Divers Find Shipwreck, Pull Up Artifacts Belonging To ‘The Real Jack Sparrow’

divers find shipwreck pull up artifacts belonging to the real jack sparrow [Music] in november of 1996 a private salvage group discovered her shipwreck off the coast of north carolina the wreck was found by a team of divers in about 28 feet of water it was identified as an early 18th century vessel it quickly became clear that this wreck a mile from the atlantic beach near beaufort inlet had quite the interesting past when the divers first came across the wreck it looked more like a scrap yard than a shipwreck when the sailing vessel was discovered by industrial ink of palm bay florida they had found a pile of tangled cannons and anchors however that wasn't all that they had found divers found more than just that the unromantically named north carolina shipwreck site 31cr314 was a treasure trove of artifacts among these was the barrel of blunderbuss that dated back to 1690 or 1710. there were also a number of cannonballs and a sounding weight most importantly they discovered a bronze bell with the date 1705 inscribed on it that confirmed the age of the wreck in the fall of the next year a team from the underwater archaeology branch of north carolina office of state archaeology started to systematically survey the find during the first expedition the team brought up some cannons pottery and a pewter plate however the wreck still had more secrets the intersil team was certain that they had discovered the wreck of an infamous ship none other than the queen anne's revenge this famous ship was the flagship for the fearsome and infamous pirate blackbeard however the archaeologists from the north carolina state archaeologists weren't as sure however more and more evidence mounted to make it clear that this had in fact been the infamous blackbeard ship this was also why intersil had been scouring that area near beaufort's inlet they had been hoping to locate this legendary ship the spot had been chosen as a result of interstell's president phil masters david moore a maritime archaeologist also added his input to the project through their search they discovered historical documents which gave them a good idea of where to look the documents had given plenty of details surrounding the location where the ship had been wrecked among the documents was an account by blackbeard's fellow pirate captain david harriet in 1997 david moore wrote a study a general history of blackbeard the pirate the queen anne's revenge and the adventure he quoted harriet who personally witnessed the wrecking of the queen anne's revenge in fact harriet's own ship the adventure also got wrecked during the same event harriet's document stated that thatch's ship queen anne's revenge run aground off of the bar of topsail inlet blackbeard also known as thatch or teach mounted a blockade of the charleston harbor in north carolina during may of 1718. during the blockade another pirate had described a ship trying to enter the top sail inlet which is known as beaufort inlet so a combination of the artifacts discovered and their known dates plus the historical documentary evidence made a strong case for this shipwreck being blackbeard's queen anne's revenge and finally 15 years after the discovery was first made north carolina state officials confirmed in 2011 that that was indeed the case so who was this blackbeard well we actually know very little of his background before he came to prominence as a pirate he's believed to have been born around 1680 somewhere near the english seaport of bristol even his real name is unclear it's likely he was either edward teach or edward thatch but we can't be sure edward teach is the name he's most commonly known by before turning to piracy it seems likely that blackbeard was a sailor based in jamaica he may have been a privateer who fought in the war of the spanish succession which ran from 1701 to 1704 in 1716 he probably started his buccaneering career as a crew member with the infamous corsair captain benjamin hornigold by 1717 horne golden teach were each captaining a single masted sailing vessel the duo cruised the waters around the island of new province in the bahamas hurrying caribbean merchant vessels they variously plundered 100 barrels of wine and 120 barrels of flour from vessels they intercepted a cargo of madeira wine was also among their booty on november 28 1717 having previously parted company with hornigold teach came across a french slave ship la concor de ntes near the caribbean island of martinique at 200 tons this vessel was a much grander affair than the small sloops teach had been sailing the concorde had made two trips transporting slaves to the caribbean one in 1713 and the second in 1715 her third voyage in 1717 would be her last as a slaver it was on this trip that teach or blackbeard as we can call him now came across concorde and engaged her in battle