Edward Thatch

"Caution's nothing without charisma. If a man plays the fool, then it's only fools he'll persuade. But appear to be the devil... and all men will submit."

- Edward Thatch to Edward Kenway, 1718.

Edward Thatch (c. 1680 – 1718), also known as Edward Teach, or by the alias Blackbeard, was an infamous English pirate captain who sailed the West Indies and the eastern seaboard of the American colonies during the early 18th century, aboard the ship Queen Anne's Revenge.

Early life
Edward Thatch likely born in Bristol, England, in 1680. Little is known of his early years until the War of Spanish Succession in 1701, when he enlisted in the Royal Navy. At some point during the course of the war, Edward left the Royal Navy to become a privateer, where he would meet Edward Kenway and Charles Vane. However, with the advent of peace in 1713, Edward was, like so many other privateers, denounced by his government and left to fend for himself. Eventually he turned to piracy to make his living, joining forces with his colleague Benjamin Hornigold.

Piracy
In 1715 Thatch, Hornigold and James Kidd met with Edward Kenway in Nassau. There, the four discussed their plans to free the city of its British garrison and turn it into their very own Pirate Republic. Thatch, with the assistance of Kenway, arranged for the capture and subsequent use of a French galleon as a fortified defense of one of the island's harbors.

A few years later, Thatch once again met with Hornigold and Kenway to discuss the stagnation in growth that had hit Nassau. It was realized between them that the town needed medicines to survive, but that attacking British warships to obtain said medicine was likely to draw too much attention, especially given the Crown's renewed focus on eliminating the pirate threat in the Caribbean.

Despite this however, Thatch's displeasure with their immediate success, or lack thereof, spurred him into assaulting a British Man O' War, and he subsequently had to be saved by Kenway's Jackdaw.

In 1718, Thatch and Kenway traveled north, to the British colony at Charles-Towne in order to procure a large amount of medicine, which had been sourced to the city from the Man O' War they recently captured.

By the time Kenway arrived, Queen Anne's Revenge had blockaded the town for seven days already, while the pirates waited for the town to surrender the medicine. With Kenway's arrival, they successfully procured the medicine they needed for Nassau, and headed home.

Death
"In a world without gold, we would have been heroes!"

- Edward Thatch's last words, 1718.

Following the fall of the pirate republic of Nassau, Thatch felt his pirating days were over and retired to North Carolina. He was soon tracked down to Ocracoke by his former associates Kenway and Vane, who both tried and failed to convince him to return.

Later that evening, the Royal Navy - who had also tracked down Thatch and Kenway - launched their ambush, destroying the small settlement and forcing Thatch and Kenway to make their escape. They soon realised however that they would need to capture the attacking Man O' War in order to leave safely, and subsequently boarded it.

Despite their best efforts, the pirates were soon overwhelmed; surrounded and outnumbered, Thatch was slain after a prolonged and bloody engagement, though Kenway and Vane were able to escape.

Trivia

 * The database entry for Dead Chest Island in Assassin's Creed III uses the name "Edward Teach".
 * Following his retirement, Edward Kenway took an Irish bloodhound as a pet, which he named Thatch.