Blackbeard - I'm a Pirate Flag

Blackbeard grew out a huge, long, bushy beard. The point of this was to scare and intimidate the people in the other ship so he could go in and steal their or get them to surrender as fast as possible. A lot of pirates preferred to do it that way, because the fewer people who died, the fewer crew members you had to replace,. Less damage a ship would have - both sides could just be let go on pretty quickly. So it's all about the most fear you can possibly create, andthen you terrorize them into surrender.