North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources (North Carolina African American Heritage Commission)

The North Carolina African American Heritage Commission will develop a collection research and interpretation plan to reveal the still-hidden history of the early 18th century shipwreck--Blackbeard's Queen Anne's Revenge. The famous ship was previously a French slave vessel, La Concorde, from Nantes, France - a leading slave trade port in the 18th century. A 12-week summer research fellowship will focus on reviewing, re-assessing, and identifying and analyzing artifacts already recovered that have the potential to reveal more of the ship's history. The project team will purchase equipment to enable a broader range of elements to be accurately detected. The research fellow and one staff member will travel to Nantes to study French archives regarding the ship's origins, its provisioning, and peoples, and to develop contacts with conservators, curators, archaeologists, and educators with similar research interests. Staff will enhance the ship's website and present at two public programs to share the ship's history and its interpretation from an African American perspective.