Miguel, a member of Blackbeard's
crew, greets visitors to the exhibit.
Edward Teach/Thatcher fought during the Queen Anne's War (1701 - 1714) as a privateer. He was good at his job, raiding enemy merchant ships, for the English Crown. After the war, Edward AKA Blackbeard, went into business for himself.
Blackbeard, AKA Edward Teach,
or Edward Thatch, commanded
the Queen Anne's Revenge as
he plundered the Caribbean
from 1716 to 1718.
Queen Anne's Revenge was originally Le Concorde, a French slave ship. Captured by Blackbeard in 1717, it was refitted with 40 cannons, The frigate was now ready for large scale larceny on the high seas. Blackbeard menaced merchant ships in the Atlantic shipping lanes and while blockading Charleston Harbor, he and his crew plundered ships.
Blackbeard's flag signaled
that the time to surrender
was running out... fast.
Many vessels hove to when
they saw this flag & transferred
their cargoes without a fight.
their cargoes without a fight.
Pirating is a lucrative career, if a ship can make its way to its hunting grounds and go after their victims. A ship's compass was essential to navigate the seas and chart courses to selected prizes.
The ship's compass was
carefully protected in
this cabinet from weather
& possible accidents.
Blackbeard and his crew amassed large amounts of booty. Queen Anne's Revenge traveled regularly between Blackbeard's headquarters in Beaufort, North Carolina and Nassau in the Bahamas. While sailing the Carolina Coast in June 1718, the Queen Anne's Revenge ran aground on a sandbar. Blackbeard took all the loot and a his favorite crewmen and fled.
Treasure hunters and archaeologists have scoured the waters off North Carolina looking for the Queen Anne's Revenge for more than one hundred years. A ship was found in 1995 and after through research on its recovered contents, it was confirmed to be the Queen Anne's Revenge in 2011.
Artifacts from the Queen
Anne's Revenge include:
A grinding stone fragment,
lead patch to cover leaks,
lead weight, a flacon bottle,
a brass buckle frame,
straight pins
Cannon balls, a lead cannon
apron to cover the cannon's
touch hole, a gun flint, trigger
guard & various sized shot
brass dividers, brick tile
A crew man stands with
a trunk full of treasure.
Local merchants and seamen grew tired of Blackbeard menacing them and approached Virginia Governor Alexander Spotswood. The Virginia Governor didn't care for Governor Eden and liked pirates even less. British ships were sent to hunt down Blackbeard and his crew. On November 22, 1718, Blackbeard was killed during a battle off Ocracoke Island.
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