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Blackbeard

Edward Teach (or Thatch; c. 1680 – 22 November 1718), better known as Blackbeard, was an English pirate who operated around the West Indies and the eastern coast of Britain's North American colonies. Little is known about his early life, but he may have been a sailor on privateer ships during Queen Anne's War before he settled on the Bahamian island of New Providence, a base for Captain Benjamin Hornigold, whose crew Teach joined around 1716. Hornigold placed him in command of a sloop that he had captured, and the two engaged in numerous acts of piracy. Their numbers were boosted by the addition to their fleet of two more ships, one of which was commanded by Stede Bonnet, but Hornigold retired from piracy toward the end of 1717, taking two vessels with him.

Teach captured a French slave ship known as La Concorde, renamed her Queen Anne's Revenge, equipped her with 40 guns, and crewed her with over 300 men. He became a renowned pirate. His nickname derived from his thick black beard and fearsome appearance. He was reported to have tied lit fuses (slow matches) under his hat to frighten his enemies. He formed an alliance of pirates and blockaded the port of Charles Town, South Carolina, ransoming the port's inhabitants. He then ran Queen Anne's Revenge aground on a sandbar near Beaufort, North Carolina. He parted company with Stede Bonnet and settled in Bath, North Carolina, also known as Bath Town, where he accepted a royal pardon. However, he was soon back at sea, where he attracted the attention of Alexander Spotswood, the governor of Virginia. Spotswood arranged for a party of soldiers and sailors to capture him. On 22 November 1718, following a ferocious battle, Teach and several of his crew were killed by a small force of sailors led by Lieutenant Robert Maynard.

Teach was a shrewd and calculating leader who spurned the use of violence, relying instead on his fearsome image to elicit the response that he desired from those whom he robbed. He was romanticised after his death and became the inspiration for an archetypal pirate in works of fiction across many genres.

Early life
Little is known about Blackbeard's early life. It is commonly believed that at the time of his death he was between 35 and 40 years old and thus born around 1680. In contemporary records his name is most often given as Blackbeard, Edward Thatch or Edward Teach. The latter is most often used because it is the form used in the dispatches of North America's only newspaper at the time, the Boston News-Letter, but primary sources written by people who had actually met the pirate all refer to him as "Thatch" or variations thereof. Several spellings of his surname exist: Thatch, Thach, Thache, Thack, Tack, Thatche, and Theach. One source claims that his surname was Drummond, but the lack of any supporting documentation makes this unlikely. Pirates habitually used fictitious surnames while engaged in piracy so as not to tarnish the family name, which makes it unlikely that Teach's real name will ever be known.

The 17th-century rise of Britain's American colonies and the rapid 18th-century expansion of the Atlantic slave trade had made Bristol an important international sea port, and Teach was most likely raised in what was then the second-largest city in England. He could almost certainly read and write. He communicated with merchants and when killed had in his possession a letter addressed to him by the Chief Justice and Secretary of the Province of Carolina, Tobias Knight. Author Robert Lee speculated that Teach may therefore have been born into a respectable, wealthy family. He may have arrived in the Caribbean in the last years of the 17th century, on a merchant vessel (possibly a slave ship). The 18th-century author Charles Johnson claimed that Teach was for some time a sailor operating from Jamaica on privateer ships during the War of the Spanish Succession, and that "he had often distinguished himself for his uncommon boldness and personal courage." It is unknown at what point during the war Teach joined the fighting, as with the record of most of his life before he became a pirate.

New Providence
With its history of colonialism, trade and piracy, the West Indies was the setting for many 17th- and 18th-century maritime incidents. The privateer-turned-pirate Henry Jennings and his followers decided, early in the 18th century, to use the uninhabited island of New Providence as a base for their operations since it was within easy reach of the Florida Strait and its busy shipping lanes, which were filled with European vessels crossing the Atlantic. New Providence's harbour could easily accommodate hundreds of ships but was too shallow for the Royal Navy's larger vessels. The author George Woodbury described New Providence as "no city of homes. It was a place of temporary sojourn and refreshment for a literally floating population," continuing, "The only permanent residents were the piratical camp followers, the traders, and the hangers-on. All others were transient." In New Providence, pirates found a welcome respite from the law.

Teach was one of those who came to enjoy the island's benefits. Probably shortly after the signing of the Treaty of Utrecht, he moved there from Jamaica, and, along with most privateers once involved in the war, became involved in piracy. Possibly about 1716, he joined the crew of Captain Benjamin Hornigold, a renowned pirate who operated from New Providence's safe waters. In 1716, Hornigold placed Teach in charge of a sloop he had taken as a prize. In early 1717, Hornigold and Teach, each captaining a sloop, set out for the mainland. They captured a boat carrying 120 barrels of flour out of Havana, and shortly thereafter took 100 barrels of wine from a sloop out of Bermuda. A few days later they stopped a vessel sailing from Madeira to Charles Town, South Carolina. Teach and his quartermaster, William Howard, may at this time have struggled to control their crews. By then they had probably developed a taste for Madeira wine, and on 29 September near Cape Charles all they took from the Betty of Virginia was her cargo of Madeira, before they scuttled her with the remaining cargo.

It was during this cruise with Hornigold that the earliest known report of Teach was made, in which he is recorded as a pirate in his own right, in command of a large crew. In a report made by a Captain Mathew Munthe on an anti-piracy patrol for North Carolina, "Thatch" was described as operating "a sloop 6 gunns and about 70 men." In September, Teach and Hornigold encountered Stede Bonnet, a landowner and military officer from a wealthy family who had turned to piracy earlier that year. Bonnet's crew of about 70 were reportedly dissatisfied with his command, so with Bonnet's permission, Teach took control of his ship, Revenge. The pirates' flotilla now consisted of three ships: Teach on Revenge, Teach's old sloop, and Hornigold's Ranger. By October, another vessel had been captured and added to the small fleet. The sloops Robert of Philadelphia and Good Intent of Dublin were stopped on 22 October 1717 and their cargo holds emptied.

As a former British privateer, Hornigold attacked only his old enemies, but for his crew, the sight of British vessels filled with valuable cargo passing by unharmed became too much, and at some point toward the end of 1717 he was demoted. Whether Teach had any involvement in this decision is unknown, but Hornigold quickly retired from piracy. He took Ranger and one of the sloops, leaving Teach with Revenge and the remaining sloop. The two never met again and, as did many other occupants of New Providence, Hornigold accepted the King's pardon.

Blackbeard
On 28 November 1717 Teach's two ships attacked a French merchant vessel off the coast of Saint Vincent. They each fired a broadside across its bulwarks, killing several of its crew, and forcing its captain to surrender. The ship was La Concorde, a large French Guineaman registered in Saint-Malo and carrying a cargo of slaves. This ship had originally been the English merchantman Concord, captured in 1711 by a French squadron, and then changed hands several times by 1717. Teach and his crews sailed the vessel south along Saint Vincent and the Grenadines to Bequia, where they disembarked her crew and cargo, and converted the ship for their own use. The crew of La Concorde were given the smaller of Teach's two sloops, which they renamed Mauvaise Rencontre ("Bad Meeting"), and sailed for Martinique. Teach may have recruited some of their slaves, but the remainder were left on the island and were later recaptured by the returning crew of Mauvaise Rencontre.

Teach immediately renamed La Concorde as Queen Anne's Revenge and equipped her with 40 guns. By this time Teach had placed his lieutenant Richards in command of Bonnet's Revenge. In late November, near Saint Vincent, he attacked the Great Allen. After a lengthy engagement, he forced the large and well-armed merchant ship to surrender. He ordered her to move closer to the shore, disembarked her crew and emptied her cargo holds, and then burned and sank the vessel. The incident was chronicled in the Boston News-Letter, which called Teach the commander of a "French ship of 32 Guns, a Briganteen of 10 guns and a Sloop of 12 guns." It is not known when or where Teach collected the ten-gun briganteen, but by that time he may have been in command of at least 150 men split among three vessels.

On 5 December 1717 Teach stopped the merchant sloop Margaret off the coast of Crab Island, near Anguilla. Her captain, Henry Bostock, and crew, remained Teach's prisoners for about eight hours, and were forced to watch as their sloop was ransacked. Bostock, who had been held aboard Queen Anne's Revenge, was returned unharmed to Margaret and was allowed to leave with his crew. He returned to his base of operations on Saint Christopher Island and reported the matter to Governor Walter Hamilton, who requested that he sign an affidavit about the encounter. Bostock's deposition details Teach's command of two vessels: a sloop and a large French guineaman, Dutch-built, with 36 cannons and a crew of 300 men. The captain believed that the larger ship carried valuable gold dust, silver plate, and "a very fine cup" supposedly taken from the commander of Great Allen. Teach's crew had apparently informed Bostock that they had destroyed several other vessels, and that they intended to sail to Hispaniola and lie in wait for an expected Spanish armada, supposedly laden with money to pay the garrisons. Bostock also claimed that Teach had questioned him about the movements of local ships, but also that he had seemed unsurprised when Bostock told him of an expected royal pardon from London for all pirates.

Bostock's deposition describes Teach as a "tall spare man with a very black beard which he wore very long". It is the first recorded account of Teach's appearance and is the source of his nickname Blackbeard. Later descriptions mention that his thick black beard was braided into pigtails, sometimes tied in with small coloured ribbons. Johnson (1724) described him as "such a figure that imagination cannot form an idea of a fury from hell to look more frightful." Whether Johnson's description was entirely truthful or embellished is unclear, but it seems likely that Teach understood the value of appearances; better to strike fear into the heart of one's enemies than rely on bluster alone. Teach was tall, with broad shoulders. He wore knee-length boots and dark clothing, topped with a wide hat and sometimes a long coat of brightly coloured silk or velvet. Johnson also described Teach in times of battle as wearing "a sling over his shoulders, with three brace of pistols, hanging in holsters like bandoliers; and stuck lighted slow matches under his hat", the latter apparently to emphasise the fearsome appearance he wished to present to his enemies. Despite his ferocious reputation, there are no verified accounts of his ever having murdered or harmed those he held captive. Teach may have used other aliases; on 30 November, the Monserrat Merchant encountered two ships and a sloop, commanded by a Captain Kentish and Captain Edwards (the latter a known alias of Stede Bonnet).

Enlargement of Teach's fleet
Teach's movements between late 1717 and early 1718 are not known. He and Bonnet were probably responsible for an attack off Sint Eustatius in December 1717. Henry Bostock claimed to have heard the pirates say they would head toward the Spanish-controlled Samaná Bay in Hispaniola, but a cursory search revealed no pirate activity. Captain Hume of HMS Scarborough (1711) reported on 6 February that a "Pyrate Ship of 36 Guns and 250 men, and a Sloop of 10 Guns and 100 men were Said to be Cruizing amongst the Leeward Islands". Hume reinforced his crew with soldiers armed with muskets, and joined up with HMS Seaford (1697) to track the two ships, to no avail, though they discovered that the two ships had sunk a French vessel off St Christopher Island, and reported also that they had last been seen "gone down the North side of Hispaniola". Although no confirmation exists that these two ships were controlled by Teach and Bonnet, author Angus Konstam believes it very likely they were.

In March 1718, while taking on water at Turneffe Island east of Belize, both ships spotted the Jamaican logwood-cutting sloop Adventure making for the harbour. She was stopped and her captain, Harriot, invited to join the pirates. Harriot and his crew accepted the invitation, and Teach sent over a crew to sail Adventure making Israel Hands the captain. They sailed for the Bay of Honduras, where they added another ship and four sloops to their flotilla. On 9 April Teach's enlarged fleet of ships looted and burnt Protestant Caesar. His fleet then sailed to Grand Cayman where they captured a "small turtler". Teach probably sailed toward Havana, where he may have captured a small Spanish vessel that had left the Cuban port. They then sailed to the wrecks of the 1715 Spanish fleet, off the eastern coast of Florida. There Teach disembarked the crew of the captured Spanish sloop, before proceeding north to the port of Charles Town, South Carolina, attacking three vessels along the way.

Blockade of Charles Town
By May 1718, Teach had awarded himself the rank of Commodore and was at the height of his power. Late that month his flotilla blockaded the port of Charles Town in the Province of South Carolina. All vessels entering or leaving the port were stopped, and as the town had no guard ship, its pilot boat was the first to be captured. Over the next five or six days about nine vessels were stopped and ransacked as they attempted to sail past Charles Town Bar, where Teach's fleet was anchored. One such ship, headed for London with a group of prominent Charles Town citizens which included Samuel Wragg (a member of the Council of the Province of Carolina), was the Crowley. Her passengers were questioned about the vessels still in port and then locked below decks for about half a day. Teach informed the prisoners that his fleet required medical supplies from the colonial government of South Carolina, and that if none were forthcoming, all prisoners would be executed, their heads sent to the Governor and all captured ships burnt.

Wragg agreed to Teach's demands, and a Mr. Marks and two pirates were given two days to collect the drugs. Teach moved his fleet, and the captured ships, to within about five or six leagues from land. Three days later a messenger, sent by Marks, returned to the fleet; Marks's boat had capsized and delayed their arrival in Charles Town. Teach granted a reprieve of two days, but still the party did not return. He then called a meeting of his fellow sailors and moved eight ships into the harbour, causing panic within the town. When Marks finally returned to the fleet, he explained what had happened. On his arrival he had presented the pirates' demands to the Governor and the drugs had been quickly gathered, but the two pirates sent to escort him had proved difficult to find; they had been busy drinking with friends and were finally discovered, drunk.

Teach kept to his side of the bargain and released the captured ships and his prisoners—albeit relieved of their valuables, including the fine clothing some had worn.

Beaufort Inlet
Whilst at Charles Town, Teach learned that Woodes Rogers had left England with several men-of-war, with orders to purge the West Indies of pirates. Teach's flotilla sailed northward along the Atlantic coast and into Topsail Inlet (commonly known as Beaufort Inlet), off the coast of North Carolina. There they intended to careen their ships to scrape their hulls, but on 10 June 1718 the Queen Anne's Revenge ran aground on a sandbar, cracking her main-mast and severely damaging many of her timbers. Teach ordered several sloops to throw ropes across the flagship in an attempt to free her. A sloop commanded by Israel Hands of Adventure also ran aground, and both vessels appeared to be damaged beyond repair, leaving only Revenge and the captured Spanish sloop.

Pardon
Teach had at some stage learnt of the offer of a royal pardon and probably confided in Bonnet his willingness to accept it. The pardon was open to all pirates who surrendered on or before 5 September 1718, but contained a caveat stipulating that immunity was offered only against crimes committed before 5 January. Although in theory this left Bonnet and Teach at risk of being hanged for their actions at Charles Town Bar, most authorities could waive such conditions. Teach thought that Governor Charles Eden was a man he could trust, but to make sure, he waited to see what would happen to another captain. Bonnet left immediately on a small sailing boat for Bath Town, where he surrendered to Governor Eden, and received his pardon. He then travelled back to Beaufort Inlet to collect the Revenge and the remainder of his crew, intending to sail to Saint Thomas Island to receive a commission. Unfortunately for him, Teach had stripped the vessel of its valuables and provisions, and had marooned its crew; Bonnet set out for revenge, but was unable to find him. He and his crew returned to piracy and were captured on 27 September 1718 at the mouth of the Cape Fear River. All but four were tried and hanged in Charles Town.

The author Robert Lee surmised that Teach and Hands intentionally ran the ships aground to reduce the fleet's crew complement, increasing their share of the spoils. During the trial of Bonnet's crew, Revenge's boatswain Ignatius Pell testified that "the ship was run ashore and lost, which Thatch [Teach] caused to be done." Lee considers it plausible that Teach let Bonnet in on his plan to accept a pardon from Governor Eden. He suggested that Bonnet do the same, and as war between the Quadruple Alliance of 1718 and Spain was threatening, to consider taking a privateer's commission from England. Lee suggests that Teach also offered Bonnet the return of his ship Revenge. Konstam (2007) proposes a similar idea, explaining that Teach began to see Queen Anne's Revenge as something of a liability; while a pirate fleet was anchored, news of this was sent to neighbouring towns and colonies, and any vessels nearby would delay sailing. It was prudent therefore for Teach not to linger for too long, although wrecking the ship was an extreme measure.

Before sailing northward on his remaining sloop to Ocracoke Inlet, Teach marooned about 25 men on a small sandy island about 5 km from the mainland. He may have done this to stifle any protest they made, if they guessed their captain's plans. Bonnet rescued them two days later. Teach continued on to Bath, where in June 1718—only days after Bonnet had departed with his pardon—he and his much-reduced crew received their pardon from Governor Eden.

He settled in Bath, on the eastern side of Bath Creek at Plum Point, near Eden's home. During July and August he travelled between his base in the town and his sloop off Ocracoke. Johnson's account states that he married the daughter of a local plantation owner, although there is no supporting evidence for this. Eden gave Teach permission to sail to St Thomas to seek a commission as a privateer (a useful way of removing bored and troublesome pirates from the small settlement), and Teach was given official title to his remaining sloop, which he renamed Adventure. By the end of August he had returned to piracy, and in the same month the governor of Pennsylvania issued a warrant for his arrest, but by then Teach was probably operating in Delaware Bay, some distance away. He took two French ships leaving the Caribbean, moved one crew across to the other, and sailed the remaining ship back to Ocracoke. In September he told Eden that he had found the French ship at sea, deserted. A Vice Admiralty Court was quickly convened, presided over by Tobias Knight and the Collector of Customs. The ship was judged as a derelict found at sea, and of its cargo twenty hogsheads of sugar were awarded to Knight and sixty to Eden; Teach and his crew were given what remained in the vessel's hold.

Ocracoke Inlet was Teach's favourite anchorage. It was a perfect vantage point from which to view ships travelling between the various settlements of northeast Carolina, and it was from there that Teach first spotted the approaching ship of Charles Vane, another English pirate. Several months earlier Vane had rejected the pardon brought by Woodes Rogers and escaped the men-of-war the English captain brought with him to Nassau. He had also been pursued by Teach's old commander, Benjamin Hornigold, who was by then a pirate hunter. Teach and Vane spent several nights on the southern tip of Ocracoke Island, accompanied by such notorious figures as Israel Hands, Robert Deal and Calico Jack.

Alexander Spotswood
As it spread throughout the neighbouring colonies, the news of Teach and Vane's impromptu party worried the governor of Pennsylvania enough to send out two sloops to capture the pirates. They were unsuccessful, but Governor of Virginia Alexander Spotswood was also concerned that the supposedly retired freebooter and his crew were living in nearby North Carolina. Some of Teach's former crew had already moved into several Virginian seaport towns, prompting Spotswood to issue a proclamation on 10 July, requiring all former pirates to make themselves known to the authorities, to give up their arms and to not travel in groups larger than three. As head of a Crown colony, Spotswood viewed the proprietary colony of North Carolina with contempt; he had little faith in the ability of the Carolinians to control the pirates, who he suspected would be back to their old ways, disrupting Virginian commerce, as soon as their money ran out.

Spotswood learned that William Howard, the former quartermaster of Queen Anne's Revenge, was in the area, and believing that he might know of Teach's whereabouts had him and his two slaves arrested. Spotswood had no legal authority to have pirates tried, and as a result, Howard's attorney, John Holloway, brought charges against Captain Brand of HMS Lyme (1695), where Howard was imprisoned. He also sued on Howard's behalf for damages of £500, claiming wrongful arrest.

Spotswood's council claimed that under a statute of William III the governor was entitled to try pirates without a jury in times of crisis and that Teach's presence was a crisis. The charges against Howard referred to several acts of piracy supposedly committed after the pardon's cut-off date, in "a sloop belonging to ye subjects of the King of Spain", but ignored the fact that they took place outside Spotswood's jurisdiction and in a vessel then legally owned. Another charge cited two attacks, one of which was the capture of a slave ship off Charles Town Bar, from which one of Howard's slaves was presumed to have come. Howard was sent to await trial before a Court of Vice-Admiralty, on the charge of piracy, but Brand and his colleague, Captain Gordon (of HMS Pearl (1708)) refused to serve with Holloway present. Incensed, Holloway had no option but to stand down, and was replaced by the Attorney General of Virginia, John Clayton, whom Spotswood described as "an honester man [than Holloway]". Howard was found guilty and sentenced to be hanged, but was saved by a commission from London, which directed Spotswood to pardon all acts of piracy committed by surrendering pirates before 18 August 1718.

Spotswood had obtained from Howard valuable information on Teach's whereabouts, and he planned to send his forces across the border into North Carolina to capture him. He gained the support of two men keen to discredit North Carolina's governor—Edward Moseley and Colonel Maurice Moore. He also wrote to the Lords of Trade, suggesting that the Crown might benefit financially from Teach's capture. Spotswood personally financed the operation, possibly believing that Teach had fabulous treasures hidden away. He ordered Captains Gordon and Brand of HMS Pearl and HMS Lyme to travel overland to Bath. Lieutenant Robert Maynard of HMS Pearl was given command of two commandeered sloops, to approach the town from the sea. An extra incentive for Teach's capture was the offer of a reward from the Assembly of Virginia, over and above any that might be received from the Crown.

Maynard took command of the two armed sloops on 17 November. He was given 57 men—33 from HMS Pearl and 24 from HMS Lyme. Maynard and the detachment from HMS Pearl took the larger of the two vessels and named her Jane; the rest took Ranger, commanded by one of Maynard's officers, a Mister Hyde. Some from the two ships' civilian crews remained aboard. They sailed from Kecoughtan, along the James River, on 17 November. The two sloops moved slowly, giving Brand's force time to reach Bath. Brand set out for North Carolina six days later, arriving within three miles of Bath on 23 November. Included in Brand's force were several North Carolinians, including Colonel Moore and Captain Jeremiah Vail, sent to counter any local objection to the presence of foreign soldiers. Moore went into the town to see if Teach was there, reporting back that he was not, but that he was expected at "every minute." Brand then went to Governor Eden's home and informed him of his purpose. The next day, Brand sent two canoes down Pamlico River to Ocracoke Inlet, to see if Teach could be seen. They returned two days later and reported on what eventually transpired.

Last battle
Maynard found the pirates anchored on the inner side of Ocracoke Island, on the evening of 21 November. He had ascertained their position from ships he had stopped along his journey, but being unfamiliar with the local channels and shoals he decided to wait until the following morning to make his attack. He stopped all traffic from entering the inlet—preventing any warning of his presence—and posted a lookout on both sloops to ensure that Teach could not escape to sea. On the other side of the island, Teach was busy entertaining guests and had not set a lookout. With Israel Hands ashore in Bath with about 24 of Adventure's sailors, he also had a much-reduced crew. Johnson (1724) reported Teach had "no more than twenty-five men on board" and that he "gave out to all the vessels that he spoke with that he had forty". "Thirteen white and six Negroes", was the number later reported by Brand to the Admiralty.

At daybreak, preceded by a small boat taking soundings, Maynard's two sloops entered the channel. The small craft was quickly spotted by Adventure and fired at as soon as it was within range of her guns. While the boat made a quick retreat to the Jane, Teach cut the Adventure's anchor cable. His crew hoisted the sails and the Adventure manoeuvred to point her starboard guns toward Maynard's sloops, which were slowly closing the gap. Hyde moved Ranger to the port side of Jane and the Union flag was unfurled on each ship. Adventure then turned toward the beach of Ocracoke Island, heading for a narrow channel. What happened next is uncertain. Johnson claimed that there was an exchange of small arms fire following which Adventure ran aground on a sandbar, and Maynard anchored and then lightened his ship to pass over the obstacle. Another version claimed that Jane and Ranger ran aground, although Maynard made no mention of this in his log.

The Adventure eventually turned her guns on the two ships and fired. The broadside was devastating; in an instant, Maynard had lost as much as a third of his forces. About 20 on Jane were either wounded or killed and 9 on Ranger. Hyde was dead and his second and third officers either dead or seriously injured. His sloop was so badly damaged that it played no further role in the attack. Contemporary accounts of what happened next are confused, but small-arms fire from Jane may have cut Adventure's jib sheet, causing her to lose control and run onto the sandbar. In the aftermath of Teach's overwhelming attack, Jane and Ranger may also have been grounded; the battle would have become a race to see who could float their ship first.

Maynard had kept many of his men below deck, and in anticipation of being boarded told them to prepare for close fighting. Teach watched as the gap between the vessels closed, and ordered his men to be ready. The two vessels contacted one another as the Adventure's grappling hooks hit their target and several grenades, made from powder and shot-filled bottles and ignited by fuses, broke across the sloop's deck. As the smoke cleared, Teach led his men aboard, buoyant at the sight of Maynard's apparently empty ship, his men firing at the small group of men with Maynard at the stern.

The rest of Maynard's men then burst from the hold, shouting and firing. The plan to surprise Teach and his crew worked; the pirates were apparently taken aback at the assault. Teach rallied his men and the two groups fought across the deck, which was already slick with blood from those killed or injured by Teach's broadside. Maynard and Teach fired their flintlocks at each other. Maynard managed to hit Teach, while Teach missed. Both then threw their flintlocks away and drew their cutlasses. Teach broke Maynard's cutlass at the hilt. Against superior training and a slight advantage in numbers, the pirates were pushed back toward the bow, allowing the Jane's crew to surround Maynard and Teach, who was by then completely isolated. Teach pressed onward and was about to deliver a killing blow, but was slashed across the neck by one of Maynard's men. This redirected Teach's cutlass to strike Maynard's knuckles instead of killing him. Badly wounded, Teach was then attacked and killed by several more of Maynard's crew. The remaining pirates quickly surrendered. Those left on the Adventure were captured by the Ranger's crew, including one who planned to set fire to the powder room and blow up the ship. Varying accounts exist of the battle's list of casualties; Maynard reported that 8 of his men and 12 pirates were killed. Brand reported that 10 pirates and 11 of Maynard's men were killed. Spotswood claimed ten pirates and ten of the King's men dead.

Maynard later examined Teach's body, noting that it had been shot five times and cut about twenty. He also found several items of correspondence, including a letter from Tobias Knight. Teach's corpse was thrown into the inlet and his head was suspended from the bowsprit of Maynard's sloop so that the reward could be collected. On their return to Virginia, Teach's head was placed on a pole at the entrance to the Chesapeake Bay as a warning to other pirates and a greeting to other ships, and it stood there for several years.

Legacy
Lieutenant Maynard remained at Ocracoke for several more days, making repairs and burying the dead. Teach's loot—sugar, cocoa, indigo and cotton—found "in pirate sloops and ashore in a tent where the sloops lay", was sold at auction along with sugar and cotton found in Tobias Knight's barn, for £2,238. Governor Spotswood used a portion of this to pay for the entire operation. The prize money for capturing Teach was to have been about £400 (£ in 2024), but it was split between the crews of HMS Lyme and HMS Pearl. As Captain Brand and his troops had not been the ones fighting for their lives, Maynard thought this extremely unfair. He lost much of any support he might have had though when it was discovered that he and his crew had helped themselves to about £90 of Teach's booty. The two companies did not receive their prize money for another four years, and despite his bravery Maynard was not promoted, and faded into obscurity.

The remainder of Teach's crew and former associates were found by Brand, in Bath, and were transported to Williamsburg, Virginia, where they were jailed on charges of piracy. Several were black, prompting Spotswood to ask his council what could be done about "the Circumstances of these Negroes to exempt them from undergoing the same Tryal as other pirates." Regardless, the men were tried with their comrades in Williamsburg's Capitol building, under admiralty law, on 12 March 1719. No records of the day's proceedings remain, but 14 of the 16 accused were found guilty. Of the remaining two, one proved that he had partaken of the fight out of necessity, having been on Teach's ship only as a guest at a drinking party the night before, and not as a pirate. The other, Israel Hands, was not present at the fight. He claimed that during a drinking session Teach had shot him in the knee, and that he was still covered by the royal pardon. The remaining pirates were hanged, then left to rot in gibbets along Williamsburg's Capitol Landing Road (known for some time after as "Gallows Road").

Governor Eden was certainly embarrassed by Spotswood's invasion of North Carolina, and Spotswood disavowed himself of any part of the seizure. He defended his actions, writing to Lord Carteret, a shareholder of the Province of Carolina, that he might benefit from the sale of the seized property and reminding the Earl of the number of Virginians who had died to protect his interests. He argued for the secrecy of the operation by suggesting that Eden "could contribute nothing to the Success of the Design", and told Eden that his authority to capture the pirates came from the king. Eden was heavily criticised for his involvement with Teach and was accused of being his accomplice. By criticising Eden, Spotswood intended to bolster the legitimacy of his invasion. Lee (1974) concludes that although Spotswood may have thought that the ends justified the means, he had no legal authority to invade North Carolina, to capture the pirates and to seize and auction their goods. Eden doubtless shared the same view. As Spotswood had also accused Tobias Knight of being in league with Teach, on 4 April 1719, Eden had Knight brought in for questioning. Israel Hands had, weeks earlier, testified that Knight had been on board the Adventure in August 1718, shortly after Teach had brought a French ship to North Carolina as a prize. Four pirates had testified that with Teach they had visited Knight's home to give him presents. This testimony and the letter found on Teach's body by Maynard appeared compelling, but Knight conducted his defence with competence. Despite being very sick and close to death, he questioned the reliability of Spotswood's witnesses. He claimed that Israel Hands had talked under duress, and that under North Carolinian law the other witness, an African, was unable to testify. The sugar, he argued, was stored at his house legally, and Teach had visited him only on business, in his official capacity. The board found Knight innocent of all charges. He died later that year.

Eden was annoyed that the accusations against Knight arose during a trial in which he played no part. The goods which Brand seized were officially North Carolinian property and Eden considered him a thief. The argument raged back and forth between the colonies until Eden's death on 17 March 1722. His will named one of Spotswood's opponents, John Holloway, a beneficiary. In the same year, Spotswood, who for years had fought his enemies in the House of Burgesses and the Council, was replaced by Hugh Drysdale, once Robert Walpole was convinced to act.

Modern view
Official views on pirates were sometimes quite different from those held by contemporary authors, who often described their subjects as despicable rogues of the sea. Privateers who became pirates were generally considered by the English government to be reserve naval forces, and were sometimes given active encouragement; as far back as 1581 Francis Drake was knighted by Queen Elizabeth, when he returned to England from a round-the-world expedition with plunder worth an estimated £1,500,000. Royal pardons were regularly issued, usually when England was on the verge of war, and the public's opinion of pirates was often favourable, some considering them akin to patrons. Economist Peter Leeson believes that pirates were generally shrewd businessmen, far removed from the modern, romanticised view of them as barbarians. After Woodes Rogers' 1718 landing at New Providence and his ending of the pirate republic, piracy in the West Indies fell into terminal decline. With no easily accessible outlet to fence their stolen goods, pirates were reduced to a subsistence livelihood, and following almost a century of naval warfare between the British, French and Spanish—during which sailors could find easy employment—lone privateers found themselves outnumbered by the powerful ships employed by the British Empire to defend its merchant fleets. The popularity of the slave trade helped bring to an end the frontier condition of the West Indies, and in these circumstances, piracy was no longer able to flourish as it once did.

Since the end of the Golden Age of Piracy, Teach and his exploits have become the stuff of lore, inspiring books, films and even amusement park rides. Much of what is known about him can be sourced to Charles Johnson's A General Historie of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pyrates, published in Britain in 1724. A recognised authority on the pirates of his time, Johnson's descriptions of such figures as Anne Bonny and Mary Read were for years required reading for those interested in the subject. Readers were titillated by his stories and a second edition was quickly published, though author Angus Konstam suspects that Johnson's entry on Blackbeard was "coloured a little to make a more sensational story." A General Historie, though, is generally considered to be a reliable source. Johnson may have been an assumed alias. As Johnson's accounts have been corroborated in personal and official dispatches, Lee (1974) considers that whoever he was, he had some access to official correspondence. Konstam speculates further, suggesting that Johnson may have been the English playwright Charles Johnson, the British publisher Charles Rivington, or the writer Daniel Defoe. In his 1951 work The Great Days of Piracy, author George Woodbury wrote that Johnson is "obviously a pseudonym", continuing "one cannot help suspecting that he may have been a pirate himself."

Despite his infamy, Teach was not the most successful of pirates. Henry Every retired a rich man, and Bartholomew Roberts took an estimated five times the amount Teach stole. Treasure hunters have long busied themselves searching for any trace of his rumoured hoard of gold and silver, but nothing found in the numerous sites explored along the east coast of the US has ever been connected to him. Some tales suggest that pirates often killed a prisoner on the spot where they buried their loot, and Teach is no exception in these stories, but that no finds have come to light is not exceptional; buried pirate treasure is often considered a modern myth for which almost no supporting evidence exists. The available records include nothing to suggest that the burial of treasure was a common practice, except in the imaginations of the writers of fictional accounts such as Treasure Island. Such hoards would necessitate a wealthy owner, and their supposed existence ignores the command structure of a pirate vessel, in which the crew served for a share of the profit. The only pirate ever known to bury treasure was William Kidd; the only treasure so far recovered from Teach's exploits is that taken from the wreckage of what is presumed to be the Queen Anne's Revenge, which was found in 1996. As of 2009 more than 250,000 artefacts had been recovered. A selection is on public display at the North Carolina Maritime Museum.

Various superstitious tales exist of Teach's ghost. Unexplained lights at sea are often referred to as "Teach's light", and some recitals claim that the notorious pirate now roams the afterlife searching for his head, for fear that his friends, and the Devil, will not recognise him. A North Carolinian tale holds that Teach's skull was used as the basis for a silver drinking chalice; a local judge even claimed to have drunk from it one night in the 1930s.

The name of Blackbeard has been attached to many local attractions, such as Charleston's Blackbeard's Cove. His name and persona have also featured heavily in literature. He is the main subject of Matilda Douglas's fictional 1835 work Blackbeard: A page from the colonial history of Philadelphia.

Film renditions of his life include Blackbeard the Pirate (1952) starring West Country native Robert Newton whose exaggerated West Country accent is credited with popularising the stereotypical "pirate voice", Blackbeard's Ghost (1968), Blackbeard: Terror at Sea (2005) and the 2006 Hallmark Channel miniseries Blackbeard. Parallels have also been drawn between Johnson's Blackbeard and the character of Captain Jack Sparrow in the 2003 adventure film Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl. Blackbeard is also portrayed as a central character in three TV series: by John Malkovich in Crossbones (2014), by Ray Stevenson in seasons three and four of Black Sails (2016–2017), and by Taika Waititi in Our Flag Means Death (2022).

In 2013 and 2015, the state government of North Carolina uploaded Nautilus Productions videos of the wreck of the Queen Anne's Revenge to its website without permission. As a result, Nautilus Productions, the company documenting the recovery since 1998, filed suit in federal court over copyright violations and the passage of "Blackbeard's Law" by the North Carolina General Assembly. Before posting the videos the General Assembly passed "Blackbeard's Law", N.C. Gen Stat §121-25(b), which stated, "All photographs, video recordings, or other documentary materials of a derelict vessel or shipwreck or its contents, relics, artifacts, or historic materials in the custody of any agency of North Carolina government or its subdivisions shall be a public record pursuant to Chapter 132 of the General Statutes." On 5 November 2019, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Allen v. Cooper. The Supreme Court subsequently ruled in the state's favor, and struck down the Copyright Remedy Clarification Act, which Congress passed in 1989 to attempt to curb such infringements of copyright by states.

As a result of the ruling Nautilus filed a motion for reconsideration in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina. On August 18, 2021 Judge Terrence Boyle granted the motion for reconsideration which North Carolina promptly appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. The 4th Circuit denied the state's motion on October 14, 2022. Nautilus then filed their second amended complaint on February 8, 2023 alleging 5th and 14th Amendment violations of Nautilus' constitutional rights, additional copyright violations, and claiming that North Carolina's "Blackbeard's Law" represents a Bill of Attainder. Eight years after the passage of Blackbeard's Law, on June 30, 2023, North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper signed a bill repealing the law.

title: Blackbeard


text:
Bugzilla

Bugzilla is a web-based general-purpose bug tracking system and testing tool originally developed and used by the Mozilla project, and licensed under the Mozilla Public License.

Released as open-source software by Netscape Communications in 1998, it has been adopted by a variety of organizations for use as a bug tracking system for both free and open-source software and proprietary projects and products. Bugzilla is used, among others, by the Mozilla Foundation, WebKit, Linux kernel, FreeBSD, KDE, Apache, Eclipse and LibreOffice. Red Hat uses it, but is gradually migrating its product to use Jira. It is also self-hosting.

History
Bugzilla was originally devised by Terry Weissman in 1998 for the nascent Mozilla.org project, as an open source application to replace the in-house system then in use at Netscape Communications for tracking defects in the Netscape Communicator suite. Bugzilla was originally written in Tcl, but Weissman decided to port it to Perl before its release as part of Netscape's early open-source code drops, in the hope that more people would be able to contribute to it, given that Perl seemed to be a more popular language at the time.

Bugzilla 2.0 was the result of that port to Perl, and the first version was released to the public via anonymous CVS. In April 2000, Weissman handed over control of the Bugzilla project to Tara Hernandez. Under her leadership, some of the regular contributors were coerced into taking more responsibility, and Bugzilla development became more community-driven. In July 2001, facing distraction from her other responsibilities in Netscape, Hernandez handed control to Dave Miller, who was still in charge.

Bugzilla 3.0 was released on May 10, 2007 and brought a refreshed UI, an XML-RPC interface, custom fields and resolutions, mod_perl support, shared saved searches, and improved UTF-8 support, along with other changes.

Bugzilla 4.0 was released on February 15, 2011 and Bugzilla 5.0 was released in July 2015.

Timeline
Bugzilla's release timeline:

Requirements
Bugzilla's system requirements include:

 * A compatible database management system
 * A suitable release of Perl 5
 * An assortment of Perl modules
 * A compatible web server
 * A suitable mail transfer agent, or any SMTP server

Currently supported database systems are MariaDB, MySQL, PostgreSQL, Oracle, and SQLite. Bugzilla is usually installed on Linux using the Apache HTTP Server, but any web server that supports CGI such as Lighttpd, Hiawatha, Cherokee can be used. Bugzilla's installation process is command line driven and runs through a series of stages where system requirements and software capabilities are checked.

Design

While the potential exists in the code to turn Bugzilla into a technical support ticket system, task management tool, or project management tool, Bugzilla's developers have chosen to focus on the task of designing a system to track software defects.

Zarro Boogs
Bugzilla returns the string "zarro boogs found" instead of "0 bugs found" when a search for bugs returns no results. "Zarro Boogs" is intended as a 'buggy' statement itself (a misspelling of "zero bugs") and is thus a meta-statement about the nature of software debugging, implying that even when no bugs have been identified, some may exist.

The following comment is provided in the Bugzilla source code to developers who may be confused by this behaviour:

 * Zarro Boogs Found
 * This is just a goofy way of saying that there were no bugs found matching your query. When asked to explain this message, Terry Weissman had the following to say:

 * I've been asked to explain this ... way back when, when Netscape released version 4.0 of its browser, we had a release party. Naturally, there had been a big push to try and fix every known bug before the release. Naturally, that hadn't actually happened. (This is not unique to Netscape or to 4.0; the same thing has happened with every software project I've ever seen.) Anyway, at the release party, T-shirts were handed out that said something like "Netscape 4.0: Zarro Boogs". Just like the software, the T-shirt had no known bugs. Uh-huh. So, when you query for a list of bugs, and it gets no results, you can think of this as a friendly reminder. Of *course* there are bugs matching your query, they just aren't in the bugsystem yet...
 * — Terry Weissman
 * From The Bugzilla Guide – 2.16.10 Release: Glossary

WONTFIX
WONTFIX is used as a label on issues in Bugzilla and other systems. It indicates that a verified issue will not be addressed for one of several possible reasons including fixing would be too expensive, complicated or risky.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Bugzilla


text:
Bangor

Bangor or City of Bangor may refer to:

Australia

 * Bangor, New South Wales
 * Bangor, Tasmania

Canada

 * Bangor, Nova Scotia
 * Bangor, Saskatchewan
 * Bangor, Prince Edward Island

Northern Ireland

 * Bangor, County Down
 * Bangor railway station (Northern Ireland)
 * Bangor (Northern Ireland Parliament constituency), Bangor's former constituency in the Parliament of Northern Ireland
 * Bangor (Parliament of Ireland constituency), Bangor's former constituency in the Parliament of Ireland
 * Bangor (civil parish)

Wales

 * Bangor, Gwynedd
 * Bangor railway station (Wales)
 * Bangor-on-Dee (Bangor-is-Coed or Bangor-is-y-Coed), Wrexham
 * Bangor Teifi, Ceredigion
 * Capel Bangor, Ceredigion

United States

 * Bangor, Alabama
 * Bangor, California
 * Bangor, Iowa
 * Bangor, Maine
 * Bangor Air National Guard Base
 * Bangor International Airport
 * Bangor, Michigan
 * Bangor (Amtrak station)
 * Bangor Township, Van Buren County, Michigan
 * Bangor Township, Bay County, Michigan
 * Bangor, New York
 * Bangor, Pennsylvania
 * Bangor Base, Washington
 * Bangor, Wisconsin, a village
 * Bangor (town), Wisconsin
 * Bangor Township (disambiguation)

Elsewhere

 * Bangor Erris, County Mayo, Ireland
 * Bangor, Morbihan, Britanny, France

Arts, entertainment, and media

 * Bangor Daily News, Bangor, Maine, US
 * Bangor FM, County Down

Sports

 * Bangor City F.C., a football club in Bangor, Gwynedd
 * Bangor 1876 F.C., a football club in Bangor, Gwynedd
 * Bangor F.C., a football club in Bangor, County Down
 * Bangor RFC, rugby union team of Bangor, Gwynedd, Wales

Transportation

 * Bangor and Aroostook Railroad, Maine, US
 * Bangor International Airport, Maine, US
 * Bangor railway station (Northern Ireland)
 * Bangor railway station (Wales)
 * Bangor station (Michigan), US
 * City of Bangor, a Great Lakes shipwreck
 * City of Bangor, a US airline with the ICAO code XBG; see Airline codes-C

Other uses

 * Bangor Cathedral, Bangor, Gwynedd, Wales
 * Bangor University, Bangor, Gwynedd, Wales
 * Bishop of Bangor, Bangor, Gwynedd, Wales

title: Bangor


text:
Ballad

A ballad is a form of verse, often a narrative set to music. Ballads derive from the medieval French chanson balladée or ballade, which were originally "dance songs". Ballads were particularly characteristic of the popular poetry and song of Britain and Ireland from the Late Middle Ages until the 19th century. They were widely used across Europe, and later in Australia, North Africa, North America and South America.

While ballads have no prescribed structure and may vary in their number of lines and stanzas, many ballads employ quatrains with ABCB or ABAB rhyme schemes, the key being a rhymed second and fourth line. Contrary to a popular conception, it is rare if not unheard-of for a ballad to contain exactly 13 lines. Additionally, couplets rarely appear in ballads.

Many ballads were written and sold as single-sheet broadsides. The form was often used by poets and composers from the 18th century onwards to produce lyrical ballads. In the later 19th century, the term took on the meaning of a slow form of popular love song and is often used for any love song, particularly the sentimental ballad of pop or rock music, although the term is also associated with the concept of a stylized storytelling song or poem, particularly when used as a title for other media such as a film.

Origins
A ballad is a form of verse, often a narrative set to music. Ballads derive from the medieval French chanson balladée or ballade, which were originally "dancing songs" (L: ballare, to dance), yet becoming "stylized forms of solo song" before being adopted in England. As a narrative song, their theme and function may originate from Scandinavian and Germanic traditions of storytelling that can be seen in poems such as Beowulf. Musically they were influenced by the Minnelieder of the Minnesang tradition. The earliest example of a recognizable ballad in form in England is "Judas" in a 13th-century manuscript.

Ballad form
Ballads were originally written to accompany dances, and so were composed in couplets with refrains in alternate lines. These refrains would have been sung by the dancers in time with the dance. Most northern and west European ballads are written in ballad stanzas or quatrains (four-line stanzas) of alternating lines of iambic (an unstressed followed by a stressed syllable) tetrameter (eight syllables) and iambic trimeter (six syllables), known as ballad meter. Usually, only the second and fourth line of a quatrain are rhymed (in the scheme a, b, c, b), which has been taken to suggest that, originally, ballads consisted of couplets (two lines) of rhymed verse, each of 14 syllables. This can be seen in this stanza from "Lord Thomas and Fair Annet":

The horse | fair Ann | et rode | upon |

He amb | led like | the wind |,

With sil | ver he | was shod | before,

With burn | ing gold | behind |.

There is considerable variation on this pattern in almost every respect, including length, number of lines and rhyming scheme, making the strict definition of a ballad extremely difficult. In southern and eastern Europe, and in countries that derive their tradition from them, ballad structure differs significantly, like Spanish romanceros, which are octosyllabic and use consonance rather than rhyme.

Ballads usually are heavily influenced by the regions in which they originate and use the common dialect of the people. Scotland's ballads in particular, both in theme and language, are strongly characterised by their distinctive tradition, even exhibiting some pre-Christian influences in the inclusion of supernatural elements such as travel to the Fairy Kingdom in the Scots ballad "Tam Lin". The ballads do not have any known author or correct version; instead, having been passed down mainly by oral tradition since the Middle Ages, there are many variations of each. The ballads remained an oral tradition until the increased interest in folk songs in the 18th century led collectors such as Bishop Thomas Percy (1729–1811) to publish volumes of popular ballads.

In all traditions most ballads are narrative in nature, with a self-contained story, often concise, and rely on imagery, rather than description, which can be tragic, historical, romantic or comic. Themes concerning rural labourers and their sexuality are common, and there are many ballads based on the Robin Hood legend. Another common feature of ballads is repetition, sometimes of fourth lines in succeeding stanzas, as a refrain, sometimes of third and fourth lines of a stanza and sometimes of entire stanzas.

Composition
Scholars of ballads have been divided into "communalists", such as Johann Gottfried Herder (1744–1803) and the Brothers Grimm, who argue that ballads are originally communal compositions, and "individualists" such as Cecil Sharp, who assert that there was one single original author. Communalists tend to see more recent, particularly printed, broadside ballads of known authorship as a debased form of the genre, while individualists see variants as corruptions of an original text. More recently scholars have pointed to the interchange of oral and written forms of the ballad.

Transmission
The transmission of ballads comprises a key stage in their re-composition. In romantic terms this process is often dramatized as a narrative of degeneration away from the pure 'folk memory' or 'immemorial tradition'. In the introduction to Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border (1802) the romantic poet and historical novelist Walter Scott argued a need to 'remove obvious corruptions' in order to attempt to restore a supposed original. For Scott, the process of multiple recitations 'incurs the risk of impertinent interpolations from the conceit of one rehearser, unintelligible blunders from the stupidity of another, and omissions equally to be regretted, from the want of memory of a third.' Similarly, John Robert Moore noted 'a natural tendency to oblivescence'.

Classification
European Ballads have been generally classified into three major groups: traditional, broadside and literary. In America a distinction is drawn between ballads that are versions of European, particularly British and Irish songs, and 'Native American ballads', developed without reference to earlier songs. A further development was the evolution of the blues ballad, which mixed the genre with Afro-American music. For the late 20th century the music publishing industry found a market for what are often termed sentimental ballads, and these are the origin of the modern use of the term 'ballad' to mean a slow love song.

Traditional ballads
The traditional, classical or popular (meaning of the people) ballad has been seen as beginning with the wandering minstrels of late medieval Europe. From the end of the 15th century there are printed ballads that suggest a rich tradition of popular music. A reference in William Langland's Piers Plowman indicates that ballads about Robin Hood were being sung from at least the late 14th century and the oldest detailed material is Wynkyn de Worde's collection of Robin Hood ballads printed about 1495.

Early collections of English ballads were made by Samuel Pepys (1633–1703) and in the Roxburghe Ballads collected by Robert Harley, (1661–1724), which paralleled the work in Scotland by Walter Scott and Robert Burns. Inspired by his reading as a teenager of Reliques of Ancient English Poetry by Thomas Percy, Scott began collecting ballads while he attended Edinburgh University in the 1790s. He published his research from 1802 to 1803 in a three-volume work, Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border. Burns collaborated with James Johnson on the multi-volume Scots Musical Museum, a miscellany of folk songs and poetry with original work by Burns. Around the same time, he worked with George Thompson on A Select Collection of Original Scottish Airs for the Voice.

Both Northern English and Southern Scots shared in the identified tradition of Border ballads, particularly evinced by the cross-border narrative in versions of "The Ballad of Chevy Chase" sometimes associated with the Lancashire-born sixteenth-century minstrel Richard Sheale. It has been suggested that the increasing interest in traditional popular ballads during the eighteenth century was prompted by social issues such as the enclosure movement as many of the ballads deal with themes concerning rural laborers. James Davey has suggested that the common themes of sailing and naval battles may also have prompted the use (at least in England) of popular ballads as naval recruitment tools.

Key work on the traditional ballad was undertaken in the late 19th century in Denmark by Svend Grundtvig and for England and Scotland by the Harvard professor Francis James Child. They attempted to record and classify all the known ballads and variants in their chosen regions. Since Child died before writing a commentary on his work it is uncertain exactly how and why he differentiated the 305 ballads printed that would be published as The English and Scottish Popular Ballads. There have been many different and contradictory attempts to classify traditional ballads by theme, but commonly identified types are the religious, supernatural, tragic, love ballads, historic, legendary and humorous. The traditional form and content of the ballad were modified to form the basis for twenty-three bawdy pornographic ballads that appeared in the underground Victorian magazine The Pearl, which ran for eighteen issues between 1879 and 1880. Unlike the traditional ballad, these obscene ballads aggressively mocked sentimental nostalgia and local lore.

Broadsides
Broadside ballads (also known as 'broadsheet', 'stall', 'vulgar' or 'come all ye' ballads) were a product of the development of cheap print in the 16th century. They were generally printed on one side of a medium to large sheet of poor quality paper. In the first half of the 17th century, they were printed in black-letter or gothic type and included multiple, eye-catching illustrations, a popular tune title, as well as an alluring poem. By the 18th century, they were printed in white letter or roman type and often without much decoration (as well as tune title). These later sheets could include many individual songs, which would be cut apart and sold individually as "slip songs." Alternatively, they might be folded to make small cheap books or "chapbooks" which often drew on ballad stories. They were produced in huge numbers, with over 400,000 being sold in England annually by the 1660s. Tessa Watt estimates the number of copies sold may have been in the millions. Many were sold by travelling chapmen in city streets or at fairs. The subject matter varied from what has been defined as the traditional ballad, although many traditional ballads were printed as broadsides. Among the topics were love, marriage, religion, drinking-songs, legends, and early journalism, which included disasters, political events and signs, wonders and prodigies.

Literary ballads
Literary or lyrical ballads grew out of an increasing interest in the ballad form among social elites and intellectuals, particularly in the Romantic movement from the later 18th century. Respected literary figures Robert Burns and Walter Scott in Scotland collected and wrote their own ballads. Similarly in England William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge produced a collection of Lyrical Ballads in 1798 that included Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Keats were attracted to the simple and natural style of these folk ballads and tried to imitate it. At the same time in Germany Goethe cooperated with Schiller on a series of ballads, some of which were later set to music by Schubert. Later important examples of the poetic form included Rudyard Kipling's "Barrack-Room Ballads" (1892-6) and Oscar Wilde's The Ballad of Reading Gaol (1897).

Ballad operas
In the 18th century ballad operas developed as a form of English stage entertainment, partly in opposition to the Italian domination of the London operatic scene. It consisted of racy and often satirical spoken (English) dialogue, interspersed with songs that are deliberately kept very short to minimize disruptions to the flow of the story. Rather than the more aristocratic themes and music of the Italian opera, the ballad operas were set to the music of popular folk songs and dealt with lower-class characters. Subject matter involved the lower, often criminal, orders, and typically showed a suspension (or inversion) of the high moral values of the Italian opera of the period.

The first, most important and successful was The Beggar's Opera of 1728, with a libretto by John Gay and music arranged by John Christopher Pepusch, both of whom probably influenced by Parisian vaudeville and the burlesques and musical plays of Thomas d'Urfey (1653–1723), a number of whose collected ballads they used in their work. Gay produced further works in this style, including a sequel under the title Polly. Henry Fielding, Colley Cibber, Arne, Dibdin, Arnold, Shield, Jackson of Exeter, Hook and many others produced ballad operas that enjoyed great popularity. Ballad opera was attempted in America and Prussia. Later it moved into a more pastoral form, like Isaac Bickerstaffe's Love in a Village (1763) and Shield's Rosina (1781), using more original music that imitated, rather than reproduced, existing ballads. Although the form declined in popularity towards the end of the 18th century its influence can be seen in light operas like that of Gilbert and Sullivan's early works like The Sorcerer as well as in the modern musical.

In the 20th century, one of the most influential plays, Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht's (1928) The Threepenny Opera was a reworking of The Beggar's Opera, setting a similar story with the same characters, and containing much of the same satirical bite, but only using one tune from the original. The term ballad opera has also been used to describe musicals using folk music, such as The Martins and the Coys in 1944, and Peter Bellamy's The Transports in 1977. The satiric elements of ballad opera can be seen in some modern musicals such as Chicago and Cabaret.

American ballads
Some 300 ballads sung in North America have been identified as having origins in Scottish traditional or broadside ballads. Examples include 'The Streets of Laredo', which was found in Britain and Ireland as 'The Unfortunate Rake'; however, a further 400 have been identified as originating in America, including among the best known, 'The Ballad of Davy Crockett' and 'Jesse James'. They became an increasing area of interest for scholars in the 19th century and most were recorded or catalogued by George Malcolm Laws, although some have since been found to have British origins and additional songs have since been collected. They are usually considered closest in form to British broadside ballads and in terms of style are largely indistinguishable, however, they demonstrate a particular concern with occupations, journalistic style and often lack the ribaldry of British broadside ballads.

Blues ballads
The blues ballad has been seen as a fusion of Anglo-American and Afro-American styles of music from the 19th century. Blues ballads tend to deal with active protagonists, often anti-heroes, resisting adversity and authority, but frequently lacking a strong narrative and emphasising character instead. They were often accompanied by banjo and guitar which followed the blues musical format. The most famous blues ballads include those about John Henry and Casey Jones.

Bush ballads
The ballad was taken to Australia by early settlers from Britain and Ireland and gained particular foothold in the rural outback. The rhyming songs, poems and tales written in the form of ballads often relate to the itinerant and rebellious spirit of Australia in The Bush, and the authors and performers are often referred to as bush bards. The 19th century was the golden age of bush ballads. Several collectors have catalogued the songs including John Meredith whose recording in the 1950s became the basis of the collection in the National Library of Australia. The songs tell personal stories of life in the wide open country of Australia. Typical subjects include mining, raising and droving cattle, sheep shearing, wanderings, war stories, the 1891 Australian shearers' strike, class conflicts between the landless working class and the squatters (landowners), and outlaws such as Ned Kelly, as well as love interests and more modern fare such as trucking. The most famous bush ballad is "Waltzing Matilda", which has been called "the unofficial national anthem of Australia".

Sentimental ballads
Sentimental ballads, sometimes called "tear-jerkers" or "drawing-room ballads" owing to their popularity with the middle classes, had their origins in the early "Tin Pan Alley" music industry of the later 19th century. They were generally sentimental, narrative, strophic songs published separately or as part of an opera (descendants perhaps of broadside ballads, but with printed music, and usually newly composed). Such songs include "Little Rosewood Casket" (1870), "After the Ball" (1892) and "Danny Boy". The association with sentimentality led to the term "ballad" being used for slow love songs from the 1950s onwards. Modern variations include "jazz ballads", "pop ballads", "rock ballads", "R&B ballads" and "power ballads".

References and further reading

 * Dugaw, Dianne. Deep Play: John Gay and the Invention of Modernity. Newark, Del.: University of Delaware Press, 2001. Print.
 * Randel, Don (1986). The New Harvard Dictionary of Music. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. ISBN 0-674-61525-5.
 * Winton, Calhoun. John Gay and the London Theatre. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1993. Print.
 * Marcello Sorce Keller, "Sul castel di mirabel: Life of a Ballad in Oral Tradition and Choral Practice", Ethnomusicology, XXX(1986), no. 3, 449- 469.
 * Winton, Calhoun. John Gay and the London Theatre. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1993. Print.
 * Marcello Sorce Keller, "Sul castel di mirabel: Life of a Ballad in Oral Tradition and Choral Practice", Ethnomusicology, XXX(1986), no. 3, 449- 469.
 * Marcello Sorce Keller, "Sul castel di mirabel: Life of a Ballad in Oral Tradition and Choral Practice", Ethnomusicology, XXX(1986), no. 3, 449- 469.

title: Ballad


text:
Talk:Blind Blake

What's My Line
Blake was briefly mentioned in a TV-show called "What's My Line" from around the 1950's by the show's host, John Charles Patrick Croghan Daly. This episode at least was on YouTube many years ago. I saw this episode and noted that I knew a reference to a person mentioned on that show, and that I know and have tried to play Blind Blake's music. Long after that I googled Blind Blake. Back then his grave was apparently unmarked and his life was not documented much, at least here on Wikipedia. John Daly mentioned him to a guest on the show as if everyone at that time would have obviously heard of and known Blind Blake, and how he was one of the greatest musicians, or a pioneer. Knowing this, one might find more clues and information on Blake and his life to fill some gaps. Whomever it was that John Daly was speaking to, John Daly himself, and the panel all might have been familiar with Blake in one way or another. — Preceding unsigned comment added by LauHir (talk • contribs) 09:57, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

Untitled
Blind Blake is probably the finest guitarist of his era.Too bad he is not the most famous.Just for fun try playing in is style.It's very difficult to master.Thats all the proof you should need.Cheers .....James Anthony

I'd go further. I think he was the greatest guitarist of any genre, of any era. The only one who comes close is Rev. Gary Davis. Blake was unbelievable--and he did it blind.--Susan Nunes 19 March 2008 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.228.62.224 (talk) 22:12, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Wanting to play Diddie Wah Diddie made me approach the guitar seriously for the first time in years, and also made me do without a pick (after being too lazy to learn to play with right hand fingers). And you're right it IS fun. Blake afficionado Woody Mann has an excellent DVD which takes you through some of BB's songs. (Nick Sweeney)

Was Blind Blake visually blind? if he was, say he was, in additon say "hence the name Blind" --SuperDude 01:27, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * Yep. -- Infrogmation 04:38, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I'm not convinced that he was blind. Where is this documented? It's possible that he was just what we'd call "Legally blind" ie didn't have great vision, and that the name "Blind Blake" is an exaggerated moniker. Although I have no proof I've got a feeling that him being legally blind is more likely than totally blind. Of course I've got no evidence to back that thing up. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.85.245.11 (talk) 23:20, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Blind Blake's playing is truly spectacular. Listen to "West Coast Blues", "Seaboard Stomp", or "Southern Rag" and you'll hear what I mean. Nobody has ever come close to his level of virtuosity, particularly his rolling bass patterns and tricky chord substitutions. He makes it sound so easy, and his rhythmic sense is just incredible - rock solid. Blake has, in my opinion, been undervalued. There has been so much attention focused on delta blues artists that people like Blake have fallen between the cracks. He recorded during the first wave of male blues singers, but was really more of a jazz guitarist. Check out "Hot Potatoes" and "Southbound Rag" with legendary clarinetist Johnny Dodds to get an idea of how well Blake's playing anchors a great jazz soloist. He certainly would have held his own with the likes of Louis Armstrong, and in fact most of his recordings are closer in style to the hot jazz of the time than to blues. The word "ragtime" is somewhat misleading in reference to Blake, as there is much more of a stride piano (Blake also played piano- see "Let Your Love Come Down") feel to his sound. People tend to use the word "ragtime" rather than "jazz", forgetting that the jazz of the mid-late 20s was very different than what would later evolve. Would early Armstrong be labeled "ragtime"? Of course not. Neither should Blake. CDavlin 03:30, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

"Only known photo"
Out of mere curiosity, is the "author" (for lack of a better word) of the provided photo in the article sure of that photo being the only one in existence? I only ask because there is another supposed photo of Blind Blake here. --Celestialroad (talk) 00:45, 22 August 2010 (UTC)
 * That foto you refer to (typically for some internet sources created by robots instead of human beings) shows the other (Bahamian) "Blind Blake" !!! (Don't follow leaders, watch the parking meters ;-) StefanWirz (talk) 09:13, 22 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Oh I see. That explains it then. Thank you! --Celestialroad (talk) 16:58, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Is it worth mentioning that several "photoshopped" variations of that picture are used on various different album and compilation covers? Search Blind Blake on Amazon. Brendanmccabe (talk) 00:52, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

"unmarked grave"
It appears that his grave now has a marker: http://stefangrossmansguitarworkshop.yuku.com/topic/3689/Blind-Blake-s-gravestone-is-finished#.UQ6L21rDSTY — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pklipp (talk • contribs) 17:15, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

title: Talk:Blind Blake


text:
Talk:Big bang

Protected edit request on 19 September 2014
Could the following text:

...please be replaced with the following text:

R fully protected

...so that the redirect is is put into the category via a tranclusion in an Rcat template rather than a category transclusion? Thanks! Steel1943 (talk) 05:44, 19 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Done — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:06, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

Protected edit request on 18 December 2023
Please add inside the Redirect category shell.

Best, —a smart kitten[ meow] 16:50, 18 December 2023 (UTC)
 * ✅ * Pppery * it has begun... 16:54, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

Protected edit request on 11 March 2024
-per WP:REDCAT 2003  LN  6  18:33, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

Better:

Other capitalization, not miscapitalization, per commonly lowercase in sources. In fact, MOS:CAPS and WP:AT suggest we should use the lowercase in the title, but that would need more discussion. Dicklyon (talk) 22:47, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I've removed the protection. You two can argue over what rcats to use following normal editing processes. * Pppery * it has begun... 20:29, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

title: Talk:Big bang