written by Benjamin Hodges (B.A. ’08)
Blackbeard’s Lost Plunder
The legend of one of the most celebrated and fearsome pirates is more alive than ever, thanks in part to the ongoing recovery of his prized ship off the coast of North Carolina. For nearly two decades, Linda Carnes-McNaughton (B.A. ’75) has been analyzing the treasures found aboard the shipwreck of the Queen Anne's Revenge — 400,000 of them and counting.
Once he took the helm of a stolen French frigate he called Queen Anne’s Revenge in November 1717, the legendary pirate Blackbeard embarked on a spree of terror throughout the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico.
He ransacked and burned merchant vessels, intimidated governors, torched a city on the island of Guadeloupe and sent the most powerful naval ships in the Americas into hiding and on the run. Then he blockaded Charleston Harbor in South Carolina for six days and captured every ship coming or going. He confiscated cargoes and precious metals, kidnapped hostages for ransom and used his leverage to demand valuable medical supplies.
With English authorities cracking down on piracy in the Caribbean, Blackbeard’s old stomping grounds were no longer safe, so he continued north after the blockade. Wreathing the coast of North Carolina in a 200-mile chain of barrier islands and hazardous inlets, the Outer Banks could have provided the pirates with a perfect hideout — especially the deep anchorage at Beaufort, which had all the trappings of a new headquarters. To get there, however, Blackbeard needed to navigate his fleet of four ships between two islands through a perilous coastal channel — narrow, shallow and full of shifting shoals.
While his nimble sloops successfully threaded the needle, Queen Anne’s Revenge didn’t make it. Heavy, unwieldy and seaworn, the frigate ran aground on a hidden sandbar at full sail. The pirates tried to dislodge it but lost another vessel in the process, signaling the end of the flagship’s life just six months after Blackbeard captured it. Once he and his crew unloaded select valuables and personal items onto another ship, they abandoned it to sink beneath the waves. Taking all the loot and about 100 of his closest crewmen with him, Blackbeard marooned the rest on a sand bank.
Largely undisturbed for nearly three centuries, the ship was rediscovered in 1996, and 60 percent of the site has now been excavated, yielding more than 400,000 artifacts — from anchors, bells and cannons to cookware, navigational instruments and surgical devices.
Archaeologist Linda Carnes-McNaughton (B.A. ’75) has been working on the Queen Anne’s Revenge for about 20 years. Every time divers bring items found aboard the ship to the surface, conservators must clean and stabilize them before they can be handled. Once they’re ready, Carnes-McNaughton and her fellow specialists crack their mysteries, object by object.
For Carnes-McNaughton, Queen Anne’s Revenge is one of the most significant underwater archaeological finds in U.S. history, especially when so little reliable evidence about pirates exists. By investigating the artifacts, she and her colleagues have provided the world with a captivating narrative of the Americas’ most notorious freebooter.
“I measure, I draw, I examine with microscopes and hand lenses, and I research,” she says. “Once I can identify something, I figure out what it was a part of, how it was used, where it came from, if it’s been modified and how old it is. All those things help answer that basic, final question: ‘What is this thing?’”
Largely undisturbed for three centuries, the ship was rediscovered in 1996, and 60 percent of the site has now been excavated, yielding more than 400,000 artifacts — from anchors, bells and cannons to cookware, navigational instruments and surgical devices.
Archaeologist Linda Carnes-McNaughton (B.A. ’75) has been working on the Queen Anne’s Revenge for about 20 years. Every time divers bring items found aboard the ship to the surface, conservators must clean and stabilize them before they can be handled. Once they’re ready, Carnes-McNaughton and her fellow specialists crack their mysteries, object by object.
For Carnes-McNaughton, Queen Anne’s Revenge is one of the most significant underwater archaeological finds in U.S. history, especially when so little reliable evidence about pirates exists. By investigating the artifacts, she and her colleagues have provided the world with a captivating narrative of the Americas’ most notorious freebooter.
“I measure, I draw, I examine with microscopes and hand lenses, and I research,” she says. “Once I can identify something, I figure out what it was a part of, how it was used, where it came from, if it’s been modified and how old it is. All those things help answer that basic, final question: ‘What is this thing?’”
THE FLAGSHIP
Queen Anne’s Revenge wasn’t always a pirate ship. Until Blackbeard captured and renamed it, the French frigate went by a different name: La Concorde.
Built shortly before 1710, the Concorde spent its first year and a half at sea as a privateering vessel. Its crew was licensed to disrupt the trade of enemy states by seizing merchant ships and poaching their cargo — much like pirates but with government cachet. When Queen Anne’s War — fought between Great Britain and France for control of North America — ended in 1713, many privateers immediately lost their jobs, and the Concorde was soon modified for another industry: the slave trade.
It was nearing the end of its third slaving voyage across the Atlantic, just 100 miles from its destination of Martinique, when pirates appeared on the horizon with two ships and 250 men. It didn’t have a chance.
Leading the attack was Edward Thache Jr., better known as Blackbeard, a former privateer himself who had just spent his last few months building a reputation as the most famous and feared pirate of the Atlantic coast. The month before, he raided at least 15 ships and tormented mariners, merchants and colonial governments as far north as the Chesapeake Bay, Philadelphia and New York — always on the move and two steps ahead of the authorities.
The Concorde, meanwhile, was in rough shape — incapable of defending itself or outrunning the pirates’ speedy sloops. Scurvy and dysentery had reduced the African captives shackled beneath the deck from 516 to 455. Of its 75 original crewmembers, 17 were dead and another 36 confined to sick bay. The French had even removed many of their cannons to make room for additional human cargo.
Blackbeard took the ship without a fight, conscripting 10 of the Frenchmen for his own crew and accepting four more who came aboard voluntarily. A practical man, he focused on professionals and skilled craftsmen, including the chief surgeon and his two assistants. He also made 157 Africans stay on board, many of whom — whether as free crewmembers or captive laborers — would accompany the pirate until the day he died.
Blackbeard and his men soon refitted the slaver into a pirate war machine. Rechristened the Queen Anne’s Revenge, the 250-ton, 40-cannon, three-masted frigate became the flagship of Blackbeard’s mighty flotilla that soon grew to four armed vessels and about 400 men.
The ship didn’t just make him a match for the strongest naval forces of the day. It made him practically invincible.
The Concorde, meanwhile, was in rough shape — incapable of defending itself or outrunning the pirates’ speedy sloops. Scurvy and dysentery had reduced the African captives shackled beneath the deck from 516 to 455. Of its 75 original crewmembers, 17 were dead and another 36 confined to sick bay. The French had even removed many of their cannons to make room for additional human cargo.
Blackbeard took the ship without a fight, conscripting 10 of the Frenchmen for his own crew and accepting four more who came aboard voluntarily. A practical man, he focused on professionals and skilled craftsmen, including the chief surgeon and his two assistants. He also made 157 Africans stay on board, many of whom — whether as free crewmembers or captive laborers — would accompany the pirate until the day he died.
Blackbeard and his men soon refitted the slaver into a pirate war machine. Rechristened the Queen Anne’s Revenge, the 250-ton, 40-cannon, three-masted frigate became the flagship of Blackbeard’s mighty flotilla that soon grew to four armed vessels and about 400 men.
The ship didn’t just make him a match for the strongest naval forces of the day. It made him practically invincible.
The Concorde, meanwhile, was in rough shape — incapable of defending itself or outrunning the pirates’ speedy sloops. Scurvy and dysentery had reduced the African captives shackled beneath the deck from 516 to 455. Of its 75 original crewmembers, 17 were dead and another 36 confined to sick bay. The French had even removed many of their cannons to make room for additional human cargo.
Blackbeard took the ship without a fight, conscripting 10 of the Frenchmen for his own crew and accepting four more who came aboard voluntarily. A practical man, he focused on professionals and skilled craftsmen, including the chief surgeon and his two assistants. He also made 157 Africans stay on board, many of whom — whether as free crewmembers or captive laborers — would accompany the pirate until the day he died.
Blackbeard and his men soon refitted the slaver into a pirate war machine. Rechristened the Queen Anne’s Revenge, the 250-ton, 40-cannon, three-masted frigate became the flagship of Blackbeard’s mighty flotilla that soon grew to four armed vessels and about 400 men.
The ship didn’t just make him a match for the strongest naval forces of the day. It made him practically invincible.
THE GREAT MARAUDER
While little is known about the man, Blackbeard’s renown has bred a robust mythology over the centuries. If we’re to believe the sensational tales, however, perhaps one factor propelled him into fame above all others: his appearance.
An extravagantly long black beard covered his whole face, reaching from his eyes to below his neck, ribbons twisted around its tails, and he wore a sling over his shoulders that carried six pistols. As he collared prey on the open sea, he tied slow-burning fuses beneath his hat that dangled around his head, cloaking his face in a pall of smoke and fire. He cut such a terrifying figure that one contemporary source said “imagination cannot form an idea of a fury, from hell, to look more frightful.”
It was quite the calling card — and it worked. Most crews surrendered as soon as they saw him with little need for physical violence.
“He was a sophisticated business man,” says Carnes-McNaughton. “He looked ferocious on purpose. He was practical. He used his appearance to rule by intimidation. The brutality, harshness and cruelty we hear about — these things are fabrications. There’s no documentation he ever killed anybody until his final battle when he fought for his life.”
A brazen jab at the English crown, Blackbeard’s new name for his ship, Queen Anne’s Revenge, recalls the late monarch whose penchant for privateering gave Blackbeard his start and helped foment the rampant piracy in the New World.
“The fact Blackbeard renamed this French ship the Queen Anne’s Revenge is political satire — there’s no question,” says Carnes-McNaughton. “He was loyal to the queen, but once she died, he became an outlaw.”
Blackbeard and his ilk were monsters of their government’s own making. But they were also responses to a ruthless ruling class and its appetite for power — politicians, mercantilists, shipowners and the toadies who did their bidding.
Over time, these men evolved into what Queen Anne’s successor, George I, sought to suppress. With Queen Anne’s Revenge, Blackbeard wasn’t just jeering the crown. He was constantly reminding colonial and European elites of their policy failures and their helplessness to stop him.
While little is known about the man, Blackbeard’s renown has bred a robust mythology over the centuries. If we’re to believe the sensational tales, however, perhaps one factor propelled him into fame above all others: his appearance.
An extravagantly long black beard covered his whole face, reaching from his eyes to below his neck, ribbons twisted around its tails, and he wore a sling over his shoulders that carried six pistols. As he collared prey on the open sea, he tied slow-burning fuses beneath his hat that dangled around his head, cloaking his face in a pall of smoke and fire. He cut such a terrifying figure that one contemporary source said “imagination cannot form an idea of a fury, from hell, to look more frightful.”
It was quite the calling card — and it worked. Most crews surrendered as soon as they saw him with little need for physical violence.
“He was a sophisticated business man,” says Carnes-McNaughton. “He looked ferocious on purpose. He was practical. He used his appearance to rule by intimidation. The brutality, harshness and cruelty we hear about — these things are fabrications. There’s no documentation he ever killed anybody until his final battle when he fought for his life.”
A brazen jab at the English crown, Blackbeard’s new name for his ship, Queen Anne’s Revenge, recalls the late monarch whose penchant for privateering gave Blackbeard his start and helped foment the rampant piracy in the New World.
“The fact Blackbeard renamed this French ship the Queen Anne’s Revenge is political satire — there’s no question,” says Carnes-McNaughton. “He was loyal to the queen, but once she died, he became an outlaw.”
Blackbeard and his ilk were monsters of their government’s own making. But they were also responses to a ruthless ruling class and its appetite for power — politicians, mercantilists, shipowners and the toadies who did their bidding.
Over time, these men evolved into what Queen Anne’s successor, George I, sought to suppress. With Queen Anne’s Revenge, Blackbeard wasn’t just jeering the crown. He was constantly reminding colonial and European elites of their policy failures and their helplessness to stop him.
BURIED TREASURE
Unlike ships wrecked by storms and other catastrophes, Queen Anne’s Revenge took some time to founder. It was a slow wrecking event that, according to Carnes-McNaughton, created some drama, which the artifactual record bears out.
The objects that sank with Queen Anne’s Revenge — or are conspicuously absent from the wreckage — speak not only to Blackbeard’s character but also to the distinctions separating the three groups of people he had on board: the English pirates, of course, but the kidnapped Frenchmen and Africans, too. Further, these items tell us who among them likely had the opportunity to bring their property with them and who may have been forced to leave the ship empty-handed.
“In a situation like this, the people involved have decisions to make — well, at least those who have the ability to make decisions,” Carnes-McNaughton says. “What we find is reflective of all three groups of people and tells us what went down that day.”
Small weaponry, clothing, hand tools — the crew whisked most of these away on their way out. Scant treasure remains, too — less than an ounce of gold dust, hardly a trace of what one would expect to find on a pirate ship.
According to the men Blackbeard marooned, their captain absconded with all the booty and left them with nothing — a violation of the creed to which pirates supposedly adhered. To date, Carnes-McNaughton says, divers have recovered nothing of value in the common areas of the ship. What little they’ve found elsewhere — fancy dinnerware, a few coins and most of the gold dust — was all in Blackbeard’s cabin.
Among the site’s unique items, a souvenir wineglass commemorates the coronation of George I, the king who made Blackbeard a wanted man. Delicate stemware embossed with crowns and diamonds, it’s one of Carnes-McNaughton’s favorite artifacts because it illustrates the pirate’s contempt for the new monarch and his appetite for irony.
“When George I took over in 1714, what Blackbeard had been doing for a living suddenly became illegal,” she says. “For Blackbeard to keep a souvenir of the king’s coronation on his ship … the symbolism is very profound to say the least.”
The captain’s quarters were also close to the ship’s supply of ammunition, more than 250,000 lead shot, which he kept nearby perhaps to mitigate the possibility of insurrection. The prevalence of metrological devices — multiple sets, far more than any one vessel would ever need — leads Carnes-McNaughton to think Blackbeard enjoyed a few hobbies as well.
“He had a fascination with mathematics and navigation,” she says. “There’s a lot of equipment on the ship that he stole and kept — kind of like a collector.”
A pair of leg irons and a few pieces of gold Akan jewelry, which pirates clipped and used as money, testify to the ship’s involvement in the slave trade. The abundance of glass beads, rewards that were given to slaves to sew together during the long journey across the Atlantic, could suggest the Africans on board either had no chance to retrieve their belongings or didn’t care to save them.
The Frenchmen, too, left much behind. Besides the medical staff, Blackbeard also abducted two cooks, several skilled craftsmen and a musician from the Concorde. If their gilded buttons, ornate weaponry and sophisticated tools are any indication, they were probably more educated and refined than their shipmates.
However, the French medical instruments are also some of the ship's most gruesome artifacts. While sophisticated for the era, they attest to the great suffering on board and the people who struggled to survive, forever at sea and beset by disease and malnutrition.
A cauterizing iron burned flesh to seal wounds. A urethral syringe injected mercury to alleviate the symptoms of syphilis, likely prevalent among sailors and slaves alike. Pewter pump clysters, a foot long and two inches wide, administered enemas to treat constipation, dysentery, scurvy, battle wounds and many of the other ailments that commonly afflicted men at sea.
“Most people cringe at the giant clysters because, while we still see them today, they’re used on cattle, for example,” says Carnes-McNaughton. “You don’t see implements this large used for humans. But it was a very common treatment then for almost anything.”
BLACKBEARD LIVES
As his prized frigate disintegrated, Blackbeard soon reestablished himself in nearby Bath, N.C. Offering to inject cash into the economy, supply the town with cheap goods and defend it from Native American attacks, he negotiated a pardon and bribed local authorities into sponsoring future exploits. He was back in business — this time with government protection.
He’d be dead five months later, however. Alexander Spotswood, the lieutenant governor of Virginia, didn’t want Blackbeard’s operations creeping any farther north, so he sent his navy to the pirate’s new hideout on Ocracoke Island, surprising him on the early morning of Nov. 21, 1718. Now in command of a new ship, the pirate fought back, responding with grenade attacks and multiple broadsides that killed or maimed dozens of Royal Navy sailors.
After concluding he’d won the battle, Blackbeard boarded one of the English sloops to take control. The day wouldn’t be his, though. He was greeted by another dozen men who’d been lying in wait for him. He died with 25 wounds — five by shot and 20 by blade. The English decapitated him, threw his body overboard, hung his head from their bowsprit and delivered it to Spotswood, who put it on public display.
His time as a pirate didn’t even last two years, but Blackbeard lore has flourished for three centuries, making him far more famous in death than he ever was in life. With a story and an image that inspires novelists and historians alike, he repeatedly shows up in books, movies, television shows, comics and video games. Nevertheless, tangible evidence of his life and career proved unobtainable — until the rediscovery of Queen Anne’s Revenge.
“The thrill of it is the fascination you’re handling artifacts that are 300 years old and haven’t been handled by anyone else since they were left,” says Carnes-McNaughton. “It’s a moment in time you can hold in your hand. And that’s what the artifacts reflect: a single moment where these people — not just Blackbeard and his pirates but the Africans and Frenchmen, too — scrambled for their lives on a shipwreck.”
An old saying may suggest dead men tell no tales, but perhaps there’s no truth to it. After all, Blackbeard lives on, and the relics he left behind are still telling a story, bigger every day, about the villain from piracy’s golden age and the ship that made him a legend.
NEED MORE BLACKBEARD?
Check out the full-color book Linda Carnes-McNaughton recently co-authored that beautifully and exhaustively details the underwater excavation and the astonishing discoveries found on board. Titled “Blackbeard’s Sunken Prize: The 300-Year Voyage of Queen Anne’s Revenge” (University of North Carolina Press), it hit shelves this past June, just in time for the shipwreck’s tercentenary.
NEED MORE BLACKBEARD?
Check out the full-color book Linda Carnes-McNaughton recently co-authored that beautifully and exhaustively details the underwater excavation and the astonishing discoveries found on board. Titled “Blackbeard’s Sunken Prize: The 300-Year Voyage of Queen Anne’s Revenge” (University of North Carolina Press), it hit shelves this past June, just in time for the shipwreck’s tercentenary.
Illustrations by Reid Schulz (B.F.A. '18)
Animations by William Davis (B.A. '11)