July 5, 2022 • 47 mins
Before the HBO Max series, 'Our Flag Means Death,' Stede Bonnet was a footnote of history, an aristocrat who partnered with, and then was betrayed by, Blackbeard. But the full story of Stede Bonnet is a fascinating saga, equal parts comedy and tragedy.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of I Heart Radio,
and Grim and Mild from Aaron Manky Listener Discretion, advised,
genius or insanity. Those were Edward teaches two working theories
(00:25):
as to why the quaint sixty ton sloop known as
the Revenge was currently anchored in a small pirate harbor
off the coast of the Bahamas. Mere days after the
Revenger's arrival, the docks were already a buzz with rumors
and speculation about the ship, primarily because of the state
in which it had sailed into port, or more accurately
(00:48):
washed into port. The vessel still bore the scars of
its most recent misadventure. Red stains and splintered wood marred
the Revenge's deck, only hastily wiped away by what little
remained of their crew. If Edward Teach was being honest,
he was surprised the Revenge was still afloat at all.
(01:09):
There was almost no scenario in which a glorified dinghy
like the Revenge, really any pirate ship at all, should
have survived a run in with a goliath like that
of a Spanish warship at the time seventeen seventeen, a
typical government sanctioned man of war could have easily held
well over a hundred guns. The Revenge had ten, though
(01:34):
after the devastating defeat against the Spanish warship, the Revenge's
eccentric captain made sure to outfit their artillery with an
additional two guns, you know, to make up for losing
half the crew and nearly his own life. Which brought
Edward Teach back to his original question and the reason
(01:55):
he found himself knocking on the door to the Revenge's
captain's quarters. Was it genius or insanity that had led
this captain to steer his crew to almost certain death?
The answer, of course, was the one theory Teach had
not thought to consider in the first place, stupidity. It
(02:17):
was past the captain's doors and into his private residence
that Teach found himself standing face to face with the
fanciful night shirts and vast collection of books adorning the
cabin of one Steed Bonnet, or, as he would one
day come to be known, the Gentleman Pirate. Today, the
(02:38):
name Steed Bonnet is often relegated to a footnote amongst
the larger legends associated with the quote Golden Age of Piracy,
until a recent television series on HBO Max, he was
almost entirely forgotten by all but the most passionate students
of eighteenth century history. His import had really only ever
(03:00):
been measured by the interactions he had with more infamous pirates.
But to Edward Teach in that moment, Steve Bonnet was
no such footnote. He was an idiot, sure, but more
than that, he was a mystery, an opportunity. For so long,
Teach had only been a part of other men's crews,
(03:22):
just waiting for the day he could take on a
ship and a crew of his own, And now suddenly
here he stood next to the incompetent Oath who was
unknowingly handing Teach his freedom and his future on a
silver platter. Bonnet had a ship, but he needed a crew,
(03:42):
and frankly, he needed a captain to lead them while
he healed from his injuries. What happened once his wounds
healed would be an issue for a later date, when
he was sure he could handle. As he continued to
stare at the spectacle of a man before him, and
for the first time since stepping on board, Teach felt
the lips he hid under his considerable Beard pull into
(04:06):
a genuine smile, he held out his hand to the
captain and introduced himself, not by his given name, but
by the name borne out of years of infamy on
the high seas, a name that sent even the most
fearsome of foes cowering in their boots. He introduced himself
as Blackbeard. The two shook hands and made their deal.
(04:31):
Blackbeard would take the revenge temporarily while steed Bonnet healed.
But unbeknown to them, with that handshake also came the
promise of their end, for by the end of December
the following year, both pirates would be dead. But as
Blackbeard stared at steed Bonnet, clad in ruffles and what
(04:54):
he was sure was a posture held only by those
raised sucking on silver spoons, the infamous pirate captain couldn't
help but imagine a different life for himself, one where
he stood at the helm of a mighty ship and
the horizon was suddenly within reach. I'm Dani Schwartz, and
(05:15):
this is noble blood. Given that the name itself is gilded,
it's hard not to romanticize the arrow we've come to
(05:37):
recognize as the Golden age of piracy. Little more than
a skull and crossbones is needed before our subconscious starts
humming shanties and conjuring pictures of open oceans and overflowing
treasure chests. But the reality, as per usual, was not
as carefree as a drunkenly stumbling Jack Sparrow might have
(05:59):
you believe. Evening the life of a pirate was not
one chosen lightly. In fact, it was rarely chosen at all.
Most crew members found themselves forced into this sort of
life through dire financial straits. It was also common for
black men to use piracy as a means to escape
the Atlantic slave trade. That's not to say that life
(06:22):
at sea was free from racial prejudice, but a life
of poverty on a ship as a freeman was still
preferable to life as a slave on the mainland. So
while we often pair the title pirate with the likes
of Orlando Bloom, in reality it was much less swashbuckling
rogue saving swooning maidens, and more desperate fugitives doing whatever
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they could to stay alive and not behind bars or enslaved,
which is perhaps why the story of Steed Bonnet, the
man who actively chose to abandon his life of luxury
to take up a life of piracy continues to confound
and fascinate us to this day. But before anyone had
ever heard of the gentleman pirate, Steed was just a
(07:09):
boy born into your typical wealthy landowning family profiting off
slave labor in early eighteenth century Barbados. Due to his
parents early deaths. By the age of six, Bonnet had
inherited his family's estate, which boasted over four hundred acres
of sugar crops, a mill dedicated to the production of
(07:30):
cane sugar, and over ninety enslaved laborers, along with a
litany of servants who catered to Steed's every need. Given
little other choice, Bonnet was raised to follow the course
his parents life had set out for him. And even
though there is no historical basis for it, I like
to imagine a tiny six year old Seed Bonnet sitting
(07:52):
at his father's desk in his newly inherited study, his
stubby legs still too short to reach the floor, swinging
I'd leave beneath the table while he stares at Ledger
after Ledger, trying to make sense of his late father's
sugar enterprise, only to remember that he can't read. More likely,
the business affairs of the Bonnet estate were taken over
(08:14):
by Steed's next of kin until he came of age,
but that by no means changes the fact that Steed
was born and raised to believe that the Barbadian sugar
trade would be his future. At twenty one, he married
a young woman whose family also came from the Barbadian
social elite. But apart from that and the four children
they had together, the couple would have little else in common.
(08:37):
Then again, Bonnet held little in common with most of
the members of the high society life he had been
born into. He may have technically been made a major
in the Barbadian militia due mostly to his status as
a slaveholder and landowner, but his interests quickly became skewed
towards the enemies of the militia that he was set
(08:57):
to defend against the careers of pirates. At this time,
we're far from private, and Bonnet, the bookish scholar that
he was, made sure to keep himself exceptionally up to
date on any and all things pirate. He was a
militiaman after all, and in some reports even a justice
of the peace. He had to be aware of the
(09:18):
villains washing up on their shores, at least until he
became one himself. Now, there are many conflicting theories as
to why Bonnet began his pirate exploits. Some say the
impetus for his escape from high society stemmed from his
poor relationship with his wife, But I do think it's
(09:39):
important to note that there is little information on the
exact nature of Bonnet's relationship with his wife, and the
reports we do have are questionable. Some sources call his
wife quote nagging, while others, like Charles Johnson in his
seventeen twenty four publication A General History of Pirates, merely
(10:00):
cited quote some discomforts he found in a married state.
Other scholars suggest Bonnet may have been suffering from some
form of mental illness. However, this leads us into the
murky waters of posthumous diagnoses, which remains largely unhelpful when
contextualizing bonnet story on a larger scale. The truth is
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we will never know the real reason Bonnet chose to
abandon the comforts of his affluent life. It's easy to
point fingers at nagging wives or mental illness to come
to conclusions, but Ultimately, those reasons are built off assumptions
and biases that lack anything close to actual supported evidence.
(10:43):
All this to say Steed could have succumbed to the
pressures associated with any and all of the aforementioned stressors
in his life, but he could have just as likely
been having the world's most extreme midlife crisis. And while
Bonnet may have made up his mind to leave his
old life behind, that by no means meant that he
(11:05):
had any sort of idea what he was actually doing.
All Bonnet really knew was that in order to become
a pirate he needed two things, a ship and a crew.
The former was acquired simply enough. Bonnets pockets were deep
enough to encourage the builders to turn to blind eye
to the eccentric aristocrat who demanded a library be built
(11:28):
into the captain's quarters of his ship. Finding a crew
was a harder sell. A pirate crew was typically bought
in the same way a pirate ship would be on
the high seas, through theft or mutiny. But since Bonnett
had decided to forego traditional pirate code and build himself
a ship of his own, getting a crew to work
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under him, a land lover with exactly zero experience out
on open ocean was a recipe for disaster. But far
be it from Bonnet to let something as inconsequential as
inexperience keep him from following through on a truly terrible idea.
His solution a fair wage. Seeing as he was perpetually
(12:12):
one small misstep away from having his crew replace him
with a captain who was far more capable, Bonnet made
the one move he suspected would keep them in his favor.
On a normal pirate ship, crew members were paid a
percentage of the plunder they received, but Bonnet, aware of
his already unorthodox method of acquiring his ship, doubled down
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to match the needs of his crew. With a steady income,
they would be less likely to replace him with someone better.
And so, in spring seventeen seventeen, with his shiny new boat,
begrudgingly acceptant crew, and an overabundance of unearned confidence, Steve
Bonnet set sail from Barbados on the vessel he had
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named for probably no other reason other than that he
thought it sounded cool. The revenge now, whether it was
due to his cruise knowledge of the trade or the
universe taking pity on him, bonnet initial venture into piracy
went surprisingly well. The Revenge successfully overtook upwards of eight
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ships of varying sizes, stripping each of their valuables before
they've swiftly moved on to their next target. He only
stopped if you wanted to set fire to a ship
he plundered, a practice that he suspiciously only acted upon
when the ship was native to Barbados. Some historians theorized
that Bonnet may not have wanted news of his criminal
(13:42):
activities reaching home, but soon enough no amount of arson
could keep tales of the Revenge's exploits at bay. Despite
his string of early successes, Bonnet's lucky streak officially came
to an end in September seventeen seventeen, when he and
his crew came face to face with a Spanish man
(14:04):
of war. After a skirmish that left the Revenge with
half its crew and more or less half a captain,
the remaining men made the decision to head towards the
known pirate harbor Nasa off the coast of the Bahamas.
Cut to Edward Teach, the infamous Blackbeard, staring with a
(14:24):
mixture of disdain and awe at the battered ship and
equally battered captain. Perhaps the most peculiar pirate he'd ever met,
Steed Bonnet. Steed was everything a pirate shouldn't have been, wealthy, educated,
well mannered. There was no reason for him to have
(14:44):
ended up in a pirate harbor. Both him and his
ship riddled with the scars of battle. But once Blackbeard
was able to look past the lavish dressing gown and
entirely impractical library at sea, Blackbeard saw Bonnet as the
opportunity that he was. After bonnets debacle with the Spanish Navy,
(15:06):
it was no secret that Bonnet's crew was unimpressed by
their lackluster excuse of a captain, and now that the
former aristocrat could barely leave his bed because of his injuries,
it was becoming increasingly difficult to ignore the fact that
the Revenge needed a real captain. If Steve didn't appoint one,
his crew might take matters into their own hands and
(15:28):
make that decision for him. Luckily for Bonnet, Blackbeard was
more than happy to step into the role. After setting
sail from Nassau with its new captain at the helm,
the Revenge steadily made its way up the coast, leaving
a trail of destruction cast carelessly behind them. Any vessel
unlucky enough to be caught in their path was subject
(15:50):
to the typical looting and plundering of any pirate raid.
Jewels were stolen, coins were pocketed, and casks of Madeira wine,
rum and ammune Shian were plucked like they sat on
grocery store shelves instead of in the halls of merchant ships.
But Blackbeard, always the overachiever, didn't stop there after he'd
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taken his fill. He would order his crew to dump
any and all extra cargo that they weren't planning on
taking with them, just because he could. And while tales
of Blackbeard's villainous exploits echoed off the walls of almost
every tavern up and down the Atlantic coast, whispers of
a peculiar gentleman draped in finery aboard the revenge were
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swiftly making the rounds as well. In the months since
his near brush with death with the Spanish Bonnet, had
recovered from the majority of his injuries, only to find
himself in the peculiar position of being a guest in
his own home. Though guests may have been too generous
a term, he may have owned the ship and paid
(16:58):
the crew, but he been sleeping in the captain's quarters.
Didn't change the fact that the Revenge was becoming more
of a prison than his luscious state in Barbados had
ever been. At the time, seating his role as captain
to Blackbeard had seemed like the only logical choice, But
as Bonnet grew stronger, he also became acutely aware that
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his crew had little, if any remaining loyalty to him,
not that this was at all surprising. During one instance,
when Bonnet was momentarily given back control of the Revenge,
the ill equipped gentleman pirate threatened an oncoming merchant vessel
that he and his crew would quote do them mischief
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unless they came aboard and shared a meal with them,
not exactly the type of behavior that instills fear and
loyalty in pirate ranks. When the crew all but begged
Blackbeard to stay on as captain, Bonnet felt the carefully
crafted pirate fantasy he had built for himself slipping through
his fingers. Trapped aboard a ship he'd bought to escape
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his former life, the disgruntled former aristocrat fell into a
deep depression, confiding in one of his few remaining loyal
crew members, his newfound, though predictably familiar, desire to now
leave behind his life of piracy for a quieter existence abroad,
maybe Spain or Portugal, his real only prerequisite being the
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country's protection against being extradited for piracy crimes. Strangely enough,
the answer to bonnet prayers would come from the British
Crown itself, in the form of a decree called a
Proclamation for Suppressing of Pirates, or, as it was better known,
the Act of Grace. Across the Atlantic, the repercussions of
(18:55):
the quote Golden Age of piracy were finally beginning to effect.
In England, King George the First was facing pressure from
merchants and shareholders to enact some sort of measure to
quell the exponentially growing crime rate on the high Seas.
Their livelihoods were quite literally being dumped in the ocean.
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His solution, which on the surface appears slightly counterintuitive, was
to offer a pardon to any and all pirates who
surrendered themselves to the Crown before the fifth of January
that year. It gave pirates like Bonnet the opportunity to
turn themselves in with next to no consequences save their
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promise never to practice piracy against the Crown ever again. Now,
if that offer sounds a little too good to be true,
you wouldn't be the only one to think so. The
language of the proclamation made it clear that the Crown
only offered quote promise of a pardon, which, if pop
culture rhetoric has taught us anything about pirates, it's that
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a promise to or from one is about as binding
as a scrap of masking tape, or, you know, a
marriage contract with Steed Bonnet. Needless to say, there was
a fair amount of skepticism in the pirate community towards
the King's pardon, leading some historians to theorize that Blackbeard,
with his general distrust of authority and recently acquired small
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fleet of pirate vessels, sent Bonnet to the town of
Bath to acquire a pardon for himself as a test
before he attempted to procure one of his own. For
Bonnet's part, it didn't take much to convince him to
seek the pardon for himself, especially since one could argue
running away from his problems was historically Steed's favorite pastime.
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It probably took even less convincing for Bonnet to leave
his ship and his crew in the care of Blackbeard.
As he set sail on a small dinghy inland to
settle his affairs. Maybe he even waved back to his
crew as they grew into small dots on the horizon,
as he felt the weight he'd been holding onto as
a pseudo captain turned guests turned prisoner, lifting with every
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inch he floated closer to land. But Steed's old crew
aboard The Revenge wouldn't have seen the small hand waving
toward them in the distance. No, just a Steed Bonnet
stepped on land toward what he was sure would be
a brighter future. His old hired crew was just realizing
that black Beard and black Beard's own pre Revenge crew
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had just turned their weapons against them. Now, if there
was an official rule book on how to be a pirate,
I imagine the first rule would be printed in all
caps across the front page, bolded, highlighted, and double underlined,
never trust a pirate. Unfortunately, for Bonnet, such a book
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was not held in his fully stocked library aboard The Revenge,
and black Beard wasted no time taking advantage of bonnet
ignorance to strip the Revenge of any and all things
of value to their horror. This unfortunately included Bonnet's original crew, who,
thanks to the very captain they had so very recently
(22:15):
switched their allegiance too, were left marooned on an island
near Topsail Inlet, off the coast of North Carolina. Because,
of course, Blackbeard was the type of petty not only
to strip the Revenge clean of everything save a few
barrels of food, but to take his crew just to
maroon them on an island so that Bonnet couldn't have them.
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When Blackbeard initially took command of the Revenge, he had
managed to assemble a hundred and fifty men after the
Spanish navy had all but decimated bonnets already modest crew
of seventy five. But as rumor of the Revenge's exploit spread,
soon even the men they were robbing we're begging to
join their company. In one instance, upon crossing paths with
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the Revenge, a merchant ship willingly surrendered and pledged their
loyalty to Blackbeard rather than suffer the consequences of their
most likely imminent demise. As time went on, what had
started as a mere hundred fifty aboard one lone damaged
ship mounted to upwards a four hundred men spread across
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several vessels. And while this may have sounded like a
good thing, Bonnets and by extent, the Revenge is dead
weight was becoming more apparent by the day, especially since
any raid Blackbeard undertook had to be split amongst all
of his crew, and plunder shared four hundred ways didn't
come with the same sense of satisfaction or the amount
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of money it would with a smaller group, And since
Blackbeard was essentially cleaning house after Steed, it was clear
that steedsmen had to go. Meanwhile, in Bath, Bonnet had
successfully expunged his record of all criminal pirate activity, and
he was more than ready to set sail aboard his
ship onto the next chapter of his life. Unfortunately for him,
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this was also the point in which he finally noticed
the metaphorical knife that had been sticking out of his
back ever since he'd landed on the mainland when he
stepped aboard the Revenge after just three days away. Remember,
he was always planning on coming back to his ship.
He just wanted to clear his pirate record. He was
planning on taking the ship that he owned to wherever
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he would live next. But he now realized he owned
a ghost ship. It was little more than a hollowed
out husk of driftwood, run aground and completely abandoned in
his absence. There's a metaphor in there somewhere, but even Bonnet,
a man so fond of literature that he built a
library at sea, was in no mood to appreciate it.
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Once upon a time he had named his ship the Revenge,
but taking stock of his empty sloop and completely missing crew,
quickly changed it from name to a purpose. And when
he eventually found his few remaining men marooned and left
to die on an uninhabited island, for once, the skeptical
crew and their inept gentleman pirate were in agreement. Blackbeard
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was going to pay. Unfortunately, I have to spoil the
ending to this particular part of the story and tell
you Blackbeard did not pay, at least not by Bonnet's hands.
As great the tale of the revengees Revenge would have been,
apart from a handful of near missus, the two enemy
captains would never cross paths again in their lifetime. Bonnet, however,
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didn't know this yet, and quickly made it his life's
mission to make Blackbeard suffer for his treachery for turning
the Revenge into a black Beard franchise and then completely
abandoning it. The first amongst a series of hiccups in
Steve Bonnet's plans proved to be the most problematic one. Technically,
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he was no longer a pirate, at least he wasn't
supposed to be according to the terms of his pardon.
The ink had barely dried on Bonnet's pardon before he
was already about to break the only term of his agreement. Granted,
he was given little other choice. Blackbeard had left the
Revenge with nothing but a few casks of food, and
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after failing to secure a privateering commission from the governor
following his pardon, Bonnet forged ahead the only way he
knew how. This time, Bonnet began conducting his pirate business
under the name Captain Thomas and sailing a ship that
looked remarkably similar to the Revenge, but was instead named
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the Royal James. And to ensure that bonnet activities were
relatively above board, he made sure that all of his
run ins with merchant vessels were classified as trades, even
if he stole everything but the shirts off their backs
in exchange for maybe a small parcel of rice or,
in one case, an old anchor cable. Originally, the Royal
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James only quote traded out of necessity, but by July
seventeen eighteen, the gentleman pirate and his crew had once
again fully abandoned all charades of diplomacy in favor of
embracing the pirate life. In the summer of seventeen eighteen,
the Royal James was on an extended, glorified shopping spree,
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boarding merchant vessels and taking their fill before going off
to find their next victims. During this time, Bonnet managed
to add two more sloops and a handful of new
crew members to a small but mighty fleet. Soon after
acquiring the new ships, the Francis and the Fortune, Bonnet
and his men sailed their way into the Cape Fear
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River Estuary off the coast of North Carolina, only to
find that they had a much more practical problem on
their hands. The Royal James had a leak as the
ship began to take on more and more water, and
the Atlantic hurricane season was closing in. Bonnet and his
crew had no choice but to make landfall to fix
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their flagship vessel and wait out the bad weather. By
late August, word of Bonnet's extended stay in the Cape
Fear River had reached Charlestown, and the Governor of South
Carolina was less than pleased. Even though Bonnet's location was
technically in North Carolina, outside the governor's jurisdiction, Governor Johnson
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was not prepared to let someone with Steve Bonnet's lengthy
criminal history and ties to arguably one of the most
nefarious pirates of their time, lounge about on a beach nearby,
and so on September six, seventeen eighteen, Colonel William Rhett
found himself sailing into the Cape Fear River mouth with
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two government ships and one hundred and thirty militiamen on
a commission from Governor Johnson to carry out the capture
and arrest of Steed Bonnet and the crew of the
Royal James. Meanwhile, from further up the waterway, Steed Bonnet
held his spyglass to his eye and squinted at the
blurry shapes he saw bobbing in the distance. Now, he
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may not have been the most experienced pirate, but Bonnet
was at least sure that the masses he saw were
ships merchant vessels, if he was not mistaken, and it
was under that assumption that Bonnet sent three canoes full
of his crew to go off and capture the mysterious
merchant ships in the river mouth. However, as his men
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drifted closer, the sight of the British Naval flag quickly
enlightened bonnet crew as to the reality of their situation.
The men hastily scrambled to turn around and sail back
to warn their captain about the imminent attack. But when
they returned, they realized that the Royal Navy's ships behind
them weren't moving at all. In fact, act, it seemed
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as though one of the vessels was stalled in the
opening of the estuary. Aboard the British naval ship, the Henry,
poor Colonel Rhett was having a rough day. With Bonnet
in his sights. The Henry sped towards its target, only
to be abruptly jarred to a halt as its hull
scraped the bottom of the Cape Fear River. Without any
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way to free itself from its sandy prison, the Henry
transformed from dangerous adversary to only slightly intimidating art installation.
As the tide continued to drop lower and lower, and
so with the British Navy stuck in the entrance to
the harbor and Bonnet and his men unable to flee
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due to rhet blocking their only escape route, all parties
were forced to angrily brood in their respective corners until
the moon inevitably turned the tides in one of their favors.
By the time the Henry finally managed to get itself
back on the water, the sun had long since disappeared
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below the horizon, and even Bonnet was not so foolish
as to attempt to navigate the rocky estuary in the dark. Together.
He and the crew of the Royal James decided to
wait until morning before taking any action, but as the
moon rose, bonnet patients waned. Before long, even the crew
had taken note of his erratic behavior. By the late
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hours of the night, the once timid aristocrat had all
but vanished, eclipsed by the shadow of a man being
forced to watch the last of his freedom wash away
with the tide. The wounds of Blackbeard's betrayal still stung
fresh in his memory, and as he and the crew
of the Royal James waited for the sun to rise,
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Bonnet couldn't help but see treachery etched into the faces
around him. With nothing else to do, Bonnet set about
preparing his men for battle, assembling the forty or so
men that he'd scattered amongst his three vessels, and bringing
them together aboard the Royal James to defend their flagship
and its captain. Predictably, some of the men were less
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than enthusiastic when asked to put their life on the line,
to which Bonnet simply responded, quote if anyone refused to fight,
he would blow their brains out. It was also at
this point that, with no one left to yell at,
Bonnett returned to his captain's quarters to write a letter
to the Governor of South Carolina, because when in doubt,
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always asked to speak to the manager. In his letter,
he condemned the governor for his actions against him and
his crew, and he ended the message explaining that should
Rhett follow through on his attack come daybreak, he would
not hesitate to quote, burn and destroy all ships and
vessels going in or coming out of South Carolina, but
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as the sun rose over the Atlantic, any words uttered
by on it, written or otherwise were swiftly forgotten. The
Royal James was the first to make a move, launching
full speed ahead towards the Henry, hoping Rhet would take
the bait and chase them out of the harbor and
into the open ocean, where they would make their escape. However,
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in order to complete this maneuver, the Royal James was
forced to avoid the Henry in the relatively narrow river
mouth by binging close to the shore, which predictably was
when everything once again devolved into chaos. Rhett, realizing what
Bonnet was attempting to do, used the advantage of having
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two vessels to try to flank the Royal James on
either side, only for Rhett to feel the familiar, dreaded
scrape of sand below, dragging the Henry to a halt. Two.
Colonel Rhett's horror, the other ships sent with him the
Sea Nymph had run aground as well, meaning instead of
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corralling it on either side, they had given him a
runway in which to sail off to freedom, except, of course,
they hadn't, because, just as Bonnet gleefully came to the
same conclusion and barreled forward to greet his victory upon
the open ocean. The Royal James two came to a
(34:19):
screeching halt as its hull found the warm embrace of
the Cape Fear River floor, and suddenly, for the second
time in twenty four hours, Rhett and Bonnet were stuck
twiddling their thumbs and staring at each other while they
waited for the tide to release them from their oddly
specific purgatories. However, this time, the Royal James had managed
(34:44):
to beat itself in such a way that they were
within shooting distance of the Henry, which led the crews
of both vessels to fire recklessly at each other as
they waited out their stalemate. Bullets and taunt were exchanged
an equal measure over the following six hours, until at
last fate chose the Henry to be the winner, when
(35:06):
Rhett carefully maneuvered his ship so that the Royal James
was effectively staring down the barrels of their cannons. Bonnet
finally waved the white flag and surrendered himself to be
taken into custody at Charlestown, but of course, Steed being Steed,
he was not planning on staying there for long. For
(35:28):
all the trouble it had taken to apprehend Steed Bonnet
and bring him into custody, their welcome upon arriving in
Charlestown was surprisingly underwhelming. For one, Charlestown had yet to
build a suitable prison to hold the more than thirty
pirates Governor Johnson now had in his custody. Improvising, the
Governor had Bonnet crew put in a spare, one story
(35:51):
building in town until they could organize their trials. However, Bonnet,
whether it was due to his I've never slept in
any less than silk attitude or because they didn't want
him plotting something nefarious with his men, was intentionally isolated
and put into the care of South Carolina's Provost, Marshal
(36:12):
Nathaniel Partridge, who imprisoned him in his own home, which
meant that while Bonnets thirty men were detained in some
decrepit shack with barely a chamber pot split between them,
Bonnet suffered silently in the private guest quarters of a
prominent South Carolina government official. Imagine, but Steve didn't have
(36:33):
to suffer alone. For long. Soon the prosecution had managed
to turn two of bonnet crew into key witnesses in
exchange for clemency. As such, they were then separated from
the rest of the crew and consequently sent to partridge
is Home to await trial. At least Bonnet's boatswin Ignacious
Pell was the other man set to testify for the prosecution.
(36:57):
A man named David Harriet arrived at part Ridges home
but quickly began conspiring with Bonnet. Like I said earlier,
Bonnet was never planning on staying imprisoned for long, and
so three weeks after his initial arrest, Bonnet and Harriet
slipped out past the heavily bribed guards surrounding the Partridge
(37:18):
estate and escaped into the night. Some historians report that
the two men dressed in women's clothing as disguises, which
I'm inclined to believe is true, if only because bonnets
previous lifestyle choices leaned towards the more theatrical. But regardless,
Harriet and Bonnet managed to make it to the small
canoe that they'd arranged for, and they sailed quietly out
(37:40):
of Charlestown Harbor. Now, if Governor Johnson had thought he
was angry at the idea of Steed Bonnet lounging beachside
on the shores of Cape Fear River. That was nothing
compared to what he felt upon getting word that Bonnet
had escaped custody, and after a week spent sending search
(38:01):
party after search party out to no avail, the Governor's
fuse was burning dangerously short. Desperate to begin Bonnets trial,
the Governor put out a reward for seven hundred pounds
for bonnets capture, and once again Colonel Rhett was sent
out to scavenge the land for any and all traces
of the dread gentleman pirate. Ultimately, in typical Steed fashion,
(38:26):
his demise came from his own hand, or rather his pen.
While it's true that Bonnet had successfully escaped without a trace,
that didn't mean he'd managed to get very far. The
canoe that he and Harriet had disappeared into the night
with had only taken them to the edge of the
Charlestown Harbor, to a place called Sullivan's Island. They're the
(38:50):
man who supplied them. The canoe was meant to have
secured them a sloop to actually escape on, Only that
ship never came and after a week without word, Bonnet
was tired of waiting and decided to take matters into
his own hands. He confronted his adversary the only way
he knew how, with a strongly worded letter. After dotting
(39:12):
his eyes and crossing his tees with what I imagined
to be slightly more aggression than was probably called for,
Bonnet sent off his letter of complaint about the contract
for his slut, but it would never reach the ship seller. Instead,
the note would fall into the hands of Colonel Rhett, and,
following an altercation that left Harriet and two others dead,
(39:34):
Bonnet ultimately handed himself in for the final time, with
little other choice but to face the court that would
ultimately decide his fate. Given his proclivity for reading, it
stands to reason that in another life, Bonnet could have
abandoned his family's sugar plantation for law school instead of piracy.
(39:56):
But that wasn't this life, and Steve Bonnet in the
courtroom was his own worst enemy. The one witness the
prosecution still had the Royal James's boat swayed. Ignacious Pell
tried to protect Bonnet as best he could. When asked
if Bonnet was their Commander in chief, pell answered, much
to the annoyance of the prosecution, he went by that name,
(40:19):
but the Quartermaster had more power than he. The entirety
of Bonnet's trial proceedings are available for free online, so
I won't go into too much detail, but I will
say it's both impressive and kind of funny that the
judge's tone of increasing exasperation comes through so clearly, even
three years after the fact. At one point, an incident
(40:42):
of the Royal James steeling upwards of twenty barrels of
molasses was brought into evidence, leading the judge to ask
the question on everyone's mind, what need had you of
so much molasses, to which Bonnet replied cryptically quote, I
did not carry it away, and it was contrary to
my inclination. I like to imagine the judge had been
(41:04):
wearing glasses all day just so that at that moment
he could have taken them off and pinched the bridge
of his nose between his fingers, trying to hold it together.
When he repeated back to him, you gave orders for
it to be done, and yet it was contrary to
your inclinations or other highlights, like Bonnet claiming innocence about
a rate of another sloop due to him having been
(41:26):
asleep at the time, but ultimately it was a futile effort.
On November tenth, seventeen eighteen, the jury found Steed Bonnet guilty,
and two days later the judge sentenced him to death.
On December tenth, Steve Bonnet found himself putting one foot
in front of the other as he stepped up the
(41:48):
gallows at the White Point Garden in Charlestown. When he
looked out at the crowd assembled to witness his final moments,
he had no choice but to finally face the consequences
of the life he had chosen for himself. I consider
that I speak to a person, the judge had said
to him on the day of his sentencing, whose offenses
(42:09):
have proceeded not so much from his not knowing as
his slating and neglecting his duty. There was no more
running for Steed, no more starting over. No amount of
money or charming naivete could save him. Now, as the
noose tightened around his neck, Steed Bonnet, the gentleman pirate,
(42:30):
cast his eyes on the horizon, just as he had
a year and a half earlier, sailing aboard the freshly
christened Revenge awaiting fate. That was the sad end to
(42:52):
the unintentionally funny life of Steed Bonnet. But stick around
after a brief sponsor break to hear what happened to
black Beard after he and Bonnet parted ways. Given how
(43:12):
much of a household name black Beard is compared to
Steve Bonnet, it may surprise you to learn that his
pirating career was roughly the same length as our gentleman pirates.
After leaving the Revengeance crew to die on an island
near Topsail Inlet, Blackbeard went to the one place Bonnet
least expected, bath North Carolina. Yes, teach also went to
(43:36):
get himself a pardon from the governor. Only he went
one step further, befriending the governor and gaining a privateering
commission so that he could continue to pillage and plunder,
but under the protection of the law. The governor of Virginia, though,
was not a fan of Blackbeard, and after the well
publicized antics he and Bonnet had pulled, he was it
(44:00):
to see Blackbeard brought to justice. The Governor of Virginia
sent a man named Lieutenant Reynard Off with two slopes
to Okracoke Island, where they had received word that Blackbeard
and his men were hiding out with many of teachers men,
including his second in command, Israel, hands on business inland.
Blackbeard found himself at a disadvantage when the fight with
(44:23):
Maynard began. After massive carnage sustained on both sides from
cannon and gunfire, the fight was ultimately one by Maynard.
His secret strategy had been sending the majority of his
men below deck just before they were boarded by Blackbeard's men.
The ensuing surprise attack cost Edward Teach his life, and
(44:45):
on November twenty second, seventeen eighteen, Blackbeard was killed by
five bullet wounds and around twenty cuts laid across his body.
Maynard would then famously decapitate him and hang his head
from the front of his ship, only for it later
to be put on a stake at the entrance to
Chesapeake Bay as a warning for other pirates who sailed by.
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It's somehow oddly fitting that a man whose life and
death have been aggrandized to such mythological proportions should sit
side by side in history with someone as ostensibly unremarkable
as Steed Bonnet. In the end, both men only engaged
in piracy for around two years, a blink of an
(45:30):
eye in the course of the three centuries that we've
spent talking about them since. Despite having polar opposite personalities
on paper, there are legends that Blackbeard would light slow
burning fuses and then carefully placed them in his beard
to make it look as though he existed in a
halo of thick black smoke. And if that doesn't scream
(45:51):
Steed Bonnet theatrical tendencies, then I don't know what does.
And maybe it's all just legend, but maybe there's a
rea in their stories have been inextricably tied together over
the centuries. Maybe those two men who sailed out for
adventure or freedom or money were more similar than history
(46:13):
gives them credit for. Noble Blood is a production of
I Heart Radio and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Mankey.
(46:35):
Noble Blood is hosted by me Danish Wartz. Additional writing
and researching done by Hannah Johnston, Hannah's Wick, Mirra Hayward,
Courtney Sunder, and Laurie Goodman. The show is produced by
rema Il Kali, with supervising producer Josh Thane and executive
producers Aaron Mankey, Alex Williams, and Matt Frederick. For more
(46:57):
podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
H
Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of I Heart Radio,
and Grim and Mild from Aaron Manky Listener Discretion, advised,
genius or insanity. Those were Edward teaches two working theories
(00:25):
as to why the quaint sixty ton sloop known as
the Revenge was currently anchored in a small pirate harbor
off the coast of the Bahamas. Mere days after the
Revenger's arrival, the docks were already a buzz with rumors
and speculation about the ship, primarily because of the state
in which it had sailed into port, or more accurately
(00:48):
washed into port. The vessel still bore the scars of
its most recent misadventure. Red stains and splintered wood marred
the Revenge's deck, only hastily wiped away by what little
remained of their crew. If Edward Teach was being honest,
he was surprised the Revenge was still afloat at all.
(01:09):
There was almost no scenario in which a glorified dinghy
like the Revenge, really any pirate ship at all, should
have survived a run in with a goliath like that
of a Spanish warship at the time seventeen seventeen, a
typical government sanctioned man of war could have easily held
well over a hundred guns. The Revenge had ten, though
(01:34):
after the devastating defeat against the Spanish warship, the Revenge's
eccentric captain made sure to outfit their artillery with an
additional two guns, you know, to make up for losing
half the crew and nearly his own life. Which brought
Edward Teach back to his original question and the reason
(01:55):
he found himself knocking on the door to the Revenge's
captain's quarters. Was it genius or insanity that had led
this captain to steer his crew to almost certain death?
The answer, of course, was the one theory Teach had
not thought to consider in the first place, stupidity. It
(02:17):
was past the captain's doors and into his private residence
that Teach found himself standing face to face with the
fanciful night shirts and vast collection of books adorning the
cabin of one Steed Bonnet, or, as he would one
day come to be known, the Gentleman Pirate. Today, the
(02:38):
name Steed Bonnet is often relegated to a footnote amongst
the larger legends associated with the quote Golden Age of Piracy,
until a recent television series on HBO Max, he was
almost entirely forgotten by all but the most passionate students
of eighteenth century history. His import had really only ever
(03:00):
been measured by the interactions he had with more infamous pirates.
But to Edward Teach in that moment, Steve Bonnet was
no such footnote. He was an idiot, sure, but more
than that, he was a mystery, an opportunity. For so long,
Teach had only been a part of other men's crews,
(03:22):
just waiting for the day he could take on a
ship and a crew of his own, And now suddenly
here he stood next to the incompetent Oath who was
unknowingly handing Teach his freedom and his future on a
silver platter. Bonnet had a ship, but he needed a crew,
(03:42):
and frankly, he needed a captain to lead them while
he healed from his injuries. What happened once his wounds
healed would be an issue for a later date, when
he was sure he could handle. As he continued to
stare at the spectacle of a man before him, and
for the first time since stepping on board, Teach felt
the lips he hid under his considerable Beard pull into
(04:06):
a genuine smile, he held out his hand to the
captain and introduced himself, not by his given name, but
by the name borne out of years of infamy on
the high seas, a name that sent even the most
fearsome of foes cowering in their boots. He introduced himself
as Blackbeard. The two shook hands and made their deal.
(04:31):
Blackbeard would take the revenge temporarily while steed Bonnet healed.
But unbeknown to them, with that handshake also came the
promise of their end, for by the end of December
the following year, both pirates would be dead. But as
Blackbeard stared at steed Bonnet, clad in ruffles and what
(04:54):
he was sure was a posture held only by those
raised sucking on silver spoons, the infamous pirate captain couldn't
help but imagine a different life for himself, one where
he stood at the helm of a mighty ship and
the horizon was suddenly within reach. I'm Dani Schwartz, and
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this is noble blood. Given that the name itself is gilded,
it's hard not to romanticize the arrow we've come to
(05:37):
recognize as the Golden age of piracy. Little more than
a skull and crossbones is needed before our subconscious starts
humming shanties and conjuring pictures of open oceans and overflowing
treasure chests. But the reality, as per usual, was not
as carefree as a drunkenly stumbling Jack Sparrow might have
(05:59):
you believe. Evening the life of a pirate was not
one chosen lightly. In fact, it was rarely chosen at all.
Most crew members found themselves forced into this sort of
life through dire financial straits. It was also common for
black men to use piracy as a means to escape
the Atlantic slave trade. That's not to say that life
(06:22):
at sea was free from racial prejudice, but a life
of poverty on a ship as a freeman was still
preferable to life as a slave on the mainland. So
while we often pair the title pirate with the likes
of Orlando Bloom, in reality it was much less swashbuckling
rogue saving swooning maidens, and more desperate fugitives doing whatever
(06:46):
they could to stay alive and not behind bars or enslaved,
which is perhaps why the story of Steed Bonnet, the
man who actively chose to abandon his life of luxury
to take up a life of piracy continues to confound
and fascinate us to this day. But before anyone had
ever heard of the gentleman pirate, Steed was just a
(07:09):
boy born into your typical wealthy landowning family profiting off
slave labor in early eighteenth century Barbados. Due to his
parents early deaths. By the age of six, Bonnet had
inherited his family's estate, which boasted over four hundred acres
of sugar crops, a mill dedicated to the production of
(07:30):
cane sugar, and over ninety enslaved laborers, along with a
litany of servants who catered to Steed's every need. Given
little other choice, Bonnet was raised to follow the course
his parents life had set out for him. And even
though there is no historical basis for it, I like
to imagine a tiny six year old Seed Bonnet sitting
(07:52):
at his father's desk in his newly inherited study, his
stubby legs still too short to reach the floor, swinging
I'd leave beneath the table while he stares at Ledger
after Ledger, trying to make sense of his late father's
sugar enterprise, only to remember that he can't read. More likely,
the business affairs of the Bonnet estate were taken over
(08:14):
by Steed's next of kin until he came of age,
but that by no means changes the fact that Steed
was born and raised to believe that the Barbadian sugar
trade would be his future. At twenty one, he married
a young woman whose family also came from the Barbadian
social elite. But apart from that and the four children
they had together, the couple would have little else in common.
(08:37):
Then again, Bonnet held little in common with most of
the members of the high society life he had been
born into. He may have technically been made a major
in the Barbadian militia due mostly to his status as
a slaveholder and landowner, but his interests quickly became skewed
towards the enemies of the militia that he was set
(08:57):
to defend against the careers of pirates. At this time,
we're far from private, and Bonnet, the bookish scholar that
he was, made sure to keep himself exceptionally up to
date on any and all things pirate. He was a
militiaman after all, and in some reports even a justice
of the peace. He had to be aware of the
(09:18):
villains washing up on their shores, at least until he
became one himself. Now, there are many conflicting theories as
to why Bonnet began his pirate exploits. Some say the
impetus for his escape from high society stemmed from his
poor relationship with his wife, But I do think it's
(09:39):
important to note that there is little information on the
exact nature of Bonnet's relationship with his wife, and the
reports we do have are questionable. Some sources call his
wife quote nagging, while others, like Charles Johnson in his
seventeen twenty four publication A General History of Pirates, merely
(10:00):
cited quote some discomforts he found in a married state.
Other scholars suggest Bonnet may have been suffering from some
form of mental illness. However, this leads us into the
murky waters of posthumous diagnoses, which remains largely unhelpful when
contextualizing bonnet story on a larger scale. The truth is
(10:22):
we will never know the real reason Bonnet chose to
abandon the comforts of his affluent life. It's easy to
point fingers at nagging wives or mental illness to come
to conclusions, but Ultimately, those reasons are built off assumptions
and biases that lack anything close to actual supported evidence.
(10:43):
All this to say Steed could have succumbed to the
pressures associated with any and all of the aforementioned stressors
in his life, but he could have just as likely
been having the world's most extreme midlife crisis. And while
Bonnet may have made up his mind to leave his
old life behind, that by no means meant that he
(11:05):
had any sort of idea what he was actually doing.
All Bonnet really knew was that in order to become
a pirate he needed two things, a ship and a crew.
The former was acquired simply enough. Bonnets pockets were deep
enough to encourage the builders to turn to blind eye
to the eccentric aristocrat who demanded a library be built
(11:28):
into the captain's quarters of his ship. Finding a crew
was a harder sell. A pirate crew was typically bought
in the same way a pirate ship would be on
the high seas, through theft or mutiny. But since Bonnett
had decided to forego traditional pirate code and build himself
a ship of his own, getting a crew to work
(11:49):
under him, a land lover with exactly zero experience out
on open ocean was a recipe for disaster. But far
be it from Bonnet to let something as inconsequential as
inexperience keep him from following through on a truly terrible idea.
His solution a fair wage. Seeing as he was perpetually
(12:12):
one small misstep away from having his crew replace him
with a captain who was far more capable, Bonnet made
the one move he suspected would keep them in his favor.
On a normal pirate ship, crew members were paid a
percentage of the plunder they received, but Bonnet, aware of
his already unorthodox method of acquiring his ship, doubled down
(12:36):
to match the needs of his crew. With a steady income,
they would be less likely to replace him with someone better.
And so, in spring seventeen seventeen, with his shiny new boat,
begrudgingly acceptant crew, and an overabundance of unearned confidence, Steve
Bonnet set sail from Barbados on the vessel he had
(12:59):
named for probably no other reason other than that he
thought it sounded cool. The revenge now, whether it was
due to his cruise knowledge of the trade or the
universe taking pity on him, bonnet initial venture into piracy
went surprisingly well. The Revenge successfully overtook upwards of eight
(13:21):
ships of varying sizes, stripping each of their valuables before
they've swiftly moved on to their next target. He only
stopped if you wanted to set fire to a ship
he plundered, a practice that he suspiciously only acted upon
when the ship was native to Barbados. Some historians theorized
that Bonnet may not have wanted news of his criminal
(13:42):
activities reaching home, but soon enough no amount of arson
could keep tales of the Revenge's exploits at bay. Despite
his string of early successes, Bonnet's lucky streak officially came
to an end in September seventeen seventeen, when he and
his crew came face to face with a Spanish man
(14:04):
of war. After a skirmish that left the Revenge with
half its crew and more or less half a captain,
the remaining men made the decision to head towards the
known pirate harbor Nasa off the coast of the Bahamas.
Cut to Edward Teach, the infamous Blackbeard, staring with a
(14:24):
mixture of disdain and awe at the battered ship and
equally battered captain. Perhaps the most peculiar pirate he'd ever met,
Steed Bonnet. Steed was everything a pirate shouldn't have been, wealthy, educated,
well mannered. There was no reason for him to have
(14:44):
ended up in a pirate harbor. Both him and his
ship riddled with the scars of battle. But once Blackbeard
was able to look past the lavish dressing gown and
entirely impractical library at sea, Blackbeard saw Bonnet as the
opportunity that he was. After bonnets debacle with the Spanish Navy,
(15:06):
it was no secret that Bonnet's crew was unimpressed by
their lackluster excuse of a captain, and now that the
former aristocrat could barely leave his bed because of his injuries,
it was becoming increasingly difficult to ignore the fact that
the Revenge needed a real captain. If Steve didn't appoint one,
his crew might take matters into their own hands and
(15:28):
make that decision for him. Luckily for Bonnet, Blackbeard was
more than happy to step into the role. After setting
sail from Nassau with its new captain at the helm,
the Revenge steadily made its way up the coast, leaving
a trail of destruction cast carelessly behind them. Any vessel
unlucky enough to be caught in their path was subject
(15:50):
to the typical looting and plundering of any pirate raid.
Jewels were stolen, coins were pocketed, and casks of Madeira wine,
rum and ammune Shian were plucked like they sat on
grocery store shelves instead of in the halls of merchant ships.
But Blackbeard, always the overachiever, didn't stop there after he'd
(16:11):
taken his fill. He would order his crew to dump
any and all extra cargo that they weren't planning on
taking with them, just because he could. And while tales
of Blackbeard's villainous exploits echoed off the walls of almost
every tavern up and down the Atlantic coast, whispers of
a peculiar gentleman draped in finery aboard the revenge were
(16:35):
swiftly making the rounds as well. In the months since
his near brush with death with the Spanish Bonnet, had
recovered from the majority of his injuries, only to find
himself in the peculiar position of being a guest in
his own home. Though guests may have been too generous
a term, he may have owned the ship and paid
(16:58):
the crew, but he been sleeping in the captain's quarters.
Didn't change the fact that the Revenge was becoming more
of a prison than his luscious state in Barbados had
ever been. At the time, seating his role as captain
to Blackbeard had seemed like the only logical choice, But
as Bonnet grew stronger, he also became acutely aware that
(17:21):
his crew had little, if any remaining loyalty to him,
not that this was at all surprising. During one instance,
when Bonnet was momentarily given back control of the Revenge,
the ill equipped gentleman pirate threatened an oncoming merchant vessel
that he and his crew would quote do them mischief
(17:42):
unless they came aboard and shared a meal with them,
not exactly the type of behavior that instills fear and
loyalty in pirate ranks. When the crew all but begged
Blackbeard to stay on as captain, Bonnet felt the carefully
crafted pirate fantasy he had built for himself slipping through
his fingers. Trapped aboard a ship he'd bought to escape
(18:06):
his former life, the disgruntled former aristocrat fell into a
deep depression, confiding in one of his few remaining loyal
crew members, his newfound, though predictably familiar, desire to now
leave behind his life of piracy for a quieter existence abroad,
maybe Spain or Portugal, his real only prerequisite being the
(18:31):
country's protection against being extradited for piracy crimes. Strangely enough,
the answer to bonnet prayers would come from the British
Crown itself, in the form of a decree called a
Proclamation for Suppressing of Pirates, or, as it was better known,
the Act of Grace. Across the Atlantic, the repercussions of
(18:55):
the quote Golden Age of piracy were finally beginning to effect.
In England, King George the First was facing pressure from
merchants and shareholders to enact some sort of measure to
quell the exponentially growing crime rate on the high Seas.
Their livelihoods were quite literally being dumped in the ocean.
(19:16):
His solution, which on the surface appears slightly counterintuitive, was
to offer a pardon to any and all pirates who
surrendered themselves to the Crown before the fifth of January
that year. It gave pirates like Bonnet the opportunity to
turn themselves in with next to no consequences save their
(19:37):
promise never to practice piracy against the Crown ever again. Now,
if that offer sounds a little too good to be true,
you wouldn't be the only one to think so. The
language of the proclamation made it clear that the Crown
only offered quote promise of a pardon, which, if pop
culture rhetoric has taught us anything about pirates, it's that
(19:58):
a promise to or from one is about as binding
as a scrap of masking tape, or, you know, a
marriage contract with Steed Bonnet. Needless to say, there was
a fair amount of skepticism in the pirate community towards
the King's pardon, leading some historians to theorize that Blackbeard,
with his general distrust of authority and recently acquired small
(20:21):
fleet of pirate vessels, sent Bonnet to the town of
Bath to acquire a pardon for himself as a test
before he attempted to procure one of his own. For
Bonnet's part, it didn't take much to convince him to
seek the pardon for himself, especially since one could argue
running away from his problems was historically Steed's favorite pastime.
(20:43):
It probably took even less convincing for Bonnet to leave
his ship and his crew in the care of Blackbeard.
As he set sail on a small dinghy inland to
settle his affairs. Maybe he even waved back to his
crew as they grew into small dots on the horizon,
as he felt the weight he'd been holding onto as
a pseudo captain turned guests turned prisoner, lifting with every
(21:06):
inch he floated closer to land. But Steed's old crew
aboard The Revenge wouldn't have seen the small hand waving
toward them in the distance. No, just a Steed Bonnet
stepped on land toward what he was sure would be
a brighter future. His old hired crew was just realizing
that black Beard and black Beard's own pre Revenge crew
(21:30):
had just turned their weapons against them. Now, if there
was an official rule book on how to be a pirate,
I imagine the first rule would be printed in all
caps across the front page, bolded, highlighted, and double underlined,
never trust a pirate. Unfortunately, for Bonnet, such a book
(21:53):
was not held in his fully stocked library aboard The Revenge,
and black Beard wasted no time taking advantage of bonnet
ignorance to strip the Revenge of any and all things
of value to their horror. This unfortunately included Bonnet's original crew, who,
thanks to the very captain they had so very recently
(22:15):
switched their allegiance too, were left marooned on an island
near Topsail Inlet, off the coast of North Carolina. Because,
of course, Blackbeard was the type of petty not only
to strip the Revenge clean of everything save a few
barrels of food, but to take his crew just to
maroon them on an island so that Bonnet couldn't have them.
(22:36):
When Blackbeard initially took command of the Revenge, he had
managed to assemble a hundred and fifty men after the
Spanish navy had all but decimated bonnets already modest crew
of seventy five. But as rumor of the Revenge's exploit spread,
soon even the men they were robbing we're begging to
join their company. In one instance, upon crossing paths with
(22:59):
the Revenge, a merchant ship willingly surrendered and pledged their
loyalty to Blackbeard rather than suffer the consequences of their
most likely imminent demise. As time went on, what had
started as a mere hundred fifty aboard one lone damaged
ship mounted to upwards a four hundred men spread across
(23:20):
several vessels. And while this may have sounded like a
good thing, Bonnets and by extent, the Revenge is dead
weight was becoming more apparent by the day, especially since
any raid Blackbeard undertook had to be split amongst all
of his crew, and plunder shared four hundred ways didn't
come with the same sense of satisfaction or the amount
(23:42):
of money it would with a smaller group, And since
Blackbeard was essentially cleaning house after Steed, it was clear
that steedsmen had to go. Meanwhile, in Bath, Bonnet had
successfully expunged his record of all criminal pirate activity, and
he was more than ready to set sail aboard his
ship onto the next chapter of his life. Unfortunately for him,
(24:07):
this was also the point in which he finally noticed
the metaphorical knife that had been sticking out of his
back ever since he'd landed on the mainland when he
stepped aboard the Revenge after just three days away. Remember,
he was always planning on coming back to his ship.
He just wanted to clear his pirate record. He was
planning on taking the ship that he owned to wherever
(24:28):
he would live next. But he now realized he owned
a ghost ship. It was little more than a hollowed
out husk of driftwood, run aground and completely abandoned in
his absence. There's a metaphor in there somewhere, but even Bonnet,
a man so fond of literature that he built a
library at sea, was in no mood to appreciate it.
(24:50):
Once upon a time he had named his ship the Revenge,
but taking stock of his empty sloop and completely missing crew,
quickly changed it from name to a purpose. And when
he eventually found his few remaining men marooned and left
to die on an uninhabited island, for once, the skeptical
crew and their inept gentleman pirate were in agreement. Blackbeard
(25:15):
was going to pay. Unfortunately, I have to spoil the
ending to this particular part of the story and tell
you Blackbeard did not pay, at least not by Bonnet's hands.
As great the tale of the revengees Revenge would have been,
apart from a handful of near missus, the two enemy
captains would never cross paths again in their lifetime. Bonnet, however,
(25:38):
didn't know this yet, and quickly made it his life's
mission to make Blackbeard suffer for his treachery for turning
the Revenge into a black Beard franchise and then completely
abandoning it. The first amongst a series of hiccups in
Steve Bonnet's plans proved to be the most problematic one. Technically,
(25:59):
he was no longer a pirate, at least he wasn't
supposed to be according to the terms of his pardon.
The ink had barely dried on Bonnet's pardon before he
was already about to break the only term of his agreement. Granted,
he was given little other choice. Blackbeard had left the
Revenge with nothing but a few casks of food, and
(26:22):
after failing to secure a privateering commission from the governor
following his pardon, Bonnet forged ahead the only way he
knew how. This time, Bonnet began conducting his pirate business
under the name Captain Thomas and sailing a ship that
looked remarkably similar to the Revenge, but was instead named
(26:42):
the Royal James. And to ensure that bonnet activities were
relatively above board, he made sure that all of his
run ins with merchant vessels were classified as trades, even
if he stole everything but the shirts off their backs
in exchange for maybe a small parcel of rice or,
in one case, an old anchor cable. Originally, the Royal
(27:05):
James only quote traded out of necessity, but by July
seventeen eighteen, the gentleman pirate and his crew had once
again fully abandoned all charades of diplomacy in favor of
embracing the pirate life. In the summer of seventeen eighteen,
the Royal James was on an extended, glorified shopping spree,
(27:27):
boarding merchant vessels and taking their fill before going off
to find their next victims. During this time, Bonnet managed
to add two more sloops and a handful of new
crew members to a small but mighty fleet. Soon after
acquiring the new ships, the Francis and the Fortune, Bonnet
and his men sailed their way into the Cape Fear
(27:48):
River Estuary off the coast of North Carolina, only to
find that they had a much more practical problem on
their hands. The Royal James had a leak as the
ship began to take on more and more water, and
the Atlantic hurricane season was closing in. Bonnet and his
crew had no choice but to make landfall to fix
(28:11):
their flagship vessel and wait out the bad weather. By
late August, word of Bonnet's extended stay in the Cape
Fear River had reached Charlestown, and the Governor of South
Carolina was less than pleased. Even though Bonnet's location was
technically in North Carolina, outside the governor's jurisdiction, Governor Johnson
(28:32):
was not prepared to let someone with Steve Bonnet's lengthy
criminal history and ties to arguably one of the most
nefarious pirates of their time, lounge about on a beach nearby,
and so on September six, seventeen eighteen, Colonel William Rhett
found himself sailing into the Cape Fear River mouth with
(28:53):
two government ships and one hundred and thirty militiamen on
a commission from Governor Johnson to carry out the capture
and arrest of Steed Bonnet and the crew of the
Royal James. Meanwhile, from further up the waterway, Steed Bonnet
held his spyglass to his eye and squinted at the
blurry shapes he saw bobbing in the distance. Now, he
(29:15):
may not have been the most experienced pirate, but Bonnet
was at least sure that the masses he saw were
ships merchant vessels, if he was not mistaken, and it
was under that assumption that Bonnet sent three canoes full
of his crew to go off and capture the mysterious
merchant ships in the river mouth. However, as his men
(29:38):
drifted closer, the sight of the British Naval flag quickly
enlightened bonnet crew as to the reality of their situation.
The men hastily scrambled to turn around and sail back
to warn their captain about the imminent attack. But when
they returned, they realized that the Royal Navy's ships behind
them weren't moving at all. In fact, act, it seemed
(30:01):
as though one of the vessels was stalled in the
opening of the estuary. Aboard the British naval ship, the Henry,
poor Colonel Rhett was having a rough day. With Bonnet
in his sights. The Henry sped towards its target, only
to be abruptly jarred to a halt as its hull
scraped the bottom of the Cape Fear River. Without any
(30:24):
way to free itself from its sandy prison, the Henry
transformed from dangerous adversary to only slightly intimidating art installation.
As the tide continued to drop lower and lower, and
so with the British Navy stuck in the entrance to
the harbor and Bonnet and his men unable to flee
(30:45):
due to rhet blocking their only escape route, all parties
were forced to angrily brood in their respective corners until
the moon inevitably turned the tides in one of their favors.
By the time the Henry finally managed to get itself
back on the water, the sun had long since disappeared
(31:05):
below the horizon, and even Bonnet was not so foolish
as to attempt to navigate the rocky estuary in the dark. Together.
He and the crew of the Royal James decided to
wait until morning before taking any action, but as the
moon rose, bonnet patients waned. Before long, even the crew
had taken note of his erratic behavior. By the late
(31:29):
hours of the night, the once timid aristocrat had all
but vanished, eclipsed by the shadow of a man being
forced to watch the last of his freedom wash away
with the tide. The wounds of Blackbeard's betrayal still stung
fresh in his memory, and as he and the crew
of the Royal James waited for the sun to rise,
(31:50):
Bonnet couldn't help but see treachery etched into the faces
around him. With nothing else to do, Bonnet set about
preparing his men for battle, assembling the forty or so
men that he'd scattered amongst his three vessels, and bringing
them together aboard the Royal James to defend their flagship
and its captain. Predictably, some of the men were less
(32:13):
than enthusiastic when asked to put their life on the line,
to which Bonnet simply responded, quote if anyone refused to fight,
he would blow their brains out. It was also at
this point that, with no one left to yell at,
Bonnett returned to his captain's quarters to write a letter
to the Governor of South Carolina, because when in doubt,
(32:34):
always asked to speak to the manager. In his letter,
he condemned the governor for his actions against him and
his crew, and he ended the message explaining that should
Rhett follow through on his attack come daybreak, he would
not hesitate to quote, burn and destroy all ships and
vessels going in or coming out of South Carolina, but
(32:56):
as the sun rose over the Atlantic, any words uttered
by on it, written or otherwise were swiftly forgotten. The
Royal James was the first to make a move, launching
full speed ahead towards the Henry, hoping Rhet would take
the bait and chase them out of the harbor and
into the open ocean, where they would make their escape. However,
(33:17):
in order to complete this maneuver, the Royal James was
forced to avoid the Henry in the relatively narrow river
mouth by binging close to the shore, which predictably was
when everything once again devolved into chaos. Rhett, realizing what
Bonnet was attempting to do, used the advantage of having
(33:38):
two vessels to try to flank the Royal James on
either side, only for Rhett to feel the familiar, dreaded
scrape of sand below, dragging the Henry to a halt. Two.
Colonel Rhett's horror, the other ships sent with him the
Sea Nymph had run aground as well, meaning instead of
(33:59):
corralling it on either side, they had given him a
runway in which to sail off to freedom, except, of course,
they hadn't, because, just as Bonnet gleefully came to the
same conclusion and barreled forward to greet his victory upon
the open ocean. The Royal James two came to a
(34:19):
screeching halt as its hull found the warm embrace of
the Cape Fear River floor, and suddenly, for the second
time in twenty four hours, Rhett and Bonnet were stuck
twiddling their thumbs and staring at each other while they
waited for the tide to release them from their oddly
specific purgatories. However, this time, the Royal James had managed
(34:44):
to beat itself in such a way that they were
within shooting distance of the Henry, which led the crews
of both vessels to fire recklessly at each other as
they waited out their stalemate. Bullets and taunt were exchanged
an equal measure over the following six hours, until at
last fate chose the Henry to be the winner, when
(35:06):
Rhett carefully maneuvered his ship so that the Royal James
was effectively staring down the barrels of their cannons. Bonnet
finally waved the white flag and surrendered himself to be
taken into custody at Charlestown, but of course, Steed being Steed,
he was not planning on staying there for long. For
(35:28):
all the trouble it had taken to apprehend Steed Bonnet
and bring him into custody, their welcome upon arriving in
Charlestown was surprisingly underwhelming. For one, Charlestown had yet to
build a suitable prison to hold the more than thirty
pirates Governor Johnson now had in his custody. Improvising, the
Governor had Bonnet crew put in a spare, one story
(35:51):
building in town until they could organize their trials. However, Bonnet,
whether it was due to his I've never slept in
any less than silk attitude or because they didn't want
him plotting something nefarious with his men, was intentionally isolated
and put into the care of South Carolina's Provost, Marshal
(36:12):
Nathaniel Partridge, who imprisoned him in his own home, which
meant that while Bonnets thirty men were detained in some
decrepit shack with barely a chamber pot split between them,
Bonnet suffered silently in the private guest quarters of a
prominent South Carolina government official. Imagine, but Steve didn't have
(36:33):
to suffer alone. For long. Soon the prosecution had managed
to turn two of bonnet crew into key witnesses in
exchange for clemency. As such, they were then separated from
the rest of the crew and consequently sent to partridge
is Home to await trial. At least Bonnet's boatswin Ignacious
Pell was the other man set to testify for the prosecution.
(36:57):
A man named David Harriet arrived at part Ridges home
but quickly began conspiring with Bonnet. Like I said earlier,
Bonnet was never planning on staying imprisoned for long, and
so three weeks after his initial arrest, Bonnet and Harriet
slipped out past the heavily bribed guards surrounding the Partridge
(37:18):
estate and escaped into the night. Some historians report that
the two men dressed in women's clothing as disguises, which
I'm inclined to believe is true, if only because bonnets
previous lifestyle choices leaned towards the more theatrical. But regardless,
Harriet and Bonnet managed to make it to the small
canoe that they'd arranged for, and they sailed quietly out
(37:40):
of Charlestown Harbor. Now, if Governor Johnson had thought he
was angry at the idea of Steed Bonnet lounging beachside
on the shores of Cape Fear River. That was nothing
compared to what he felt upon getting word that Bonnet
had escaped custody, and after a week spent sending search
(38:01):
party after search party out to no avail, the Governor's
fuse was burning dangerously short. Desperate to begin Bonnets trial,
the Governor put out a reward for seven hundred pounds
for bonnets capture, and once again Colonel Rhett was sent
out to scavenge the land for any and all traces
of the dread gentleman pirate. Ultimately, in typical Steed fashion,
(38:26):
his demise came from his own hand, or rather his pen.
While it's true that Bonnet had successfully escaped without a trace,
that didn't mean he'd managed to get very far. The
canoe that he and Harriet had disappeared into the night
with had only taken them to the edge of the
Charlestown Harbor, to a place called Sullivan's Island. They're the
(38:50):
man who supplied them. The canoe was meant to have
secured them a sloop to actually escape on, Only that
ship never came and after a week without word, Bonnet
was tired of waiting and decided to take matters into
his own hands. He confronted his adversary the only way
he knew how, with a strongly worded letter. After dotting
(39:12):
his eyes and crossing his tees with what I imagined
to be slightly more aggression than was probably called for,
Bonnet sent off his letter of complaint about the contract
for his slut, but it would never reach the ship seller. Instead,
the note would fall into the hands of Colonel Rhett, and,
following an altercation that left Harriet and two others dead,
(39:34):
Bonnet ultimately handed himself in for the final time, with
little other choice but to face the court that would
ultimately decide his fate. Given his proclivity for reading, it
stands to reason that in another life, Bonnet could have
abandoned his family's sugar plantation for law school instead of piracy.
(39:56):
But that wasn't this life, and Steve Bonnet in the
courtroom was his own worst enemy. The one witness the
prosecution still had the Royal James's boat swayed. Ignacious Pell
tried to protect Bonnet as best he could. When asked
if Bonnet was their Commander in chief, pell answered, much
to the annoyance of the prosecution, he went by that name,
(40:19):
but the Quartermaster had more power than he. The entirety
of Bonnet's trial proceedings are available for free online, so
I won't go into too much detail, but I will
say it's both impressive and kind of funny that the
judge's tone of increasing exasperation comes through so clearly, even
three years after the fact. At one point, an incident
(40:42):
of the Royal James steeling upwards of twenty barrels of
molasses was brought into evidence, leading the judge to ask
the question on everyone's mind, what need had you of
so much molasses, to which Bonnet replied cryptically quote, I
did not carry it away, and it was contrary to
my inclination. I like to imagine the judge had been
(41:04):
wearing glasses all day just so that at that moment
he could have taken them off and pinched the bridge
of his nose between his fingers, trying to hold it together.
When he repeated back to him, you gave orders for
it to be done, and yet it was contrary to
your inclinations or other highlights, like Bonnet claiming innocence about
a rate of another sloop due to him having been
(41:26):
asleep at the time, but ultimately it was a futile effort.
On November tenth, seventeen eighteen, the jury found Steed Bonnet guilty,
and two days later the judge sentenced him to death.
On December tenth, Steve Bonnet found himself putting one foot
in front of the other as he stepped up the
(41:48):
gallows at the White Point Garden in Charlestown. When he
looked out at the crowd assembled to witness his final moments,
he had no choice but to finally face the consequences
of the life he had chosen for himself. I consider
that I speak to a person, the judge had said
to him on the day of his sentencing, whose offenses
(42:09):
have proceeded not so much from his not knowing as
his slating and neglecting his duty. There was no more
running for Steed, no more starting over. No amount of
money or charming naivete could save him. Now, as the
noose tightened around his neck, Steed Bonnet, the gentleman pirate,
(42:30):
cast his eyes on the horizon, just as he had
a year and a half earlier, sailing aboard the freshly
christened Revenge awaiting fate. That was the sad end to
(42:52):
the unintentionally funny life of Steed Bonnet. But stick around
after a brief sponsor break to hear what happened to
black Beard after he and Bonnet parted ways. Given how
(43:12):
much of a household name black Beard is compared to
Steve Bonnet, it may surprise you to learn that his
pirating career was roughly the same length as our gentleman pirates.
After leaving the Revengeance crew to die on an island
near Topsail Inlet, Blackbeard went to the one place Bonnet
least expected, bath North Carolina. Yes, teach also went to
(43:36):
get himself a pardon from the governor. Only he went
one step further, befriending the governor and gaining a privateering
commission so that he could continue to pillage and plunder,
but under the protection of the law. The governor of Virginia, though,
was not a fan of Blackbeard, and after the well
publicized antics he and Bonnet had pulled, he was it
(44:00):
to see Blackbeard brought to justice. The Governor of Virginia
sent a man named Lieutenant Reynard Off with two slopes
to Okracoke Island, where they had received word that Blackbeard
and his men were hiding out with many of teachers men,
including his second in command, Israel, hands on business inland.
Blackbeard found himself at a disadvantage when the fight with
(44:23):
Maynard began. After massive carnage sustained on both sides from
cannon and gunfire, the fight was ultimately one by Maynard.
His secret strategy had been sending the majority of his
men below deck just before they were boarded by Blackbeard's men.
The ensuing surprise attack cost Edward Teach his life, and
(44:45):
on November twenty second, seventeen eighteen, Blackbeard was killed by
five bullet wounds and around twenty cuts laid across his body.
Maynard would then famously decapitate him and hang his head
from the front of his ship, only for it later
to be put on a stake at the entrance to
Chesapeake Bay as a warning for other pirates who sailed by.
(45:10):
It's somehow oddly fitting that a man whose life and
death have been aggrandized to such mythological proportions should sit
side by side in history with someone as ostensibly unremarkable
as Steed Bonnet. In the end, both men only engaged
in piracy for around two years, a blink of an
(45:30):
eye in the course of the three centuries that we've
spent talking about them since. Despite having polar opposite personalities
on paper, there are legends that Blackbeard would light slow
burning fuses and then carefully placed them in his beard
to make it look as though he existed in a
halo of thick black smoke. And if that doesn't scream
(45:51):
Steed Bonnet theatrical tendencies, then I don't know what does.
And maybe it's all just legend, but maybe there's a
rea in their stories have been inextricably tied together over
the centuries. Maybe those two men who sailed out for
adventure or freedom or money were more similar than history
(46:13):
gives them credit for. Noble Blood is a production of
I Heart Radio and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Mankey.
(46:35):
Noble Blood is hosted by me Danish Wartz. Additional writing
and researching done by Hannah Johnston, Hannah's Wick, Mirra Hayward,
Courtney Sunder, and Laurie Goodman. The show is produced by
rema Il Kali, with supervising producer Josh Thane and executive
producers Aaron Mankey, Alex Williams, and Matt Frederick. For more
(46:57):
podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
H
Host
Dana Schwartz
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