Pirate Exhibit in Montreal

Near the end of the 17th century, Montreal-born Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville conducted a series of raids against the English in what is now Newfoundland. With the consent and blessing of the French government, he conducted a land campaign against English settlements. There was some plunder going on, but not at sea. In this case, I'd say he was a mercenary.

Then, in 1697, d'Iberville sailed to France and was given a commission by the French Navy to retake the mouth of the Mississippi river and resettle Louisiana. Sounds like a straight ahead Naval operation. At best we could call him a privateer...

But at the Pointe-a-Calliere museum in Old Montreal, they're calling him a pirate. They have a floor set up like a ship's deck, and they're displaying cutlasses, canon, sea chests, and other 17th-18th century seafaring goodies. The exhibit is called "Pirates, Privateers and Freebooters," and they're probably just promoting d'Iberville because he's a local boy and a loyal Frenchie (not that there's anything wrong with that). We say it's worth checking out if you're in the area.

The Jolly Noggin of Blackbeard

In 1996, a marine recovery team found the remains of a wrecked ship in an inlet on the coast of North Carolina. Since then, about a third of the wreckage has been excavated, yielding over 16,000 artifacts of British origin. The wreck has been identified as probably being the Queen Anne's Revenge, a pirate ship that scourged the coast of the southern colonies under the captaincy of Edward Thatch (sometimes given as Teach), better known as Blackbeard.

Blackbeard made his last stand off the coast of NC almost three hundred years ago. Despite the fact that Blackbeard had decided to accept a Royal pardon and retire, Governor Spotswood of Virginia sent two sloops out of his jurisdiction to hunt down the illustrious Captain Thatch.

Lieutenant Robert Maynard, in command of the mission, engaged Thatch near Beaufort Inlet. After a spirited exchange of insults and gunfire, Blackbeard and ten of his men threw grenades made of rum bottles full of gunpowder onto the deck of Maynard's sloop. After covering the deck with smoke and broken glass, they boarded.

They say Blackbeard was shot five times and stabbed close to twenty before he fell. Maynard cut off Thatch's head-- not only for a trophy, but also as proof to collect the bounty (a meagre £100). He hung the head from his bowsprit. That's the beam that juts out from the front of a wooden ship.

According to legend, Blackbeard's decapitated body was thrown overboard, where it swam around the sloop seven times before sinking. But the head was kept, this we know. And scholars suspect that we still have Blackbeard's actual skull.

This supposed skull of Blackbeard and many of the recovered artifacts from the supposed Queen Anne's Revenge will be on display at a grand exhibition of pirate history from antiquity to the present at the North Carolina Museum of History in Raleigh. The exhibit, entitled Knights of the Black Flag, opens tomorrow.

Happy Birthday, Black Sam

Today is the 320th anniversary of the birth of "Black Sam" Bellamy, nicknamed the "Prince of Pirates."

Bellamy was born in England, became a sailor, and sailed to Cape Cod. There he met a girl so fair: Maria Hallett. She was so fair that he decided to scour the coast of Florida looking for shipwrecks to bring her treasure. When he couldn't find any, he turned pirate.

He first joined Benjamin Hornigold's crew on the Mary Anne. In 1716, Bellamy took command of the Mary Anne. He later captured a better ship, the Sultana. Bellamy was known for his mercy and generosity. When he captured the 300-ton slaving ship, the Whydah Galley, he gave its captain the Sultana. The Whydah Galley was laden with ivory, gold, and silver. Evidently he had finally captured enough for his lady love, for he sailed back to Cape Cod.

Tragically, he never saw Maria again. The Whydah Galley was caught in a storm off the cape, wrecked, and went under the tide. Nine men from Bellamy's fleet made it ashore, and all but two were captured.

Bellamy himself went down with the Whydah Galley. The ship and some of its treasure were recovered by treasure hunters in 1984. Many of the artifacts are on display at the Expedition Whydah Sea Lab & Learning Center in Provincetown, Massachusetts. There is also currently a travelling exhibit with Whydah artifacts called Real Pirates: The Untold Story of the Whydah from Slave Ship to Pirate Ship. It just moved to The Field Museum in Chicago & the show opens on Wednesday.