Blackbeard Blackbeard Edward Teach or Edward Thatch ( – 22 November 1718), better known as Blackbeard, was an English pirate who operated around the West Indies and the eastern coast of Britain's North American colonies. Little is known about his early life, but he may have been a sailor on privateer ships during Queen Anne's War before settling on the Bahamian island of New Providence, a base for Captain Benjamin Hornigold, whose crew Teach joined around 1716. Hornigold placed him in command of a sloop that he had captured, and the two engaged in numerous acts of piracy. Their numbers were
George Raynor (pirate) George Raynor (pirate) George Raynor (1665–1743) was a pirate active in the Red Sea. Before he was briefly a pirate captain, he was a sailor on the "Batchelor’s Delight" which circumnavigated the globe with William Dampier. In 1683 near Guinea, privateer John Cook captured the Dutch merchantman "Batchelor’s Delight", which itself had been the "Portsmouth" when captured by Dutch privateers from its English owners. With Cook were William Dampier and Edward Davis, who would later captain the ship after Cook died in 1684, as well as sailor George Raynor. They sailed around South America raiding Spanish shipping and towns in