Last year it was reported that
Taika Waititi would produce and direct the pirate series
Our Flag Means Death for HBO Max. Now, it’s been revealed Waititi will appear in the series as well, playing infamous pirate Blackbeard. The series is inspired by the true story of Stede Bonnet, “a pampered aristocrat who abandoned his life of privilege to become a pirate.”
Rhys Darby is set to play Bonnet.
The Wrap, and others, are reporting that not only is Taika Waititi directing the pilot episode and producing
Our Flag Means Death, but he’s also co-starring in the HBO Max pirate series as well. Waititi will play notorious pirate Blackbeard, who was a real guy named Edward Teach. Teach reportedly didn’t like to use violence and instead preferred to scare people into submission with a fearsome image he deliberately played up, going so far as to stick lit fuses under his hat. After a few years of pirating, Teach was killed by soldiers and sailors hired by Alexander Spotswo
Little is known of Blackbeard’s early life, and his origins have been left to speculation. He has been widely identified as Edward Teach (or several variations thereof, including Thatch and Thack), though pirate custom at the time was to use a pseudonym when engaging in acts of piracy, and his true name will probably never be known. Thought to have been active as a privateer for the British during the War of the Spanish Succession (1701–13), Blackbeard was first heard of as a pirate late in 1716. The following year he converted a captured French merchantman into a 40-gun warship,
Queen Anne’s Revenge, and soon became notorious for outrages along the Virginia and Carolina coasts and in the Caribbean Sea. In 1718 Blackbeard established his base in a North Carolina inlet, forcibly collected tolls from shipping in Pamlico Sound, and made a prize-sharing agreement with Charles Eden, governor of the North Carolina colony. At the request of Carolina planters, the lieutenant governor
Early Years
Carter was born around 1664 probably at Corotoman, his father’s Lancaster County estate on the Rappahannock River. He was the son of John Carter (ca. 1613–1670) and the fourth of his five wives, Sarah Ludlow Carter. His immigrant father, a member of the governor’s Council, had prospered in Virginia, and when Carter was orphaned, his elder half brother, John Carter (ca. 1653–1690), was able to educate him as their father’s will directed by sending him to London about 1673 to live for six years with Arthur Bailey, a merchant and family friend. Carter gained a lifelong appreciation for the classics and a thorough knowledge of the English end of the Virginia trade.
SUMMARY
Ambrose Madison was a merchant and planter. The grandfather of President James Madison, he was murdered by three enslaved people shortly after moving to the estate that would become Montpelier. Born in King and Queen County, he acquired land and dealt in large sums of money from a young age. His father-in-law, a surveyor, had long been interested in the Piedmont region of Virginia and acquired land in the part of Spotsylvania County that later became Orange County. In 1723 he gave 4,675 acres to his two sons-in-law, including Madison, who sent a team of mostly enslaved people west to clear the land and plant tobacco. In the spring of 1732 Madison and his family moved to the estate, which he called Mount Pleasant. A few months later, however, he fell ill and died. Three enslaved people were convicted of poisoning him and one was executed.
This article is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis.
The Netflix docudrama “Lost Pirate Kingdom” took the world by storm last month, rising to the #2 most watched show on the streaming service’s U.S. site, #3 in the U.K, and #1 in Denmark. It may be the most watched six hours of early 18
th century history out there, and has likely introduced millions to the true story of Blackbeard and his Caribbean pirate cohort, a fascinating tale I researched and told in a 2007 book,
The Republic of Pirates, which is why I was one of the series’ principle on camera experts.