Blogging Blackbeard

The commemoration of the 300th anniversary of the sinking of Blackbeard’s flagship, Queen Anne’s Revenge (QAR), will be underway with the March 13 launch of “Blogging Blackbeard,” a regular series of blog posts that will follow the adventures of the most feared and revered pirate of the Golden Age of Piracy (1689-1730).

Originally a French owned slave ship, La Concorde, Blackbeard commandeered the vessel from its crew and renamed her Queen Anne’s Revenge. 

QAR Lab Manager Courtney Page rediscovers the shipboard life of pirates while working on artifacts recovered from the shipwreck offshore near Fort Macon State Park. She will write the “Blogging Blackbeard” blog posts.

"We can learn a lot about how the pirates and other seafarers lived from the shipwreck artifacts we are working to preserve,” Page explains. “The Golden Age was a fascinating time, and piracy had a great influence on forming our nation and the world. We want to share that history with everyone."

The first “Blogging Blackbeard” post will examine the journey from Nantes, France, to Africa, until the vessel was seized by Blackbeard in Martinique, and his later piratical activity. The blogs will appear regularly on the project webpage, www.qaronline.org, and on a new webpage, Blackbeard 300, dedicated to the special events planned for the commemoration of the Blackbeard tri-centennial. Rediscover Blackbeard and the Golden Age of Piracy online at your fingertips. 

A highlight of the tri-centennial will the opening of a new exhibit at the N.C. Maritime Museum in Beaufort in June 2018, and a traveling exhibit that will debut at the North Carolina State Fair this fall.

For additional information, please call (919) 807-7389.

The Queen Anne’s Revenge Shipwreck Project and the N.C. Maritime Museum are administered by the N.C. Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.

Editor's note: you can be sure that Ocracoke will host our own commemoration of the events of 1718. Beaufort may have the QAR exhibit, but we have Teach's Hole – the site of Blackbeard's demise. And his ghost haunts Springer's Point, searching for his head! Stay tuned to the Current for more information...