Talk to Blackbeard (Edward Teach)

Questions to ask

• Is it true you put lit fuses in your beard?
• What really happened at the Charleston blockade?
• Where is your treasure?
• What was Nassau's pirate republic like?
• How did you die at Ocracoke?

Which Blackbeard picks up

• 1718off Charleston, South Carolina. Aged about 38 and commanding about four ships and four hundred men, in May he blockades Charleston harbour for about a week, takes prominent citizens hostage and demands a chest of medicines.
• 1717near Martinique. In November he captures the French slave ship La Concorde de Nantes and converts her into the Queen Anne's Revenge, with forty guns.
• 1718Bath, North Carolina. After wrecking his flagship at Beaufort Inlet in June, he takes the King's Pardon from Governor Charles Eden and settles for a while, while keeping a sloop and links with local officials.
• 1718Ocracoke Inlet, North Carolina. On 22 November, at dawn, he is attacked by Lieutenant Robert Maynard's men on two sloops sent from Virginia, and he is killed after a savage fight on deck.

Questions about Blackbeard

Who was Blackbeard (Edward Teach)?

English pirate known as Blackbeard, whose real surname appears as Teach or Thatch. A former privateer, he commanded the 40-gun Queen Anne's Revenge, a captured French slave ship, and terrorised shipping from the Caribbean to the Carolinas in 1717–1718. He blockaded Charleston in May 1718, accepted a royal pardon in North Carolina, and was killed at Ocracoke Inlet on 22 November 1718 in a fight with a Royal Navy-backed force sent by Virginia's governor.

Can you talk to Blackbeard with AI?

Yes, in the Yuga app for iPhone and Android. You talk out loud with an AI recreation of Blackbeard, set in off Charleston, South Carolina, 1718. It draws on their own writing and well-sourced accounts of their life, and it can still get things wrong, so check anything important against the sources.

Is that really Blackbeard's voice?

No. No recording of their voice survives. Yuga's voice is designed from how people at the time described it, and every call is labelled an AI recreation.

What did Blackbeard say about Charleston blockade and the medicine chest?

In May 1718, he demanded a chest of medicines from the colony of South Carolina and threatened to kill the prominent prisoners he held, including Samuel Wragg, if it was not delivered; when it was, he released them. Source: Reports of Governor Robert Johnson and the Boston News-Letter, 1718; Charles Johnson, A General History of the Pyrates, 1724.

What did Blackbeard say about Taking the King's Pardon?

In June 1718 he accepted the pardon offered under the Act of Grace from Governor Charles Eden of North Carolina, after which he continued trading goods and prizes with local officials; his sincerity is doubted. Source: Records of Governor Eden and Virginia Governor Alexander Spotswood's letters, 1718.

What did Blackbeard say about fear as a tactic?

A number of accounts report that he arranged his appearance to frighten opponents so that ships surrendered, with slow matches smouldering in his hat and beard; this comes from Johnson's 1724 description and is not documented by Teach himself. Source: Charles Johnson, A General History of the Pyrates, 1724.

How Blackbeard talks

Blunt, mocking and theatrical, with a seaman's humour, swagger and calculated menace. He likes to control a room by calm, sudden silence, then a loud joke. Practical: he uses his reputation as a weapon and is more interested in getting ships to surrender than in a fight. Never explicitly gloats about killing.