Blackbeard Trivia
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41 free Blackbeard trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
This Blackbeard trivia quiz covers the roughly two years in which Edward Teach (or Thatch) went from a sloop captain in Benjamin Hornigold's crew to the most feared pirate on the American coast. It follows the capture of La Concorde and her rebirth as Queen Anne's Revenge, the alliance with Stede Bonnet, the smoking fuses under the hat, the blockade of Charles Town for a chest of medicines, the deliberate grounding at Beaufort Inlet, the royal pardon from Governor Eden, and the dawn battle at Ocracoke in November 1718 that ended with his head hanging from Lieutenant Maynard's bowsprit. The easy questions are ones most people know: his real name, his ship, how he died. The medium ones ask about his mentors and rivals, his fleet, his tactics and the governors who pardoned and hunted him. The hard ones dig into Israel Hands, Tobias Knight, the size of the crew at Ocracoke, the prize money dispute, the 1996 discovery of the wreck and the actors who have played him. It works for a pirate-themed party, a Talk Like a Pirate Day round or a history class on the Golden Age of Piracy. Every answer has been checked against a reference encyclopaedia, and each question shows its explanation and citation once you have answered.
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Q 01Blackbeard's legend rests on a 1724 book by 'Captain Charles Johnson', a name long suspected to hide which novelist?
Daniel Defoe
Daniel Defoe was named as the real author in 1932 and credited for decades, though many scholars now doubt it and point instead to the publisher Nathaniel Mist.
Q 02What was the name of Blackbeard's 40-gun flagship?
Queen Anne's Revenge
Queen Anne's Revenge had been the French slave ship La Concorde; Blackbeard armed her with 40 guns, yet he kept her little more than six months before she was wrecked on a sandbar.
Q 03What was Blackbeard reported to have tied under his hat to frighten enemies?
Lit fuses
Lit fuses: the slow-burning cords wreathed his face in smoke, so that, a 1724 history said, no fury from hell could look more frightful.
Q 04On which Bahamian island, home to Nassau, did Blackbeard and his fellow pirates make their base?
New Providence
New Providence: Britain had lost its grip on the colony during the war, and from its harbour the pirates could pounce on the shipping lanes of the Florida Strait and slip home again.
Q 05Under which pirate captain did Blackbeard first serve before commanding his own sloop?
Benjamin Hornigold
Benjamin Hornigold would not attack British ships, so his crew voted him out of command; he took the King's pardon and ended up hunting pirates for the governor of the Bahamas.
Q 06Blackbeard is usually said to have come from which English port?
Bristol
Bristol is the traditional answer, but no record proves it: pirates hid their real names to spare their families, so even the surname Teach may have been an alias.
Q 07Which 'gentleman pirate', a wealthy Barbados planter, saw Blackbeard take over command of his sloop?
Stede Bonnet
Stede Bonnet had bought his sloop and paid his crew wages, unheard of among pirates, but he knew so little of the sea that Blackbeard was soon running his ship for him.
Q 08A journal attributed to Blackbeard records 'a damned confusion' and talk of mutiny when his crew ran out of what?
Rum
Rum: the entry, quoted in a 1724 pirate history, says the captain went looking for a prize, took one loaded with liquor and kept the company 'hot, damned hot' until all was well again.
Q 09The royal pardon that Blackbeard accepted in 1718 was offered to pirates in the name of which king?
George I
George I offered to forgive any pirate who surrendered to a governor by September 1718; Blackbeard took the deal in June and was plundering French ships again by August.
Q 10How did Blackbeard reportedly wear his beard?
Braided into pigtails with coloured ribbons
Braided into pigtails with coloured ribbons is how a 1724 history paints him; the one captive who described him at first hand said only that he was a tall, spare man with a very black beard worn very long.
Q 11What did Blackbeard rely on, rather than violence, to make ships surrender?
His terrifying image
His terrifying image did the work: in dozens of victims' accounts there is not one case of him killing anyone before his last battle, a restraint the monster legend has buried.
Q 12Blackbeard's sailing master Israel Hands shares his name with a pirate in which classic novel?
Treasure Island
Treasure Island: Stevenson borrowed the name for the Hispaniola's coxswain; the real Hands missed the last battle, lamed, by a 1724 account, when Blackbeard shot him through the knee.
Q 13What rank did Blackbeard award himself by May 1718, at the height of his power?
Commodore
Q 21Which colonial governor hired the sloops and sent the expedition that killed Blackbeard?
Alexander Spotswood of Virginia
Alexander Spotswood of Virginia had no legal authority to invade North Carolina, and may have believed Blackbeard had fabulous treasure hidden away.
Q 22In which 2013 video game does Blackbeard fight alongside the pirate hero Edward Kenway?
Assassin's Creed IV
Assassin's Creed IV, subtitled Black Flag, sets its hero among the real pirates of Nassau, with Blackbeard as an ally who dies fighting the British, as he did in life.
Q 23What trick did Maynard use to surprise Blackbeard's boarding party?
Commodore: by then he led a flotilla of several vessels and hundreds of men, strong enough to seal off the busiest port in the southern colonies for nearly a week.
Q 14What did Blackbeard demand as ransom when he blockaded Charles Town in 1718?
Medical supplies
Medical supplies: he threatened to send the hostages' heads to the governor, yet once the chest of medicines arrived he let every prisoner go unharmed.
Q 15Where did Blackbeard's flagship run aground on a sandbar in June 1718?
Beaufort Inlet, North Carolina
Beaufort Inlet, North Carolina, then called Topsail Inlet: a captive swore Blackbeard wrecked her on purpose to shed surplus crew, though the diver who found her thinks she was simply too big for the channel.
Q 16Which governor granted Blackbeard a royal pardon at Bath, North Carolina, in June 1718?
Charles Eden
Charles Eden later took a share of a French cargo that Blackbeard swore he had found adrift, and a letter found on the dead pirate left the governor accused of collusion, though nothing was proved.
Q 17The 1724 General History claims the teenage bride Blackbeard married in North Carolina was his what?
Fourteenth wife
Fourteenth wife, the book says, with about a dozen of the others still living; nothing else on record supports the count, which did its part in turning a pirate into a monster.
Q 18What became of the 'gentleman pirate' after Blackbeard stripped his ship and marooned his crew?
Hanged for piracy
Hanged for piracy: he went straight back to raiding under a false name, was captured at the Cape Fear River and went to the gallows in Charles Town within three weeks of Blackbeard's own death.
Q 19What did Blackbeard rename his last sloop after receiving official title to it?
Adventure
Adventure came with his pardon: the governor gave him legal title to the sloop, and by August he was back at sea in her, seizing two French ships and passing one off as a derelict.
Q 20Which fellow pirate joined Blackbeard for a days-long party on Ocracoke Island in 1718?
Charles Vane
Charles Vane had just refused the King's pardon and slipped past the warships at Nassau; news of the two crews carousing together so alarmed colonial governors that one sent sloops to hunt them.
He hid most of his men below deck
He hid most of his men below deck after a broadside had killed or wounded about twenty of them; seeing a near-empty sloop, Blackbeard boarded, and the sailors burst from the hold.
Q 24What did Blackbeard do to Maynard's cutlass during their duel?
Broke it at the hilt
Broke it at the hilt: Maynard stepped back to ready another shot and Blackbeard was swinging the killing blow when a sailor slashed the pirate's throat, so the lieutenant escaped with cut fingers.
Q 25How many times had Blackbeard been shot when Maynard examined his body?
Five
Five: Maynard reported that the pirate fell 'with five shot in him, and 20 dismal cuts', and an early history adds that he dropped while readying yet another shot.
Q 26What did Maynard do with Blackbeard's head?
Hung it from his sloop's bowsprit
Hung it from his sloop's bowsprit: the head was Maynard's proof for claiming the reward, and it later stood on a pole by the water as a warning to other pirates.
Q 27What was Blackbeard's loot found to consist of when it was auctioned after his death?
Sugar, cocoa, indigo and cotton
Sugar, cocoa, indigo and cotton, most of it from a French ship taken that August: the fabled treasure hoard has never been found and probably never existed.
Q 28Tobias Knight, tried and cleared of colluding with Blackbeard, held which North Carolina office?
Chief justice
Chief justice: a letter from Knight lay on the dead pirate's body and plundered cargo sat in his barn, yet the governor's council acquitted him; he died within months.
Q 29Where were the surviving members of Blackbeard's crew tried in March 1719?
Williamsburg, Virginia
The trial was held in Williamsburg, Virginia's capital, in March 1719; fourteen of the sixteen were hanged and left in gibbets along what became Gallows Road.
Q 30Blackbeard's fabled hoard was never found; which pirate really did bury treasure, on Gardiners Island?
William Kidd
William Kidd left part of his loot on the island, off Long Island, hoping to bargain with it; the ploy failed, and he was sent to London and hanged in 1701.