Blackbeard (1680?–1718), the nickname of the English pirate Edward Teach, Thatch, or Thach. He is thought to have been a privateer in the War of the Spanish Succession (1701–14) who turned to piracy after the war was over. Blackbeard and his crew plundered merchant ships in the Caribbean and off the Virginia-Carolina coast. In November, 1718, two warships sent by Governor Alexander Spotswood of Virginia found him at Ocracoke Inlet, North Carolina, and in the ensuing battle Blackbeard was killed.