Last week while on vacation I drug (er, dragged?) everyone to the NC Maritime Museum:
A visit to the museum will enhance your appreciation of the natural beauty, precious resources, and rich cultural heritage of coastal North Carolina.
Me and the 4-year old loved it. The 20 month old like climbing the exhibits and the spouse hated it, and all things like it! One feature is the pirate lore of coastal NC and the "presumed" shipwreck of Blackbeard's flagship, the Queen Anne's Revenge (QAR), that was discovered 10 years ago in Beaufort Inlet.
It reminded me of a talk I saw on campus last fall, given by my old colleague from ECU, maritime historian Brad Rodgers, on his doubts about the authenticity of the Beaufort Inlet shipwreck as QAR. His paper was published in the April 2005 issue of the International Journal of Nautical Archaeology. Brad argues that the shipwreck could be the QAR and it could be ... any number of other ships. Here is the abstract ('Ruling Theories Linger': Questioning the Identity of the Beaufort Inlet Shipwreck):
From 1996 investigators of the Beaufort Inlet shipwreck, off North Carolina, USA, have suggested that the remains are those of the Queen Anne's Revenge, flagship of the pirate Blackbeard. Analysis of the published material, however, indicates that no concrete evidence has yet been found to support this identification and, moreover, shows a strong tendency towards Ruling Theory, whereby researchers seem to shape evidence to fit a pre-conceived identification. This article uses the Beaufort Inlet shipwreck as a case study in the dangers of Ruling Theory and how it can compromise scholarly objectivity, and thwart the generation of useful research questions. It also seeks to demonstrate the benefits of a clear, objective research design for project investigation and management.
No doubt the QAR hype is designed to generate salvage funding. I can say "no doubt" because there is no doubt! Published in the following issue of IJNA is a comment written by the Curator of Nautical Archaeology at the NC Maritime Museum. He rags Brad et al. on a number of things that I don't have a clue about. But, and here's the kicker, the conclusions include this:
They additionally claim that our research efforts towards identifying the wreck as Queen Anne's Revenge are perhaps 'politically-motivated' (p.26). We assume that they are accusing the project of using the possibility that the site is associated with Blackbeard to somehow trick the general public into maintaining a high level of interest, and various funding sources into providing monies to continue the project. To this we will readily plead guilty and counter with the question: why not? If we can use media attention and public interest to help drive the project and raise funding during a period of tight budgetary constraints and dwindling public funds for both historical and archaeological projects worldwide, then why not take advantage of this inherent public interest in pirates to help continue work on what the 'Ruling Theory' authors themselves admit to be a significant colonial-period shipwreck?
So it's OK to call it QAR if it generates funding to study another significant shipwreck.
