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tonight a pirate treasure worth millions blackbeard looted dozens of

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ships and was able to walk away scot-free and it's still missing despite

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centuries of searching we know where he attacked ships where he hung out where

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he stopped for a time but in none of these places has blackbeard's treasure

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been found now we unearth the top theories around this legendary board

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blackbeard goes from public enemy number one to best friends with the

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governor overnight all of blackbeard's treasure now it's somewhere at the

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bottom of the ocean many of blackbeard's former crew members believed the

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blackbeard had made a deal with the devil what really became of blackbeard's

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lost treasure and where could it be

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November 21st 1996 Beaufort Inlet North Carolina a dive team led by historian

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film masters is attempting to find a lost centuries-old treasure the dive

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team is looking for a very specific pirate ship which may have been the

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most notorious pirate vessel of all time the ship is called the queen and

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revenge and it was helmed by the notorious pirate blackbeard blackbeard is

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probably the most famous pirate ever to live even though his actual pirate

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career was quite short in comparison to others he was most active between 1717

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and 1718 during the golden age of piracy blackbeard is one of the best-known

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figures of colonial American history but today 300 years later we really don't

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know much about his identity origins or even motivations for becoming a pirate

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there's a lot of questions and mysteries about blackbeard's background the first

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of which is his own name there's a few different accounts that spell it

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differently in the majority of the official records his name was written

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as Edward Thatch which has since become teach other people said he was a captain

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drummond somebody interpreted the wording in a later document to believe that

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his last name was Kentish the fact is there were many pirates who actually

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went by aliases so his identity and his real name are very much in doubt today

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much like his name blackbeard's early life is unknown the first time we hear

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about blackbeard is about 1716 and this is when he was sailing under the pirate

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Benjamin Hornigold and blackbeard was Hornigold's protege and became Hornigold

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second in command less than a year later Hornigold promotes blackbeard to

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captain of a small sloop in his fleet with a crew of 70 men how does a man

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become the captain of a sloop first of all he almost certainly would have been

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better educated than most of the men that he was with he was able to read and

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write he was able to navigate these were not characteristics that were common

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among most men at that time

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Benjamin Hornigold and blackbeard the two of them as pirates they're sailing up

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and down the American Eastern seaboard they were wreaking havoc against a lot

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of merchant ships and they're especially active between the Carolinas and down to

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Cuba and that's because there's a lot of major trading routes they're looking

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for things they can sell like textiles spices different types of alcohol such as

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wine and rum anything they could sell at a high price and coming out of the

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Caribbean where so much of this is being traded it's ripe for the picking

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despite their success blackbeard and Hornigold are soon at odds with each

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other blackbeard and Benjamin Hornigold had some philosophical differences

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about how to conduct piracy and really what it meant to be a pirate

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Benjamin Hornigold specifically did not want to attack British shipping but of

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course that means that his men lost out on lots and lots of plunder it upset a

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lot of the men in Hornigold's crew blackbeard on the other hand he's more

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gung-ho he wants to rob any ship he's indiscriminate about who he attacks and

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so he wants more of that freedom to be able to really hit other ships hard by

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1717 Hornigold is forced to retire and blackbeard is declared head of the

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fleet he immediately sets out to make a name for himself blackbeard projects

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this fearsome image right he's this big bold person he wears dark clothes he's

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got the dark crazy hair the big blackbeard the whole point was to be

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terrifying blackbeard knew he was gaining a reputation very quickly because of

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his looks and he began to capitalize on it in a way if you're a sailor or a

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navy man and you see this crazy man coming at you you are gonna give up

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your ship right away by late November 1717 blackbeard commands three ships

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with nearly 200 crewmen including the Queen Anne's revenge at the height of

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blackbeard's power he had more men more guns and more ships than any other

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pirate captain sailing so this heavily armed fleet of ships that he has

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including his flagship the Queen Anne's revenge blackbeard is basically

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unstoppable during this period blackbeard was an amazingly successful

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pirate he's captured you know dozens of vessels as they were approaching major

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east coast ports and is reading almost all the shipping trying to go in and out

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of the Caribbean in late May and early June blackbeard eventually makes his way

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north and blockade support of Charleston he besieges the harbor of

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Charleston for a week ships coming in and out he would intercept them he

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actually holds Charleston for for ransom and they pay it blackbeard's

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success doesn't go unnoticed blackbeard is becoming a lot more famous which

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means a lot more authorities are starting to look for him in various places at

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the time pirates were that powerful that numerous and that dangerous so the king

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had decided the only way to defeat the pirates was to divide and conquer them or

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in the case of blackbeard to send a privateer named Woods Rogers to capture

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him when blackbeard was blockading the port of Charleston one of the residents

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informed him that Woods Rogers had departed England and was on his way to

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the Bahamas to become the governor to break up this pirate republic that had

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been established I think blackbeard knew Woods Rogers was after him and so he

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goes up and topsoil inlet which is today Beauford limit presumably to fight a

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well-armed enemy and he hits a shoal and runs aground another of blackbeard's

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ships the adventure comes to his aid but it's too late this is pretty bad for

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blackbeard it is more than likely most of the loot most of the real valuable

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goods especially if it's blackbeard's flagship were stored on the queen and

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revenge at this point blackbeard's treasure is estimated to be tens of

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millions of dollars his own ledger reads about 12 and a half but it's incomplete

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suggesting that there's possibly more where that came from so this leads to

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the question what happened to the treasure the most logical place to look

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would be at its last known location on his ship

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Queen Anne's revenge

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despite knowing the general location of the wreck no one is able to find the

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Queen Anne's revenge once the ship is abandoned it probably wouldn't take

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long for it to start falling apart it was already in pretty bad shape and it's

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relatively warm water so any wood that's exposed is going to be eaten by the

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Torrito shipworms and I would say within a year you might not see much of it

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above water and within 10 years you wouldn't even know it was there then in

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1987 obsessed treasure hunter Phil masters starts a new mission to find

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blackbeard's flagship Phil masters has had success in this in lip before finding

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other treasure wrecks and since we know that blackbeard's ship went down and

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around the same spot masters assumes this is a good place to look for it

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finally on November 21st 1996 he locates it

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this discovery is a huge deal it makes international news it's been 278 years

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that people have been looking for this ship so discovering it means we might

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actually have some insight into the treasure that blackbeard actually had

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the excavation efforts start in 1997

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once the the wreck was found then it was up to the archaeologist to come in

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grid off the whole area and to tediously go through each square that had been

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marked off dredging the the sand up and running it through screen after screen

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soon they begin bringing up incredible objects we're finding all kinds of

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weaponry at least 40 cannons 20 have been pulled up we found grenades medical

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instruments side plates for guns the plates that they ate off it's a treasure

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trove of that time period what they don't find is blackbeard's treasure so

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even though there's no gold the blooms or or jeweled cups or anything like that

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it is a treasure of historical artifacts still the team believes they're on the

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right track there has been a small amount of gold dust or small nuggets of

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gold that have been recovered archaeologically from the wreck of the

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Queen Anne's revenge and there may still yet be a chest of gold or silver or

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jewels the archaeology on the Queen Anne's revenge has recovered roughly half

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of what we you think is down there but it's gonna take a while to get it done

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if blackbeard had a large amount of valuables and lewd and plunder doesn't

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appear to have been left on the Queen Anne's revenge but would blackbeard take

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off and leave the treasure behind I don't think that makes sense

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when notorious pirate blackbeard crashes off the coast of modern-day North

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Carolina in June 1718 a mystery begins so what happens to all of blackbeard's

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treasure this is one of the really big mysteries about him because we really

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have no idea the most logical place for blackbeard's treasure would be its last

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known place which of course was on his ship the Queen Anne's revenge when the

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announcement came that the Queen Anne's revenge had been located it was huge

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everybody's interested in blackbeard's flagship unfortunately no horde is found

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amid the wreckage of the Queen Anne's revenge but evidence suggests blackbeard's

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vessel didn't sink immediately after running a ground that gave blackbeard

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about a week to ten days to get everybody off the Queen Anne's revenge and

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then he could put a salvage crew aboard so that they could recover anything of

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the value that they wanted to retain could blackbeard have moved his loot of

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course in 1718 there were no banks there were no place to to put your money or

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your gold if you had accumulated it and it absolutely makes sense that it might

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have been hidden somewhere and hoping that they would be able to go back and

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retrieve it shortly after wrecking his ship blackbeard surrenders taking

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advantage of a new legal policy the pirates were that dangerous there were so

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many of them that the king was willing to issue a pardon that would absolve any

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pirate who took it from all of their crimes and they would be able to keep

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their treasure and go peacefully into retirement on September 5th 1717

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England's King George the first makes a royal decree the terms are if you stop

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plundering and turn yourself in we'll stop hunting you and many pirates take

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him up on the deal generally if a pirate is going to get captured they will be

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put on trial and they will hang that is almost guaranteed so a pardon will allow

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a pirate to survive and also keep their goods it takes blackbeard a while to

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come around but once he wrecks his flagship the Queen Anne's revenge he

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decides the pardon is the best option once he officially retires blackbeard

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moves to Bath North Carolina while the Queen Anne's revenge is unsalvageable

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he's allowed to keep his smaller ship the adventure for his own personal use

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blackbeard arrived in Bath in July of 1718 and bought a fine house where he

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would host these grand parties and invite his neighbors and the plantation

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owners he lives at a place called plum point oddly enough right next door to

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the governor Charles Eden the house hasn't survived but the site makes

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headlines in 1928 it was around Christmas time of 1928 and all of a sudden

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newspapers all across the country were reporting that blackbeard's famous

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pirate treasure had been found the story is originally attributed to two fur

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trappers North Carolina at that time was very overgrown a real wilderness it

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would have been perfect for fur trapping the fur trappers came upon a hole

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that was about eight feet deep covered with lots of trees and branches and

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leaves that sort of thing they go down to investigate and they discover down at

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the very bottom there's this brick vault sitting there at first the fur

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trappers think this might have been part of a foundation but then upon closer

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inspection they saw that the bricks were a lot of different shapes and sizes

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suggesting that they were handmade and they'd been stuck together with a lot of

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mortar more than would be used for a house and in that mortar there was an

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indentation the remnants of what very much looked like an old sea chest the

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trappers thought about who would need to bury a chest here in such a great hurry

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I mean blackbeard's really the only choice but the sea chest is gone the

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trappers estimate the chest would have been about 40 inches wide and 30 inches

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deep the trunk itself would have been a large wooden object it would have had a

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heavy lid on it and it probably would have belonged to blackbeard or maybe

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one of the other sailors on his ships because every sailor including a pirate

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had their own personalized trunk where they could keep their own special goods

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and treasure searching nearby the trappers find more clues right next to

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the hole these two fur trappers found a tripod and a pulley but they also found

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an indentation in the sand that appeared to run right down to the beach and in

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fact the fur trappers did describe that they had seen footprints and they had

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seen some disturbed earth and disturbed foliage it could have been that the

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fur trappers may have just missed the people who had taken the trunk away

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unfortunately the trail of evidence stops at the water this raises so many

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questions was this blackbeard's long lost treasure who dug the hole what did

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they find where did they take what they found to me the biggest question of all

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is how did these people know where to dig by 1928 people had been digging all

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over this property for hundreds of years and this didn't seem like a lucky find

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they dug one hole and they seem to have brought the exact right tools they would

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have needed to dig this hole people in this region passed down all sorts of

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stories about blackbeard and maybe someone actually had some information

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about where he had hidden his treasure and then on the other hand maybe blackbeard

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decided to leave a treasure map behind maybe in this case X actually did mark

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the spot the trappers are unnamed obviously the thieves are unnamed we

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don't have any more information about this hole other than from this one

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newspaper article and it's led some people to wonder if these fur trappers

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were even real or was it something that the newspaper decided to print for fun

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in order to get sales maybe capitalize on a local legend so this also creates

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an even larger mystery behind what was going on in 1928 around blackbeard's

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former home if the story is fiction it may have a well-known inspiration

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well certainly Robert Lewis Stevenson had a great impact on the public's

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perception and interest in pirate treasure with the publication of treasure

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island we all think that all pirates buried their treasure but actually there

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is almost no record of any pirate burying treasure but no matter how much I

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have learned about piracy when I think pirates I think of buried treasure I

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think of peg legs I think of hooks other theorists believe the trappers tale is

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partially true it's certainly possible that blackbeard buried some treasure

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what's unlikely is that he buried all of his treasure in one spot it's more

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likely that he would have spread it out over multiple locations blackbeard would

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do this to reduce risk or just because it's more practical to have a little bit

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in a lot of different places a single chest 30 by 40 inches can hold a lot of

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blue right you know you've got silver and gold but it's not nearly enough to

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hold everything that blackbeard had there's definitely more treasure out

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there and it seems like if somebody was able to find this treasure other people

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might be able to find the rest

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during his two-year reign of terror along the Atlantic coast virtually no

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from blackbeard and his pirate crew blackbeard's most famous territory was

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the Bahamas the Virgin Islands and the Carolinas but there's evidence to

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suggest he went as far south as South America and as far north as New Hampshire

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if we're trying to think of different places that blackbeard may have buried

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his treasure there are loads of different possibilities people think that

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blackbeard traveled around with all of his treasures and I think we get this

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idea from movies like the Goonies and Treasure Island where there's just piles

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of gold and jewels but if you think about it that's not practical part of the

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problem with this is gold is very very heavy a box that's two feet by two feet

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by two feet would be eight cubic feet of gold would actually weigh about 9,500

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pounds he needed his ships to be light so he could attack other ships and avoid

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being attacked himself he needed to make room for his men and for supplies and

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for weaponry and we know even that when he would attack other ships he wouldn't

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take everything he would pick and choose what he wanted and leave the rest

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if blackbeard is really successful in several of his captures and had a huge

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haul of loot odds are he's going somewhere safe to offload it according to

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historian Robert Cahill it could be a place no one would ever think to look in

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1980 Robert Cahill published a book called Pirates and Lost Treasures in

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that book he suggests that while most people were looking for blackbeard's

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treasure in the Caribbean or along the coast of Carolina he thinks that black

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beard may have hidden some of his treasure about 600 miles further to the

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north as far north as the coasts of Maine and New Hampshire where we find a

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series of islands called the Isles of Shoals the Isles of Shoals are what they

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sound like the rocky shoals jutting out of the water between New Hampshire and

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Maine it was mainly used with the cod fisheries but there were folks that also

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dabbled in piracy as well so you had a lot of illicit behavior going on Cahill

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focuses on the Isle of Shoals because as a local historian he's found accounts

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of blackbeard and his crew frequenting a tavern on the islands it's amazing how

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many places have been suggested for blackbeard's treasure but the Isle of

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Shoals makes more sense than some of the others because it's one of those places

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that matches sort of what the pirates were looking for in a lair or a hideout

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the kind of place where you might lay low maybe nobody will notice you maybe you

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can offload treasure the Isle of Shoals are made up of three islands and in the

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middle is this dumbbell shaped lunging island and this is referred to as the

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pirate bank and the reason for this is because its location is really safe

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sandwiched in between these other islands it's got very rocky coastlines and

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it's the perfect place to go if you need to hide yourself your ship or offload

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goods because it's unlikely people will be able to either find it or sail in

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there safely over the years several teams of scientists and treasure hunters

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search lunging island it's rumored that in blackbeard's time there was a cave on

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the eastern end of this island and if that's true it would have been a

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perfect place for blackbeard to hide his treasure but today that cave is not

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there according to Pruity Randall who owns the only house on the island she

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believes that the cave may have been hidden away after centuries of shifting

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sands and tides Randall says that shortly after World War two plane from the

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American government flew overhead and spotted the cave using sonar a few years

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later a man from a quarry and company came out and did some tests indicating

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that a cave may exist under the rock but it appears there was no further follow-up

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to either of these two investigations in 2001 a team from Hager Richter Geoscience

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picks up the search their first order of business is to use a ground penetrating

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radar to look for evidence of a cave or really anything buried underneath the

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ground ground penetrating radar doesn't take the place of digging but it does

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make your digging a lot more efficient unfortunately their initial findings

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are inconclusive but that doesn't stop them they hire a big barge mounted drill

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from Rockland main and they dig a bunch of test holes into the rock but they

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only find more rock the chance of finding a single collapsed cave is really

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one in a million it's a needle in a haystack situation like many treasure

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hunters eventually you run out of time and money and then if you're not getting

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any return you have to pull the plot some suggest the geoscience team is

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looking on the wrong island just because blackbeard drank on lunging island

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doesn't mean he buried his treasure there I mean wouldn't it make more sense for

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him to pick one of the other aisles of shoals where there would be more secrecy

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Kay Hill believes that blackbeard may have a connection to other islands in the

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chain according to legend after he retired in 1718 blackbeard married a

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woman in North Carolina it was the governor Eden that oversaw the ceremony

280
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then he spent his honeymoon on an island called Smuddy nose maybe the trip up

281
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north for the honeymoon was also a chance to get some stash spending money

282
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for the new couple there's one other island in the isle of shoals that makes

283
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an interesting contender though there's no evidence of buried treasure on

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Smuddy nose or lunging islands star island does have a history of pirate plunder

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John clutch was a pirate about 10 years before blackbeard was really active he

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oversaw a mutiny on board his merchant ship and then the crew elected him to be

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their captain they sailed down to the coast of Brazil where he captured nine

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or 10 pirate ships and made a good amount of money at that point they sailed north

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up to star island where reportedly he buried some of his treasure now this was

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just a myth a story nobody really knew about this until the 1800s then some

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people found gold inside a wall and thanks to the dates on those coins they

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believe that it may have been quelch's gold could blackbeard's treasure also be hidden here

293
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there's so many legends and possible locations but the isle of shoals has been

294
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one of the most persistent ones the problem is that the isles shoals are solid granite rocks

295
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so it just doesn't make a lot of sense as a place to secure your valuables it would make a very

296
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bad safety deposit box it's really hard to dig holes there you need miners to help you do it

297
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these pirates i mean they're sailors they're not engineers well let's remember what the technology

298
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the 18th century was like it's nowhere near what we have i suppose you could use black powder

299
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but to do any effect of blasting you really got to know what you're doing

300
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and the idea of these pirates could somehow secret this vast treasure someplace that we

301
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can't find now i find that difficult to believe still the legend of blackbeard's treasure remains

302
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tied to these islands for centuries and some locals say he left something else behind as well

303
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legend has it he left his wife there to guard the treasure and he would come back and visit

304
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he would come and go and come and go and one day he never came back and the locals say her ghost

305
00:25:08,480 --> 00:25:14,800
haunts the isles to this day i just would have to think there's gotta be a better way to hide your

306
00:25:14,800 --> 00:25:22,480
treasure but again if blackbeard's treasure is found on the isle of shoals i will be the first one

307
00:25:22,480 --> 00:25:26,400
to say how wrong i was in believing that this would never happen

308
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in the search for blackbeard's treasure many hunters focus on his whereabouts during retirement

309
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but the pirate's retirement is a matter of a few mere weeks before long he's back on the high seas

310
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and in a new ship you might ask yourself why was this fearsome pirate who stole millions of dollars

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looted dozens of ships blockaded entire towns able to walk away scot-free to understand that you

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have to look at the overall political situation in europe in the early 1700s during this era european

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powers are competing to control the astonishing wealth of the new world you had a lot of commerce

314
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going on these colonies that are being exploited and there is a lot of raw material coming out of

315
00:26:17,920 --> 00:26:25,200
those colonies you had colonial americans sending out material to europe and you have the spanish

316
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colonies in the caribbean and mexico and south america chipping out a lot of gold and silver back

317
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across to europe when europe moves into armed conflict leaders hurry to enlist men like blackbeard

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to seize their enemies luke he and many others enroll as privateers what's the difference between

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privateering and piracy well a privateer was somebody who was given permission to be a maritime

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mercenary by their king or queen or government they have a contract called a letter of mark which

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basically states you are fighting against ships from these specific countries and in payment they

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were allowed to keep 80 percent of all the goods they could steal and the other 20 percent goes back

323
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to the government essentially blackbeard was given permission to go out and attack enemy

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shipping and they could keep a portion of the plunder north carolina's governor charles eden

325
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allows blackbeard to take his remaining ship the adventure and return to a life on the sea

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but within weeks he sheds his privateer status and begins attacking english vessels blackbeard

327
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is once again a pirate when blackbeard decides to leave north carolina in august of 1718 he knows

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he's probably not going back he's decided to go back to a life of piracy despite having taken the

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pardon it might be that at this point he feels like he has nothing to lose and he probably figures

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he might as well go back to piracy and do everything he can before he's inevitably going to get caught

331
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when you look at the story of the big empty hole on plumb point you have to wonder is it possible

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blackbeard dug up the treasure himself i mean we know he was going back and forth between his home

333
00:28:07,840 --> 00:28:12,960
and bath and the boat so is it possible that he was getting the treasure and loading up the ship himself

334
00:28:17,600 --> 00:28:23,600
whatever survives from his original hall blackbeard wastes no time adding to his fortune

335
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almost immediately he captures two french ships and in the meantime news of his exploits going back

336
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into piracy have traveled around the caribbean and the american colonies as well frustrated the governor

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of virginia decides to take matters into his own hands now alexander spotswood he has made his

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mission as a governor to eradicate piracy in any way whatsoever in the letters of alexander spotswood

339
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he states that he's very concerned that this pirate blackbeard has established himself a base

340
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at ochre coke island obviously having pirates or a pirate base just south of there would be a direct

341
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threat to the trade of virginia so he's going to start putting plans into motion to stop blackbeard

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at all costs governor spotswood decides to commission lieutenant robert maynard in order to try to take

343
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down blackbeard he gives him 57 men and two ships and is instructed capture blackbeard dead or alive

344
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five days after departing from kicka 10 virginia maynard's fleet confronts blackbeards at ochre

345
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coke inlet blackbeard and maynard face off and blackbeard immediately fires a cannon into

346
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maynard ships obliterating one of them during this gunfire maynard lost a number of his men and the

347
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air filled with clouds of smoke it became very confusing it was hard for either of the vessels

348
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to see each other they were basically a drift blackbeard gets off another broadside again mayhem

349
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he mows down more of the royal navy sailors and they jump on board ready to seize control

350
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and that's when lieutenant maynard unleashes his great surprise maynard's men are all hiding

351
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below deck and so when blackbeard and his crew come on lieutenant maynard's men rush up to the deck

352
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and this massive bloodbath of a battle ensues blackbeard is wounded he's stabbed in the leg by one

353
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of maynard's men and reportedly blackbeard shouts well done lad after he's been stabbed and in that

354
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moment robert maynard sees his opportunity and he takes his sword and he beheads blackbeard on the

355
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ship killing him once and for all maynard returns to virginia and places blackbeard's head on a

356
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spike at the entrance to chesapeake bay a head is a fine trophy but maynard came back without

357
00:30:37,840 --> 00:30:43,200
blackbeard ship or any gold so the question is what became of blackbeard ship and the treasure that

358
00:30:43,200 --> 00:30:50,320
was possibly on it the adventure remains missing to this day and its absence may provide a clue

359
00:30:50,320 --> 00:30:55,040
to what happened one of the theories is that one of blackbeard's most trusted crew members

360
00:30:55,040 --> 00:30:59,280
caesar actually had plans to scuttle the ship meaning to destroy it before anybody could

361
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actually go capture him the idea is it's better to have all the treasure fall down into the sea

362
00:31:04,800 --> 00:31:09,600
rather than let any of it go into maynard's or any other authority's hands of course it could

363
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have been maynard himself it was common practice at the time after defeating an enemy to burn their

364
00:31:14,880 --> 00:31:19,840
ship maybe maynard didn't search the ship properly and that would mean that all of blackbeard's

365
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treasure what he had dug up from plum point now it's somewhere at the bottom of the ocean if the

366
00:31:24,960 --> 00:31:30,720
treasure remains on the adventure there's still hope for its recovery this might be our single

367
00:31:30,720 --> 00:31:35,120
best chance to find blackbeard's treasure if we can find the wreck of the adventure we know it's the

368
00:31:35,120 --> 00:31:40,560
last place that he was and there was probably some plunder on there in 1989 the same company that

369
00:31:40,560 --> 00:31:45,600
found the queen and revenge gets a permit from the state of north carolina to salvage the adventure

370
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if they can find it so far they have not but the record just still out there somebody's probably

371
00:31:50,480 --> 00:31:53,920
going to find it eventually and if they do who knows maybe they'll get rich

372
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perhaps no other figure features more prominently in the story of blackbeard than north carolina

373
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governor charles eden blackbeard was in need of the king's pardon but had committed acts of piracy

374
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after the deadline stipulated by the pardon south carolina would not have been happy since he had

375
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deceived charleston and virginia they sure didn't like him i think his options were pretty limited

376
00:32:22,960 --> 00:32:28,720
at that point so blackbeard goes to governor charles eden because he knows that governor eden

377
00:32:28,720 --> 00:32:32,480
tends to have decent relationships with pirates we don't know if the two men knew each other

378
00:32:32,480 --> 00:32:36,960
beforehand but after blackbeard receives the pardon their relationship takes a strange turn

379
00:32:37,680 --> 00:32:41,760
blackbeard's house is right next door to governor eden's there are even reports that there was a

380
00:32:41,760 --> 00:32:47,360
tunnel dug between the governor's house and blackbeard's when blackbeard marries a woman named

381
00:32:47,360 --> 00:32:53,680
mary ormond it's the governor who oversees the ceremony blackbeard and eden seem to be very good

382
00:32:53,680 --> 00:32:59,200
friends what is the reason for this does eden think he can rehabilitate blackbeard is eden star

383
00:32:59,200 --> 00:33:04,240
struck by the guy or something else going on one of the most comprehensive histories of north

384
00:33:04,240 --> 00:33:12,080
carolina comes from dr. hue williamson published in 1812 according to hue williamson governor eden

385
00:33:12,080 --> 00:33:18,000
is very charismatic he's charming he's intelligent however he is also sort of covered in this cloud

386
00:33:18,000 --> 00:33:22,560
of disgrace and this is because of his assumed association with one of the most notorious pirates

387
00:33:22,560 --> 00:33:27,440
of all time blackbeard goes from being public enemy number one to best friends with the governor

388
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overnight history tells us that usually only happens when there's a payoff

389
00:33:34,800 --> 00:33:42,000
in other words blackbeard's hard-earned treasure might have been given an exchange for his freedom

390
00:33:42,000 --> 00:33:46,320
one of the basic conditions of the pardon was that you had to turn yourself in by september 5th

391
00:33:46,320 --> 00:33:54,080
1718 but you were only pardoned for the crimes that you committed before january 5th of 1718

392
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nothing after but of course blackbeard committed loads of crimes after january 5th including his

393
00:34:00,000 --> 00:34:07,840
well-known blockade of charleston in may of 1718 which should have been punishable by death so why

394
00:34:07,840 --> 00:34:13,600
wasn't it blackbeard had amassed millions of dollars of worth of goods and treasure and it's

395
00:34:13,600 --> 00:34:18,160
very likely he brought all of this into north carolina and gave a huge chunk of it to the governor

396
00:34:18,960 --> 00:34:25,920
did blackbeard use his wealth to buy his own pardon when blackbeard turned himself in in june

397
00:34:25,920 --> 00:34:30,800
he should have been killed but he wasn't and maybe this explains why and why blackbeard's

398
00:34:30,800 --> 00:34:34,720
treasures never been found because he gave it up i mean if it's your money or your life what are you

399
00:34:34,720 --> 00:34:41,760
gonna do and the bribes may not have stopped there at one point blackbeard returns to north carolina

400
00:34:41,760 --> 00:34:48,080
with a french ship called the rose emily but he tells the governor that he just found this ship

401
00:34:48,640 --> 00:34:55,440
perfectly seaworthy filled with plunder and with not a soul aboard and by sadmony hearing

402
00:34:55,440 --> 00:34:59,680
with the governor present blackbeard has awarded the rights to this french vessel whether or not

403
00:34:59,680 --> 00:35:04,720
the governor believed blackbeard's story how gullible do we think he is more likely he was

404
00:35:04,720 --> 00:35:10,000
getting to keep a little piece of the treasure himself if eden did accept blackbeard's treasure

405
00:35:10,880 --> 00:35:18,400
what did he do with it edward mosley was a rival of governor charles eden and when mosley

406
00:35:18,400 --> 00:35:24,240
kind of caught whiff of what charles eden was doing with blackbeard he definitely wanted to use

407
00:35:24,240 --> 00:35:30,720
that against him he outright accused the governor of deliberately colluding with a pirate for bad

408
00:35:30,720 --> 00:35:37,040
purposes not to help the community but just to help himself in retaliation governor eden arrests

409
00:35:37,040 --> 00:35:43,840
mosley finds him 100 pounds and bars him from ever holding any sort of public office for the next

410
00:35:43,840 --> 00:35:50,160
three years however after blackbeard's death in battle a letter was found that vindicates

411
00:35:50,160 --> 00:35:56,480
mosley proving that everything mosley was accusing governor eden of doing was true the letter is

412
00:35:56,480 --> 00:36:02,480
written to blackbeard from tobias night eden's secretary of the governor's council in the letter

413
00:36:02,480 --> 00:36:09,360
to blackbeard at ochre cope governor eden wants to send a meeting the purpose of which was not known

414
00:36:09,920 --> 00:36:15,920
after blackbeard is killed they actually find a whole bunch of his pirate plunder from the last

415
00:36:15,920 --> 00:36:23,360
phase of his career in tobias night's barn hidden under a pile of hay which didn't look very good

416
00:36:23,360 --> 00:36:28,160
the governor of virginia alexander spotswood really wants to get involved in this he wants to

417
00:36:28,240 --> 00:36:34,480
arrest governor eden to bias night and everybody responsible of working with blackbeard the problem

418
00:36:34,480 --> 00:36:39,840
is being the governor of virginia means he has absolutely no legal jurisdiction within north

419
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carolina so there's nothing he can do eden spends the next few years trying to get what he feels he

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deserves from governor spotswood eden claims spotswood's virginian sailors illegally invaded north

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carolina to apprehend blackbeard and that any plunder captured on the mission belongs to him eden

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dies in 1722 in his will eden leaves his fortune which might be blackbeard's fortune to spotswood's

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political rivals that same year governor spotswood was ousted from power this might be blackbeard's

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last act of revenge against the man who was most responsible for seeing him killed

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for 300 years scholars and treasure hunters alike have been trying to solve the mystery behind

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blackbeard's missing treasure we know a lot about blackbeard's movements throughout his pirate career

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where he attacked ships where he hung out where he stopped for a time but in none of these places

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has blackbeard's treasure been found some theorists believe blackbeard's first biography

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may tell us why captain charles johnson is the author of a book called a general history of

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the pirates which was published in 1724 and it was a smash hit almost immediately because it's

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basically a large collection of pirate biographies all of whom are of the most famous pirates out of

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the golden age of piracy no one has really been able to identify who captain charles johnson was in

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some authors have said that he was actually a pirate himself so we have him as a fairly reliable

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source johnson interviewed a number of blackbeard's former crew for his book and they told him a

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kind of a wild tale according to blackbeard's crew one day they noticed the stowaway they have no idea

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who he is they have no idea how he got there or even how long he'd been with them even more mysterious

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he disappears just days after he arrives they haven't docked anywhere he just vanishes the

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crew believe this is no ordinary stowaway the crew says blackbeard knows he's being hunted and

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that he's likely to die in the next few days they're convinced the stowaway is the devil himself

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this may sound like a silly idea but the crew doesn't pull this out of nowhere blackbeard

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does exhibit some very strange behavior on his final voyage it was like his mind wasn't fully there

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he'd been saying things about how he'd been working with the devil it's like blackbeard knew

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his death was coming and it was causing a sort of madness that nobody could explain one of the

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examples of the madness that blackbeard's crew spoke about was how blackbeard took three members of

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his crew locked them into the hold and set it on fire when he does this he says let us make a

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hell of our own and see how long we can bear it the men hold out as long as they can but they cry

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out under the intense heat and the suffocating conditions shortly after that some of the crew

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asked blackbeard if his wife knew where any of his treasure may have been hidden blackbeard told them

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nobody but myself and the devil know where it is after the disappearing stranger the unusual

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rituals and the comment about the devil the crew is convinced that blackbeard has made a deal with

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the devil to hide the treasure not figuratively literally according to johnson's book blackbeard

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is killed the day after the alleged brimstone ritual look devil or not the crew believe blackbeard

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had a large amount of treasure hidden somewhere besides his boat and i think that that night

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blackbeard confirmed it now this story is very likely embellished it makes for good entertainment

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it really feeds on the rumors about blackbeard the legends about blackbeard that are coming out even

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while he's alive blackbeard is an eccentric and he's been through a lot and he likes to put on a

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show whether the devil story is true or not it doesn't surprise me that towards the end of his

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life blackbeard has become unhinged my suspicion is that blackbeard didn't really have a massive

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treasure cache at the end of his career blackbeard had offloaded a lot of it he had sold many of the

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goods he had gathered more sold more what treasure there was probably ended up in the families of

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the crew members that blackbeard had sailed with i think for legend makers it was irresistible to

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have the great pirate also have a great treasure i just think it didn't happen that way just because

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blackbeard was unlucky who knows blackbeard was the greatest pirate of his time and the treasure's

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got to be somewhere i believe it's out there although the location of blackbeard's supposed

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treasure remains unknown the man's life itself has proven quite lucrative it's estimated that the many

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books films and adaptations of his story have earned over two billion dollars not bad for two

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years of work as a pirate i'm larence fishberg thank you for watching history's greatest mysteries