'Outer Banks': Here's How Edward "Blackbeard" Teach's History Might Factor into Season 4
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
[Ahoy! There are spoilers for Outer Banks season 3 right ahead. Steer clear if you haven't finished and don't want to know what happens.]
Outer Banks tells a lot of tall tales. Heck, they found the mythical city of El Dorado in season 2. But Outer Banks made a reference in season 3 that is actually connected to real North Carolina history. At the end of the third season, the gang gets sent on a quest to find Blackbeard's treasure. Then they find a major clue: a captain's log belonging to Teach and dated 1718. Here's what you need to know about Edward Teach, aka the pirate Blackbeard, on Outer Banks and IRL.
The true story of Blackbeard
Any fifth grader in North Carolina could tell you all about the lighthouses along the coast where Netflix' Outer Banks is set. They could also tell you about the pirates. In fact, tea: a North Carolina teacher sued Netflix for copyright infringement, claiming Outer Banks stole the idea for the show from a book he wrote about Blackbeard's treasure. That was years ago, back in season 1, so the fact that they're doing a Blackbeard-related plot now is ballsy.
Edward Teach, the infamous pirate known as Blackbeard, was born in England in 1680 and died in 1718 on Ocracoke Island. You guessed it, that's part of the Outer Banks in North Carolina. Very little is known about his life, but he had a reputation for being scary AF. He likely first served as a privateer, which basically means a pirate hired by the government as part of a war–kind of like a mercenary. The queen at the time would have been Queen Anne, who you may recognize as the Queen played by Olivia Coleman in The Favourite. But then Teach turned to regular ol' piracy. He would go on to name one of his pirate ships Queen Anne's Revenge, which may have been a statement since she was no longer in charge.
He had a large crew and spent his time between England and the Outer Banks (maybe that's obvious because that's where the ocean is... don't make fun of meeeee) and set up a base in the Pamlico Sound. There is an inlet in Ocracoke where he used to hide that is, to this day, known as "Teach's Hole." Why are you laughing? What's funny about that? There was also a rumor that he had a corrupt agreement/friendship with the governor of the then colony of North Carolina, Charles Eden.
In 1718, Teach beached his ships, the Queen Anne's Revenge and the Adventure, and proclaimed loyalty to the Crown in order to avoid arrest and prosecution. According to the North Carolina National Parks Service, the colony was happy to pardon and harbor Blackbeard. But Virginia, South Carolina, and the English conspired against him and his crew. They raided the Outer Banks, captured and killed them. They may or may not have been tipped off by disgruntled North Carolina residents. Sounds like kook behavior!
So it is entirely possible that, in the fictional world of Outer Banks, a captain's log from 1718 would surface in the Tar Heel State.
Outer Banks isn't the only show to feature the famous rogue
Blackbeard is a main character on the HBO Max series Our Flag Means Death played by actor, writer, director, and man-about-town Taika Waititi. The comedy series takes advantage of how little we really know about Teach to invent exciting, hilarious, and romantic stories about him. Over three hundred years after his death and Blackbeard is in his fame era. Love that.
You Might Also Like
