Work Text:
A.R. Butler, Blackbeard and the Gentleman Pirate: Matelotage, Masculinity, and Maritime Community Building in the Golden Age of Caribbean Piracy (Newtown: Atlantic University Press, 2022).
The respective careers of Edward “Blackbeard” Teach and Stede Bonnet are some of the most mythologised of the Golden Age of Piracy, yet the significance of their partnership for the study of early modern masculinities and historical queer community building has not yet been fully articulated. Butler argues that the lives of Teach, Bonnet, and the crew of the Revenge demonstrate that both radical and reactionary understandings of identity and sexuality were at play in such trans-Atlantic communities, and animated the social and cultural forces that brought Teach and Bonnet together. A re-reading of some of the best-known sources for the period—such as Bonnet’s surviving letters and Lucius Spriggs’s memoirs—through a queer theory lens offers a new understanding of the meaning of matelotage.
Blackbeard and the Gentleman Pirate additionally draws on extensive archival research to provide the most comprehensive reconstruction yet of Teach and Bonnet’s careers and travels. Butler brings together previously unstudied property deeds from the Whithorp Collection and a collection of estate papers now housed at the Archivo de las Religiosas Hermanas de la Venganza Cristiana de Santa Ana, to argue not only for the authenticity of the 'Villa' letter, but for a wholesale revision of the accepted understanding of Bonnet and Teach's lives post-piracy.
This study will appeal to those interested in the history of the eighteenth-century Caribbean, and to those interested in gender studies and the history of sexuality more generally. (Hardcover, e-book; 320 pages.)
Table of Contents
Introduction
Chapter 1: What’s in a Name? The Early Lives and Careers of Edward Teach and Stede Bonnet
Chapter 2: Hoisting One’s Pennant: Flexible Masculinity and Eroticism on the Pirate Ship Revenge
Chapter 3: More than Sodomy and the Lash: Matelotage as Emotional Partnership
Chapter 4: Ghost Stories: Bonnet and Teach Beyond the Caribbean
Chapter 5: The Evidence of Things Unseen: A New Reading of Spriggs’s Twenty Years A-Sailing (1763)
Afterword: Teach, Bonnet, and the Creation of the Modern Pirate
Appendices: Selected Letters
Index
A
Act of Grace: 117, 120, 135-137, 264.
Allamby, Mary (later Bonnet). See Middleport, Mary.
B
Badminton family: origins as landed gentry in Kent, 20n; tradition of naval service, 114n; Nigel Badminton, death of, 60; Chauncey Badminton, death of, 115; Brownlow Badminton, death of, 130; Edwin Badminton, death of, 130; Frederick Badminton, death of, 131; Bonnet's letter to Sir John Badminton suggesting a hiatus in his family's tradition of naval service, 131.
Blackbeard. See Teach, Edward.
Bonnet, Alma. See Whithorp, Alma.
Bonnet, Stede: childhood, 17-18; education in England, 18-20; marriage to Mary Allamby, 26-28; abortive poetry career, 29; abandonment of family, 30; meets Edward Teach, 65; sexual crisis, 66; management theory of, 99; capture by British Navy, 114; return to Barbados, 115; reunited with Teach, 120; pirate fleet co-commanded by, 170-175, 188-193, 197; clothing, 21, 32-34, 47, 51, 65-67, 139, 152 175-177, 263; leadership of Nassau raid, 187; final battle of, 217; love letters to Teach, 230-231, 265; evidence for name change, 263-264; alleged deaths, 266. See also Act of Grace, Fuckery, Matelotage, Zion.
Boodhari, Oluwande: 9, 27; rumoured royal ancestry, 130. See also Matelotage.
Booty: 14, 29, 39, 67, 73.
C
Caroline of Ansbach: correspondence with Bonnet about gift of sabaeus monkey, 180.
Charleston, heist: 241-244.
Croismare, Jean-Hector-Marie de ("Frenchie"): early years, 71; brief stint as boy lutist at the court of the Medici in Florence, 72n ; impressment on Barbary Coast, 73; masterminds Charleston heist, 241; makes witchcraft accusations against Ascensión Torres, 107; counter-accusations of witchcraft by Torres, 108; publishes romance novel inspired by Bonnet and Teach's relationship, 229-230; popular revival of sea shanties on social media, 262; marries Torres, 262n .
D
Dancing: 71, 155.
Disease and illness: 37, 63, 220; amputated digits, 25, 111, 239; at Mumbai, 175; scurvy, 121-122; venereal, 69.
E
Egalitarianism: 7. See Stede Bonnet, management theory of, 99.
F
Fuckery: Bonnet’s explanation of concept, 98-99; as undertaken by Teach, 101, 103, 110-118, 189; as undertaken by Teach and Bonnet, 203-209; as queer act, 8-10, 101-107.
G
General History of the Pyrates, A (Johnson), 19, 29, 34, 251, 264n.
Guangzhou, 250.
Gulliver’s Travels, 59.
H
Hands, Israel 'Basilica': 46, 49; nicknames, 75; getaway of, 159; last trace of existence of, 234-235; Jungian reading of, 246.
High Court of Admiralty: 169-170.
Hispaniola: 21, 63, 110.
Hornigold, Benjamin: 35; toxic masculinity and, 129-135.
I
International Maritime Bureau, 269.
J
'Jeff the Accountant': 233; debate over historicity of, 235-236.
Jim Jiménez: 5, 66, 116; knives found in coat of, 122; trial of, 181; escape of, 181; place in trans historiographies, 267. See also Matelotage.
K
Kraken: symbolism of, 174.
L
Law: 62, 128; made to benefit the rich, 34, 61; English, 57-58. See also Act of Grace.
Literacy: 11, 23-24, 128; Teach learns to read, 175-177.
Louis XV of France: 185-186.
M
Maps: 3, 59; map to location of rumoured Teach-Bonnet treasure, 262.
Matelotage: 116-117; history of, 10-13; matelotage partnership of Oluwande Boodhari and Jim Jiménez, 130-133; matelotage partnership of Teach and Bonnet, 150-155.
Middleport, Mary: early life, 25; marriage to Bonnet, 26-28; career as painter, 185; marriage to Douglas Middleport, 185-186; exhibition at the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture, 251-252; letters to grandchildren about her portrait of Bonnet and Teach, 264.
Money laundering: 57-58.
N
Nassau: Teach’s convalescence in, 186; burning of, 187-188.
O
Oaths of honour, 118, 244.
Ocracoke Island: crew marooned on, 170-172.
P
Paris: 179; Teach and Bonnet's shopping expeditions in, 180-182.
Pirate, synonyms for: 12-13.
Q
Quedagh Merchant: sinking, 150; archaeological excavation of, 152n .
R
Rackham, 'Calico' Jack: youthful relationship with Teach, 51-52; seagull incident, 91; death, 94.
Republic of Pirates: 5, 38, 103, 204.
Revenge: construction, 40; alterations made to, 51; dramatic performances by crew of, 68, 85-87, 114; narratives of raid on, 141, 224-229; wreck of, 265; dispersal of crew, 266-267.
'Roach' (later known as 'M. de la Roche'): Forty Orange Glaze Cake recipe mentioned in London Courier and Evening Gazette, 88; patronage of Duchess of Devonshire, 89; opens first of patisserie chain in New Orleans, 263; pioneering advertising campaign illustrated by Lucius Spriggs, 264.
S
‘Spanish Jackie’: possible identification with Jacqueline Soulié, 57; alliance with Israel Hands, 103, 151n ; authorship of treatise on polyamory, 125n.
Spriggs, Lucius: early life, 221-222; breaks engagement with Annabel Sudsbury, 223; known sexual liaisons of, 226, 228n , 231, 248n, 253; surviving sketchbooks of, 249; commentaries on matelotage, 240-243; memoir manuscript, 225-226; documentary about, 259.
T
Teach, Edward: birth on a beach, 30; known family, 30-32; name and aliases of, 2n, 33; multilingualism, 34; apprenticeship with Hornigold, 35-37; professional and sexual rivalry with Calico Jack, 39ff; commands first ship, 44; sets fire to ships, 36, 39, 45, 47n , 51, 64; meets Bonnet, 65; pirate fleet co-commanded by, 170-175; declines German princess's marriage proposal, 180; ballads about, 213; opinions about tea, 217; letter exchange with Alma Whithorp, 262; evidence for name change, 263-264. See also Act of Grace, Fuckery, Matelotage, Teach's Hole, Zion.
Teach's Hole: explorations of, 269.
V
Vane, Charles: slap fight with Bonnet, 199.
Versailles: Bonnet’s impressions of, 183-184; Teach's cloth-of-gold outfit for masked ball at, 185.
‘Villa, The’. See Zion.
W
Walpole, Robert: attacks Bonnet and Teach in Commons debate, 167; reaction to Bonnet’s letter, 171.
Whithorp, Alma (née Bonnet): early life, 27-28; relationship with parents, 31; inheritance of Allamby-Bonnet estates, 32; marriage to Sir Jonathan Whithorp, 169; relationship with Maria Stokes, 170; petrified orange incident, 170n; elopement with Maria Stokes, 172; divorce proceedings cause scandal, 172; beginning of career of piracy, 172-173; encounter with Bonnet and Teach in France, 175; letter exchange with Teach, 262; visits 'the Villa', 263.
Wilde, Oscar: poem dedications of, 268.
Woodcuts: depictions of Blackbeard and the Gentleman Pirate, 65; erotic art of Lucius Spriggs, 242.
Z
Zion: identification of Zion Estate site on Yucatán peninsula with 'the Villa' of Bonnet's correspondence, 264; evidence for Teach and Bonnet's acquisition of estate after traditionally accepted dates of death, 265-266; likely last resting place of Teach and Bonnet, 270.