13. The Queen Anne's Revenge Traditional Cache

The Queen Anne's Revenge was the name of English pirate Blackbeard's flagship. The 300-ton vessel, originally named Concord, was a man-of-war built in Great Britain in 1710.

She was captured by the French a year later. The ship was modified to hold more cargo, including slaves, and renamed La Concorde de Nantes. The slave ship was captured again by the pirate Captain Benjamin Hornigold on November 28, 1717 near the island of Martinique. Hornigold turned the ship over to one of his pirates—Edward Teach, who was later known as Blackbeard—and made him captain. His first mate, Christopher Blackwood (known as Blackbeard's Claw) was feared as a ferocious combatant and led many of Blackbeard's boarding parties.

Blackbeard converted La Concorde into his flagship, probably adding cannon and renaming her Queen Anne's Revenge. The name may have come from the War of the Spanish Succession, known in the Americas as Queen Anne's War and one in which Blackbeard had fought, or possibly named it after Anne in sympathy to the Stuart claim to the British throne. Blackbeard ranged with this ship from the west coast of Africa to the Caribbean, attacking British, Dutch and Portuguese ships along the way.

Shortly after blockading Charleston harbor (May 1718) and refusing to accept the Governor's pardon, Blackbeard ran The Queen Anne's Revenge aground while attempting to enter Beaufort Inlet, North Carolina. Blackbeard disbanded his flotilla and escaped by transferring supplies onto the smaller ship Adventure. The pirate captain abandoned several crew members on a small island nearby. They were later rescued by Captain Stede Bonnet. Some sources suggest that Blackbeard deliberately grounded the ships as an excuse to disperse the crew. Shortly afterward, he surrendered and accepted a royal pardon for his remaining crew and himself from Governor Charles Eden at Bath, North Carolina.