that’s 2X2X2 would

be eight cubic feet of gold,

would actually weigh

about 9,500 pounds.

He needed his ships to be light

so he could att*ck other ships

and avoid being

att*cked himself.

He needed to make room

for his men

and for supplies

and for weaponry.

And we know even

that when he would

att*ck other ships,

he wouldn’t take everything.

He would pick and choose

what he wanted

and leave the rest.

If Blackbeard

is really successful

in several of his captures

and had a huge haul of loot,

odds are he’s going

somewhere safe to offload it.

According to historian

Robert Cahill, it could

be a place no one would

ever think to look.

In 1980, Robert Cahill published

a book called

"Pirates and Lost Treasures."

In that book,

he suggests that while

most people were looking

for Blackbeard’s treasure

in the Caribbean or along

the coast of Carolina,

he thinks that Blackbeard

may have hidden

some of his treasure about 600

miles further to the north,

as far north

as the coasts of Maine

and New Hampshire,

where we find a series

of islands

called the Isles of Shoals.

The Isles of Shoals

are what they sound like.

They’re rocky shoals

jutting out of the water

between New Hampshire and Maine.

It was mainly used

with the cod fisheries,

but there were folks that also

dabbled in piracy as well.

So you had a lot

of illicit behavior going on.

Cahill focuses

on the Isle of Shoals because,

as a local historian,

he’s found accounts

of Blackbeard and his crew

frequenting a tavern

on the islands.

It’s amazing how many places

have been suggested

for Blackbeard’s treasure,

but the Isle of Shoals

makes more sense

than some of the others

because it’s one

of those places that matches

sort of what the pirates

were looking for

in a lair or a hideout.

The kind of place

where you might lay low.

Maybe nobody will notice you.

Maybe you can offload treasures.

The Isle of Shoals

are made up of three islands,

and in the middle is this

dumbbell-shaped Lunging Island.

And this is referred to

as the Pirate Bank.

And the reason for this

is because its location

is really safe, sandwiched in

between these other islands.

It’s got very rocky coastlines,

and it’s the perfect place

to go if you need to hide

yourself, your ship,

or offload goods,

because it’s unlikely

people will be able

to either find it

or sail in there safely.

Over the years, several teams

of scientists

and treasure hunters

search Lunging Island.

It’s rumored that

in Blackbeard’s time,

there was a cave

on the eastern end

of this island,

and if that’s true,

it would have been

a perfect place for Blackbeard

to hide his treasure.

But, today,

that cave is not there.

According to Prudy Randall,

who owns the only house

on the island,

she believes that the cave

may have been hidden away

after centuries

of shifting sands and tides.

Randall says that shortly

after World w*r II,

a plane from the American

government flew overhead

and spotted the cave

using sonar.

A few years later, a man

from a quarrying company

came out and did some tests,

indicating that a cave

may exist under the rock.

But it appears there was

no further follow up

to either of these

two investigations.

In 2001, a team

from Hager-richter Geoscience

picks up the search.

Their first order

of business is to use

a ground-penetrating radar

to look for evidence

of a cave or really anything

buried underneath the ground.

Ground penetrating

radar doesn’t take

the place of digging,

but it does make

your digging

a lot more efficient.

Unfortunately,

their initial findings

are inconclusive.

But that doesn’t stop them.

They hire a big

barge-mounted drill

from Rockland, Maine,

and they dig

a bunch of test holes

into the rock.

But they only find more rock.

The chance of finding

a single collapsed cave

is really one in a million.

It’s a needle

in a haystack situation.

Like many treasure hunters,

eventually you run

out of time and money,

and then if you’re

not getting any return,

you have to pull the plug.

Some suggest the Geoscience team

is looking on the wrong island.

Just because Blackbeard drank

on Lunging Island

doesn’t mean he buried

his treasure there.

I mean, wouldn’t it make

more sense for him

to pick one of the other

Isles of Shoals,

where there

would be more secrecy?

Cahill believes

that Blackbeard may have

a connection to other islands

in the chain.

According to legend,

after he retired in 1718,

Blackbeard married a woman

in North Carolina.

It was the governor, Eden,

that oversaw the ceremony.

Then he spent his honeymoon

on an island

called Smuttynose.

Maybe the trip up north

for the honeymoon

was also a chance

to get some stash,

spending money

for the new couple.

There’s one other island

in the Isle of Shoals

that makes

an interesting contender.

Though there’s

no evidence of buried treasure

on Smuttynose

or Lunging Islands,

Star Island does have a history

of pirate plunder.

John Quelch was

a pirate about ten years

before Blackbeard

was really active.

He oversaw a mutiny

on board his merchant ship,

and then the crew elected him

to be their captain.

They sailed down

to the coast of Brazil,

where he captured

nine or ten pirate ships,

and made a good amount of money.

At that point, they sailed north

up to Star Island,

where, reportedly,

he buried some of his treasure.

Now, this was

just a myth, a story.

Nobody really knew about this

until the 1800s.

Then some people found

gold inside a wall,

and thanks to the dates

on those coins,

they believe that it may

have been Quelch’s gold.

Could Blackbeard’s

treasure also be hidden here?

There’s so many legends

and possible locations,

but the Isles of Shoals

has been one of the most

persistent ones.

The problem is

that the Isle of Shoals

are solid granite rocks,

so this doesn’t

make a lot of sense

as a place

to secure your valuables.

It would make a very

bad safety deposit box.

It’s really hard

to dig holes there.

You need miners

to help you do it.

These pirates,

I mean, they’re sailors.

They’re not engineers.

Well, let’s remember

what the technology

in the XVIII century was like.

It’s nowhere near what we have.

I suppose you could use

black powder,

but to do

any effective blasting,

you really gotta know

what you’re doing.

And the idea of these pirates

could somehow secrete

this vast treasure

someplace

that we can’t find now.

I find that difficult

to believe.

Still, the legend

of Blackbeard’s treasure

remains tied to these

islands for centuries.

And some locals say he left

something else behind as well.

Legend has it

he left his wife there

to guard the treasure, and he

would come back and visit.

He would come

and go and come and go,

and one day, he never came back.

And the locals say her ghost

haunts the isles to this day.

I just would have to think

there’s gotta be a better way

to hide your treasure.

But, again,

if Blackbeard’s treasure

is found on the Isle of Shoals,

I will be the first one

to say how wrong I was

in believing

that this would never happen.

In the search

for Blackbeard’s treasure,

many hunters focus

on his whereabouts

during retirement.

But the pirate’s retirement

is a matter of a few mere weeks.

Before long,

he’s back on the high seas

and in a new ship.

You might ask yourself,

why was this fearsome pirate,

who stole millions of dollars,

looted dozens of ships,

blockaded entire towns,

able to walk away scot free?

To understand that,

you have to look

at the overall

political situation

in Europe in the early 1700s.

During this era,

European powers

are competing to control

the astonishing

wealth of the New World.

You had a lot

of commerce going on.

These colonies

are being exploited

and there is

a lot of raw material

coming out of those colonies.

You had colonial Americans

sending out material

to Europe, and you have

the Spanish colonies

in the Caribbean and Mexico

and South America

shipping out a lot

of gold and silver

back across to to Europe.

When Europe moves

into armed conflict,

leaders hurry to enlist men

like Blackbeard

to seize their enemies’ loot.

He and many others

enroll as privateers.

What’s the difference between

privateering and piracy?

Well, a privateer

was somebody who was

given permission

to be a maritime mercenary

by their king or queen

or government.

They have a contract

called a letter of marque,

which basically states

you are fighting against ships

from these specific countries,

and in payment,

they were allowed

to keep 80% of all the goods

they could steal

and the other 20%

goes back to the government.

Essentially, Blackbeard

was given permission

to go out and att*ck

enemy shipping,

and they could keep a portion

of the plunder.

North Carolina’s

Governor, Charles Eden,

allows Blackbeard to take

his remaining ship,

the "Adventure," and return

to a life on the sea.

But within weeks,

he sheds his privateer status

and begins attacking

English vessels.

Blackbeard is

once again a pirate.

When Blackbeard

decides to leave North Carolina

in August of 1718,

he knows he’s probably

not going back.

He’s decided to go back

to a life of piracy,

despite having taken the pardon.

It might be that at this point

he feels like

he has nothing to lose

and he probably

figures he might as well

go back to piracy

and do everything he can before

he’s inevitably

going to get caught.

When you look at the story

of the big empty hole

on Plum Point, you have

to wonder, is it possible

Blackbeard dug up

the treasure himself?

I mean, we know he was

going back and forth

between his home in Bath

and the boat,

so is it possible

that he was getting

the treasure and loading up

the ship himself?

Whatever survives

from his original haul,

Blackbeard wastes no time

adding to his fortune.

Almost immediately, he captures

two French ships,

and in the meantime,

news of his exploits

going back into piracy

have traveled

around the Caribbean

and the American colonies

as well.

Frustrated,

the Governor of Virginia

decides to take matters

into his own hands.

Now, Alexander Spotswood,

he has made it his mission

as a governor

to eradicate piracy

in any way whatsoever.

In the letters

of Alexander Spotswood,

he states that

he’s very concerned

that this pirate Blackbeard

has established himself

a base at Ocracoke Island.

Obviously, having pirates

or a pirate base

just south of there would, uh,

be a direct thr*at

to the trade of Virginia.

So he’s going

to start putting plans

into motion to stop

Blackbeard at all costs.

Governor Spotswood

decides to commission

Lieutenant Robert Maynard

in order to try

to take down Blackbeard.

He gives him 57 men

and two ships

and is instructed, "Capture

Blackbeard, dead or alive."

Five days after departing

from Kecoughtan, Virginia,

Maynard’s fleet

confronts Blackbeard’s

at Ocracoke Inlet.

Blackbeard and Maynard

face off and Blackbeard

immediately fires a cannon

into Maynard’s ships,

obliterating one of them.

During this g*nf*re,

Maynard lost a number of his men

and the air filled

with clouds of smoke.

It became very confusing.

It was hard for either

of the vessels

to see each other.

They were basically adrift.

Blackbeard gets off another

broadside. Again, mayhem.

He mows down more

of the Royal Navy sailors

and they jump on board,

ready to seize control.

And that’s when

Lieutenant Maynard

unleashes his great surprise.

Maynard’s men are

all hiding below deck.

And so when Blackbeard

and his crew come on,

Lieutenant Maynard’s men

rush up to the deck

and this massive bloodbath

of a battle ensues.

Blackbeard is wounded.

He’s stabbed in the leg

by one of Maynard’s men.

And, reportedly,

Blackbeard shouts,

"Well done, lad,"

after he’s been stabbed.

And in that moment,

Robert Maynard sees

his opportunity

and he takes his sword

and he beheads Blackbeard

on the ship,

k*lling him once and for all.

Maynard returns

to Virginia and places

Blackbeard’s head on a spike

at the entrance

to Chesapeake Bay.

A head is a fine trophy,

but Maynard came back

without Blackbeard’s ship

or any gold.

So the question is,

what became of Blackbeard’s ship

and the treasure

that was possibly on it?

The "Adventure"

remains missing to this day,

and its absence may provide

a clue to what happened.

One of the theories is

that one of Blackbeard’s

most trusted

crew members, Caesar,

actually had plans

to scuttle the ship,

meaning to destroy it,

before anybody

could actually go capture it.

The idea is it’s better

to have all the treasure

fall down into the sea,

rather than let any of it

go into Maynards’ or any other

authorities’ hands.

Of course, it could have

been Maynard himself.

It was common practice

at the time,

after defeating an enemy,

to burn their ship.

Maybe Maynard didn’t search

the ship properly,

and that would mean that all

of Blackbeard’s treasure,

what he had dug up

from Plum Point,

now it’s somewhere

at the bottom of the ocean.

If the treasure

remains on the "Adventure,"

there’s still hope

for its recovery.

This might be

our single best chance

to find Blackbeard’s treasure.

If we can find the wreck

of the "Adventure,"

we know it’s the last place

that he was,

and there was probably

some plunder on there.

In 1989, the same company

that found

the "Queen Anne’s Revenge"

gets a permit from

the state of North Carolina

to salvage the "Adventure,"

if they can find it.

So far, they have not.

But the wreckage

is still out there.

Somebody’s probably

gonna find it eventually.

And if they do, who knows?

Maybe they’ll get rich.

Perhaps no other figure

features more prominently

in the story of Blackbeard

than North Carolina Governor

Charles Eden.

Blackbeard was in need

of the King’s pardon,

but had committed acts of piracy

after the deadline stipulated

by the pardon.

South Carolina would

not have been happy.

Since he had besieged

Charleston and Virginia,

they sure didn’t like him.

I think his options were

pretty limited at that point.

So Blackbeard goes

to Governor Charles Eden

because he knows

that Governor Eden

tends to have decent

relationships with pirates.

We don’t know if the two men

knew each other beforehand,

but after Blackbeard

receives the pardon,

their relationship

takes a strange turn.

Blackbeard’s house is right

next door to Governor Eden’s.

There are even reports

that there was a tunnel

dug between the Governor’s

house and Blackbeard’s.

When Blackbeard marries

a woman named Mary Ormond,

it’s the Governor

who oversees the ceremony.

Blackbeard and Eden seem

to be very good friends.

What is the reason for this?

Does Eden think he can

rehabilitate Blackbeard?

Is Eden star-struck by the guy

or is something else going on?

One of the most

comprehensive histories

of North Carolina

comes from Dr. Hugh Williamson,

published in 1812.

According to Hugh Williamson,

Governor Eden

is very charismatic,

he’s charming, he’s intelligent.

However, he is also sort

of covered

in this cloud of disgrace,

and this is because

of his assumed association

with one of the most

notorious pirates of all time.

Blackbeard goes from being

public enemy number one

to best friends

with the Governor overnight.

History tells us that

usually only happens

when there’s a payoff.

In other words,

Blackbeard’s

hard-earned treasure

might have been given

in exchange for his freedom.

One of the basic conditions

of the pardon was that you had

to turn yourself in

by September 5th, 1718,

but you were only pardoned

for the crimes

that you committed

before January 5th of 1718,

nothing after.

But, of course, Blackbeard

committed loads of crimes

after January 5th.

Including

his well-known blockade

of Charleston in May of 1718,

which should have been

punishable by death.

So why wasn’t it?

Blackbeard had amassed

millions of dollars

worth of goods and treasure,

and it’s very likely he brought

all of this into North Carolina,

and gave a huge chunk of it

to the Governor.

Did Blackbeard use his

wealth to buy his own pardon?

When Blackbeard

turned himself in in June,

he should have been k*lled,

but he wasn’t.

And maybe this explains why.

And why Blackbeard’s treasure’s

never been found.

Because he gave it up.

I mean,

if it’s your money or your life,

what are you gonna do?

And the bribes

may not have stopped there.

At one point, Blackbeard returns

to North Carolina

with a French ship

called the "Rose Emelye."

But he tells the Governor

that he just found

this ship perfectly seaworthy,

filled with plunder,

and with not a sole aboard.

At a Vice Admiralty hearing,

with the Governor present,

Blackbeard is awarded the rights

to this French vessel.

Whether or not the Governor

believed Blackbeard’s story,

how gullible do we think he is?

More likely,

he was getting to keep

a little piece

of the treasure himself.

If Eden did accept

Blackbeard’s treasure

as a bribe,

what did he do with it?

Edward Mosley was a rival

of Governor Charles Eden,

and when Mosley

kind of caught whiff

of what Charles Eden was doing

with Blackbeard,

he definitely wanted

to use that against him.

He outright accused the Governor

of deliberately colluding

with a pirate

for bad purposes,

not to help the community,

but just to help himself.

In retaliation,

Governor Eden arrests Mosley,

fines him £100,

and bars him from ever holding

any sort of public office

for the next three years.

However, after Blackbeard’s

death in battle,

a letter was found

that vindicates Mosley,

proving that everything

Mosley was accusing

Governor Eden of doing was true.

The letter is

written to Blackbeard

from Tobias Knight,

Eden’s secretary

of the Governor’s council.

In the letter to Blackbeard

in Ocracoke,

Governor Eden

wants to set up a meeting,

the purpose of which

was not known.

After Blackbeard is k*lled,

they actually

find a whole bunch

of his pirate plunder

from the last phase

of his career

in Tobias Knight’s barn,

hidden under a pile of hay,

which didn’t look very good.

The Governor of

Virginia, Alexander Spotswood,

really wants

to get involved in this.

He wants to arrest

Governor Eden, Tobias Knight,

and everybody responsible

of working with Blackbeard.

The problem is, being

the Governor of Virginia

means he has absolutely

no legal jurisdiction

within North Carolina,

so there’s nothing he can do.

Eden spends the next

few years trying to get

what he feels he deserves

from Governor Spotswood.

Eden claims

Spotswood’s Virginian sailors

illegally invaded North Carolina

to apprehend Blackbeard

and that any plunder

captured on the mission

belongs to him.

Eden dies in 1722.

In his will,

Eden leaves his fortune,

which might be

Blackbeard’s fortune,

to Spotswood’s political rivals.

That same year,

Governor Spotswood

was ousted from power.

This might be Blackbeard’s

last act of revenge

against the man who was

most responsible

for seeing him k*lled.

For 300 years,

scholars

and treasure hunters alike

have been trying to solve

the mystery

behind Blackbeard’s

missing treasure.

We know a lot

about Blackbeard’s movements

throughout his pirate career,

where he att*cked ships,

where he hung out,

where he stopped for a time.

But in none of these places

has Blackbeard’s treasure

been found.

Some theorists believe

Blackbeard’s first biography

may tell us why.

Captain Charles Johnson

is the author of a book

called "A General History

of the Pirates,"

which was published in 1724,

and it was a smash hit

almost immediately,

because it’s basically

a large collection

of pirate biographies,

all of whom are

of the most famous pirates

out of the golden age of piracy.

No one has really

been able to identify

who Captain Charles Johnson was,

and some authors have said

that he was actually

a pirate himself.

So we have him

as a fairly reliable source.

Johnson interviewed a number

of Blackbeard’s former crewman

for his book

and they told him, uh

kind of a wild tale.

According to Blackbeard’s crew,

one day they noticed a stowaway.

They had no idea who he is,

they have no idea

how he got there

or even how long

he’d been with them.

Even more mysterious,

he disappears

just days after he arrives.

They haven’t docked anywhere.

He just vanishes.

The crew believe

this is no ordinary stowaway.

The crew says Blackbeard knows

he’s being hunted,

and that he’s likely to die

in the next few days.

They are convinced that stowaway

is the devil himself.

This may sound

like a silly idea,

but the crew doesn’t pull this

out of nowhere.

Blackbeard does exhibit

some very strange behavior

on his final voyage.

It was like his mind

wasn’t fully there.

He’d been saying things

about how he’d been

working with the devil.

It’s like Blackbeard

knew his death was coming,

and it was causing

a sort of madness

that nobody could explain.

One of the examples

of the madness

that Blackbeard’s crew

spoke about

was how Blackbeard took

three members of his crew,

locked them into the hold

and set it on fire.

When he does this, he says,

"Let us make a hell of our own

and see how long

we can bear it."

The men hold out

as long as they can,

but they cry out

under the intense heat

and the suffocating conditions.

Shortly after that,

some of the crew

asked Blackbeard

if his wife knew

where any of his treasure

may have been hidden.

Blackbeard told them,

"Nobody but myself

and the devil

know where it is."

After the disappearing stranger,

the unusual rituals

and the comment

about the devil,

the crew is convinced

that Blackbeard

has made a deal with the devil

to hide the treasure.

Not figuratively, literally.

According to Johnson’s book,

Blackbeard is k*lled

the day after

the alleged brimstone ritual.

Look, devil or not,

the crew believed

Blackbeard had a large amount

of treasure

hidden somewhere

besides his boat.

And I think that that night,

Blackbeard confirmed it.

Now, this story is

very likely embellished.

It makes for good entertainment.

It really feeds

on the rumors about Blackbeard,

the legends about Blackbeard

that are coming out

even while he’s alive.

Blackbeard is an eccentric,

and he’s been through a lot,

and he likes to put on a show.

Whether the devil story

is true or not,

it doesn’t surprise me

that towards the end

of his life,

Blackbeard has become unhinged.

My suspicion is that Blackbeard

didn’t really have

a massive treasure cache

at the end of his career.

Blackbeard had

offloaded a lot of it.

He had sold many of the goods.

He had gathered more, sold more.

What treasure

there was, probably

ended up in the families

of the crew members

that Blackbeard had sailed with.

But I think for legend makers,

it was irresistible

to have the great pirate

also have a great treasure.

I just think

it didn’t happen that way,

just because Blackbeard

was unlucky.

Who knows? Blackbeard was

the greatest pirate of his time,

and the treasure’s

gotta be somewhere.

I believe it’s out there.

Although the location

of Blackbeard’s

supposed treasure

remains unknown,

the man’s life itself

has proven quite lucrative.

It’s estimated

that the many books, films,

and adaptations of his story

have earned over $2 billion.

Not bad for two years

of work as a pirate.

I’m Laurence Fishburne.

Thank you for watching

"History’s Greatest Mysteries."