Pirate Ships > Famous Ships > Queen Anne's Revenge
Queen Anne's Revenge
Background
The Queen Anne's Revenge was a massive French warship named the La Concordia that was captured by Edward 'Blackbeard' Teach and turned into his flagship. The name likely comes from Queen Anne who was one of the principle actors in the War of the Spanish Succession in which Blackbeard was likely a privateer.
English pirate Edward Teach, more commonly known as Blackbeard, captured the Concorde, a French-owned slave ship, in the West Indies in 1717 and made the vessel his flagship. Slave ships, which often featured a central partition to protect the crew against a slave uprising, made good pirate ships because they were built for speed. Blackbeard added 26 guns to the vessel, which already boasted 14, making the renamed Queen Anne's Revenge one of the most powerful ships in American waters. In May 1718, Blackbeard blockaded the port of Charleston. After looting five merchant vessels, he ran the Queen Anne's Revenge ashore on Topsail Inlet, and the ship suffered extensive damage when it slammed into the submerged sandbar. Given that Blackbeard knew the area well "" he had sailed off the same coast the year before "" many historians believe he wrecked the Queen Anne's Revenge deliberately in hopes of killing off some of his crew and increasing his share of the fortune. The ship was discovered in 1997 off the coast of Beaufort, North Carolina, and marine archaeologists have been bringing up treasure from its remains ever since.
