Blackbeard's 

 Flagship? 



Searching a Shipwreck for Clues 



W 



T Theth 



By Julie Ann Powers 



where the ship put into port. According to a 

 recently rediscovered description of 

 Concorde's capture, its officers were robbed 

 of gold dust when Blackbeard's band seized 

 the Caribbean-bound slave vessel in 1717. 

 Concorde was overtaken off the coast of St. 

 Vincent in the eastern Caribbean, as it 

 traveled between Senegal and Martinique. 



"We haven't found Blackbeard's 

 treasure by any means," Crow says of the 

 shiny bits. "But it is an important clue to 

 what may have been on this particular ship." 



' hether a submerged 

 shipwreck near Beaufort Inlet was once a 

 vessel commanded by the infamous pirate 

 Blackbeard is still a secret known only to 

 the sea. 



But a convincing picture of an 1 8th- 

 century pirate ship has emerged with the 

 gold dust, broken bottles and cannons 

 brought up from the shell-encrusted mound. 



And tantalizing historical parallels 

 prompt officials to stop just short of saying 

 for certain the Queen Anne 's Revenge has 

 been found. The flagship of Blackbeard's 

 fearsome fleet was last seen sinking in the 

 inlet after running aground in June 1718. 



Jeffrey Crow, N.C. Division of 

 Archives and History director, says divers 

 have yet to find definitive evidence — "a 

 smoking blunderbuss" — to prove the 

 ship's identity. 



"But we have found plenty of shot to 

 load that blunderbuss," he says. 



Lead shot is among hundreds of 

 artifacts brought up in 500 hours of diving 

 last fall. It was the second major effort to 

 map the site and recover items since the 

 wreck was discovered Nov. 21 , 1996, in 

 about 20 feet of water. 



A few gold flecks, pewter dishes, a 

 syringe, navigational instruments, onion- 

 shaped wine bottles, a clay pipe and barrel 

 hoops are also products of the latest dive. A 

 bronze bell, a brass blunderbuss barrel, 

 cannons and cannon balls, a sounding 

 weight, broken bottles and ballast stones 

 were brought up in previous dives. 



Researchers still hope to find indisput- 

 able proof the ship is what they think it is 

 — ideally something engraved Queen 



Crewmates wrestle with a 



Jim Bounds, c 



Anne 's Revenge or Concorde — the ship's 

 name before Blackbeard captured it. Or 

 maybe Edward Teach or Thatch, the 

 bewhiskered pirate's aliases. Lacking that, 

 they are analyzing each artifact for dates or 

 characteristics that might tell about the ship 

 that carried them nearly three centuries ago. 



The gold dust — weighing less than 

 two paper clips — is a valuable find, though 

 it's unlikely to signal a treasure trove awaits 

 underwater. Blackbeard probably loaded his 

 loot onto his other vessels before Queen 

 Anne's Revenge succumbed to the waves. 



If chemical analysis reveals where the 

 gold originated, however, it might also tell 



CANNON RETRIEVED FROM THE WRECK. 



wrtesy of The News & Observer 



Blackbeard had been a privateer 

 preying on French ships during Queen 

 Anne's War before going into pirating for 

 himself. He renamed his prize Queen 

 Anne's Revenge. 



The flagship was among four ships in 

 Blackbeard's force, which at times included 

 300 or more men. The ruthless brigands 

 attacked mariners from New England to the 

 Caribbean. Blackbeard was killed in a gory 

 battle at Ocracoke a few months after the 

 grounding. 



The ballast stones from the wreck, used 

 to keep the ship upright, are less scintillating 

 than gold dust but could prove as important. 



14 SPRING 1999 



