Blackbeard's Queen Anne's Revenge

Blackbeard Blockades Charleston, SC!  May 22, 1718:   With a flotilla made up of the Queen Anne's Revenge, Adventure, Revenge and a small Spanish sloop [ Adventure II ] captured off Florida, Blackbeard blockades Charles Towne (Charleston), a wealthy South Carolina port. The pirates plunder merchant ships and seize the passengers and crew of the Crowley , a 178 ton ship bound for London carrying barrels of pitch, tar and rice. Some of Charleston's most prominent citizens are on board the Crowley . After Royal Gov. Robert Johnson meets Thach's demand for a chest of medicine and some 4000 pieces of eight valued at £1000, Blackbeard releases some 80 nearly naked hostages and sails up the coast for North Carolina and a date with destiny. Medical artifacts from that medicine chest recovered from the wreck site of the Queen Anne Revenge include; a urethral syringe used to treat syphilis, pump clysters to pump fluid into the rectum, a porringer which may have be...

Cutthroats in the Bahamas!  May 11, 1717:   Blackbeard sets up camp on the island of New Providence and is operating as a pirate in the Caribbean during the spring of 1717. In a report to the British Council of Trade and Plantations, Captain Mathew Musson describes how the Bahamas has become overrun by pirates. He writes, “At Habakoe one of the Bahamas he found Capt. Thomas Walker and others who had left Providence by reason of the rudeness of the pirates and settled there. They advis’d him that five pirates made ye harbor of Providence their place of rendezvous vizt. Horngold, a sloop with 10 guns and about 80 men; Jennings, a sloop with 10 guns and 100 men; Burgiss, a sloop with 8 guns and about 80 men; White, in a small vessell with 30 men and small armes; Thatch, a sloop 6 gunns and about 70 men. All took and destroyd ships of all nations…” This is one of the first official accounts referencing the pirate Edward Thach. Representative image. READ MORE #artsand...

Blackbeard’s Head & Bell Recovery Video Released! In commemoration of the 300 th   anniversary of the grounding of Blackbeard’s flagship , the Queen Anne’s Revenge , Nautilus Productions has released two new video clips from the project. In 2005 underwater archaeologists on the Blackbeard's Queen Anne’s Revenge Shipwreck Project uncovered the ship’s head or toilet from the stern area of the wreck. In 2006 an unmarked bell was recovered. This is the second bell found on the wreck site. Both were sent to the QAR Lab for conservation. For the first time short video excerpts of their recovery can be viewed on Nautilus’ YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2B004FADA64B9A59 .  The complete videos of the recoveries are available for license as part of Nautilus’ nearly two decade long digital record of archaeological efforts on the Queen Anne’s Revenge . The infamous pirate Blackbeard ran his...