Queen Anne's Revenge

ECI 525

12-1-08

Queen Anne’s Revenge

Whenever anyone thinks about the topic of Piracy, they undoubtedly think about the most infamous Pirate to sail the seven seas, Blackbeard. Blackbeard has become such an iconic figure that one of the most famous movie characters of all time,

Captain Jack Sparrow, of Pirates of the Caribbean, is based on this man. While a lot of attention is given to the man and legend of Blackbeard, a lot of people tend to forget about the vessel that helped him become a legend, the Queen Anne’s

Revenge.

The Queen Anne’s Revenge is synonymous with the legacy of

Blackbeard; however, this was not the original intent of this famous ship. The vessel was originally named the Concord, and was built and constructed by the British in 1710. A year after the Concord was commissioned by the British Navy, it was captured by the French Navy, during the Queen Anne’s War in

1711, and renamed La Concorde, which simply means, The Concord.1

1 (North Carolina Maritime Museum 2004)

After the French captured the Concord, they used the ship as a merchant vessel and eventually sold it to Spain. “A few years later she was returned to France and again underwent a transformation and was refitted as a slave ship.2” Some of the modifications that the ship underwent included an increased cargo hold to accommodate more slaves and she was equipped with an arsenal of 14 guns. According to French records the ship was

104 feet long and had a carrying capacity of over 300 tons.3

Once the French had modified La Concorde, she was captured near the island of St. Vincent by Blackbeard and his crew in

November 1717. The crew of the French vessel was of little resistance to Blackbeard and his crew of pirates, as most of the

French crew was afflicted with scurvy and dysentery. However, the French commander in charge of the Concorde, Captain Pierre

Dosset, filed a report claiming the ship was captured 100 miles south of Martinique and taken to the island of Bequia just south of St. Vincent, where the ship was plundered.4 This report by

Captain Dosset helps to place the capture of the ship at the island of Martinique and not St. Vincent.

After capturing La Concorde, “Blackbeard refitted the big slaver with 40 cannons and renamed her Queen Anne's Revenge.

2 (North Carolina Maritime Museum 2004) 3 (North Carolina Maritime Museum 2004) 4 (Moore 1997)

With one of the largest and most powerful pirate vessels ever to sail the Spanish Main, he sallied forth for a long season of plundering that the world would never forget.5” Blackbeard probably renamed the ship the Queen Anne’s Revenge as an insult to King George I, Anne’s successor and the reigning monarch of

England.6

With the Queen Anne’s Revenge as his flagship, Blackbeard terrorized the Atlantic from as far North as Pennsylvania all the way down to the Caribbean Islands. In addition to

Blackbeard outfitting his new ship with 40 cannons, he also carried with him a crew of 150 pirates. Given the size of his crew and the impressive arsenal of the Queen Anne’s Revenge,

Blackbeard and his crew often sailed alongside several smaller pirate vessels at any given time, to help ensure the capture of merchant vessels, by the smaller ships. During the seven months that Blackbeard commanded the Queen Anne’s Revenge from November

1717 until June 1718, the crew took part in the capture of 18 ships as “prizes.”7

Some of the Queen Anne’s Revenge most famous victories at sea include the crippling of a 30-gun British man-of-war ship named Scarborough in a running battle near Barbados. Also,

5 (Bourne 2006) 6 (Butler 2000) 7 (Moore 1997)

Blackbeard and his crew sunk the Protestant Caesar, a large merchant ship from Boston, with a single shot.8

While terrorizing the East Coast of the American colonies,

Blackbeard and his crew aboard the Queen Anne’s Revenge, entered into an alliance with Stede Bonnet’s crew and ship the Revenge.

Blackbeard saw Stede Bonnet as an inferior pirate and as a result, demoted Bonnet from his position of captain to being a virtual prisoner on his own ship. Blackbeard appointed one of his own pirates to command the ship. By April 1718, The Queen

Anne’s Revenge had also teamed up to sail with David Harriot’s

Adventure, along with a small contingency of a Spanish sloop.9

Along with the help of these ships the Queen Anne’s Revenge, would complete its last and most famous mission, the blockade of the Charleston, in May and June 1718.

Blackbeard and his crew reached the Port of

Charleston, South Carolina around mid-May 1718. While harbored in the Atlantic, at this important port city, the crew aboard the Queen Anne’s Revenge held some of Charleston’s most famous citizens hostage and was responsible for ransacking and plundering more than forty ships.10 The reason for Blackbeard’s

8 (Patel 2008) 9 (North Carolina Maritime Museum 2004) 10 (Patel 2008)

4 decision to attack to Charleston was very curious, as the only material that he and his crew demanded was a chest of medicine.

After Blackbeard and his crew left Charleston they headed to Beaufort, North Carolina. While at Beaufort, then called Topsail, Blackbeard ran the Queen Anne’s Revenge aground on a submerged sandbar, in June of 1718. Some historians believe that Blackbeard ran the ship aground to clean their hulls, while others, including pirates under his command, suspect that he wanted to split the crew and make and make off with the majority of the booty that they had captured.11

Whatever, the reason that Blackbeard decided to run the famous pirate ship aground, Beaufort has remained its final resting place since 1718.

Archaeologists had made many unsuccessful attempts to discover the ship, until an excavation attempt in 1996, lead by the Intersal group, found the ship twenty feet underwater off the coast of Beaufort. What these Archaeologists have discovered thus far, has helped to shed some light on the world’s most famous pirate ship, the Queen Anne’s Revenge.

11 (Patel 2008)

1. Historical background or context of the activities.

The first part of the project that I completed was an article related to Blackbeard’s famous ship the Queen Anne’s Revenge. During my research on this topic, I gained detailed content knowledge about the Queen Anne’s Revenge. I plan to use the information that I learned from the first portion of this project to give my students adequate background knowledge about the ship before they begin their work in QAR virtual world.

2. Related North Carolina Standard Course of Study objectives.

My lesson is for a fourth grade classroom, as a result all of my goals and objectives come from the 4th grade Social Studies curriculum:

Competency Goal 1: The learner will apply the five themes of geography to North Carolina and its people.

Objectives: 1.01 Locate, in absolute and relative terms, major landforms, bodies of water and natural resources in North Carolina. 1.03 Suggest some influences that location has on life in North Carolina such as major cities, recreation areas, industry, and farms. 1.04 Evaluate ways the people of North Carolina used, modified, and adapted to the physical environment, past and present. 1.05 Assess human movement as it relates to the physical environment.

Competency Goal 3: The learner will trace the history of colonization in North Carolina and evaluate its significance for diverse people's ideas.

Objective: 3.02 Identify people, symbols, events, and documents associated with North Carolina's history.

3.04 Compare and contrast ways in which people, goods, and ideas moved in the past with their movement today. 3.05 Describe the political and social history of colonial North Carolina and analyze its influence on the state today. Competency Goal 4: The learner will analyze social and political institutions in North Carolina such as government, education, religion, and family and how they structure society, influence behavior, and respond to human needs.

Objective: 4.05 Identify and assess the role of prominent persons in North Carolina, past and present.

3. Specific learning objectives for students related to your instructional plans.

I want students to come out of this lesson with a detailed knowledge about not only Blackbeard the pirate, but also his ship the Queen Anne's Revenge. Students should know about the voyages and battles that the ship was involved in and how these naval battles help to add to the legend of Blackbeard. Finally, students will learn where the final resting place of the ship is located at and some of the artifacts that have been recovered from the excavation site.

4. Prior knowledge expected of students when beginning the activities.

Since this lesson is for a fourth grade classroom I do not expect the students to have a lot of prior knowledge about Blackbeard or his ship. The only prior knowledge that they might bring to the lesson would be local legends that they have heard about Blackbeard or from media outlets, such as the movie Pirates of the Carribean. Even though Captain Jack Sparrow is not Blackbeard, through talks with parents and community members they should understand that this character was based on Blackbeard. Also, around Halloween time local media stations or newspapers are likely to report stories about Blackbeard to draw the interest of young kids and generate a source of excitement about the upcoming holiday. Other than this limit form of knowledge, I do not expect these students to bring a lot of prior knowledge to the classroom.

5. A brief overview of the activities.

Students will be responsible for completing a fact sheet about Blackbeard and the Queen Anne's Revenge. They will navigate the website, mainly staying in the ship area to collect their facts. After students have completed their fact sheet, they will write use their fact sheet to write a short two paragraph paper about Blackbeard and the Queen Anne's Revenge.

6. A description of any adaptations or changes that would need to be made to the existing QAR online world.

The only major modification that needs to be made to this virtual online world is that characters need to be able to move more efficiently. It is very easy for an adult that is using this website to walk into a room or building and be stuck there for a few minutes trying to get out of their predicament. Now take this down to a fourth graders level and imagine how hard it is for a nine or ten year old to navigate their virtual character out of a room that they are stuck in. Students could lose ten minutes of instructional time trying to get out a room that they can’t get out of. Other than this minor setback no other adjustments need to be made to the online world.

7. A detailed description of teh activities students would complete in the project. Before the students visit the computer lab, the teacher should have already installed the Cuni browser on the computer

Once the students reach the computer lab they will be instructed to log-in to the QAR virtual world. Their username will be QAR1 and the password they will use is Blackbeard1

After they are logged in, the teacher will show them through a computer displayed on the projector screen to scroll down to the QAR08 link and click on the link to connect to the virtual QAR world.

The teacher will then give a brief demonstration to the students of how to effectively navigate the virtual world.

The teacher will then handout a fact sheet to the students, which they will complete through interaction with the virtual world.

Once students have been given the fact sheet, they should be instructed to use the portal that will send them to the Queen Anne's Revenge.

Students will navigate their character around the ship to find the information that they are responsible for finding on their fact sheet.

Some of the facts that students will be responsible for finding include, information on the cannons that were used on the ship, information on the shipwreck that ultimately sunk the Queen Anne's Revenge, and information regarding the present location of the ship and the current excavation of the ship.

After students have completed their facts about the Queen Anne's Revenge, they will then be able to exit the portal and navigate to a portal oftheir choosing where they will be responsible for collecting five additional facts about any aspect of Blackbeard's life.

Students will then use their fact sheet to write a short two paragraph essay about Blackbeard and the Queen Anne's Revenge.

8. A description of teh teacher's role in the activities. The teacher will responsible for downloading the Cuni browser on every computer in the computer lab before students visit the lab. They will also show the students how to log-in to the virtual world and demonstrate how to effectively navigate the website. After familiarizing the students with the website, the teacher will then walk around and monitor student activity to make sure that they are on task and assist any students that need help. Teacher will also be responsible for collecting student work at the end of the period.

9. A plan for assessing students' learning. The teachers will assess students' work based on completion of the fact sheet that they were given. Students will receive an "A" if they completed the sheet and put forth an honest effort and didn't just scribble down an untelligible answer to complete their fact sheet. Students that did not complete the fact sheet but showed hard work and

9 concept of the material will receive a "B". The grading scale will continue to go down based on teacher discretion.

The two paragraph essay will be graded on the quality of the assignment, especially given the fact that the students will take the writing test at the end of the fourth grade. If students are able to complete a coherent essay that flows well and gives a detailed description of Blackbeard and the Queen Anne's Revenge, they will receive an "A." Students will earn a "B" if their essay incorporates information from their fact sheet but the story is choppy and does not flow well. Anything below a "B" is up to the individual teacher's discretion.