News From the Department
To register for symposium, please fill out this form and e-mail it to: lisa.cole@ncmail.net. Please find the symposium agenda here.
Register For Symposium On History Of Blacks And Pirates
(posted 01/31/2007)
Contact:
For more information
contact Fay Mitchell Henderson at (919) 807-7389.
(RALEIGH—Jan 30) – Registration is underway for the first ever symposium to examine blacks and pirates and the tumultuous maritime culture of the New World. The free Pirate Ships, Slave Ships, and Colonial America symposium at the N.C. Maritime Museum in Beaufort on Wednesday, Feb. 21, will explore this little-known aspect of black history. Registration is increasing and organizers expect the numbers will grow more rapidly as the date approaches.
“New information and new awareness keeps expanding our understanding of history,” says Dr. Jeffrey Crow, deputy secretary of the N.C. Department of Cultural Resources, co-author of “The History of African Americans in North Carolina,” and symposium panel moderator. “Current research on shipwrecks from the Golden Age of Piracy, which coincided with slave trade in the New World, shows us that blacks often became pirates. For example, five of the pirates captured after Blackbeard’s demise at Ocracoke were black.”
A shackle and trading beads of the sort used in the slave trade were discovered at the purported Queen Anne’s Revenge (QAR) shipwreck, flagship of Blackbeard, now resting on the ocean floor near Beaufort. Blackbeard seized La Concorde, a slave ship carrying human cargo, and renamed her Queen Anne’s Revenge. Cultural Resources oversees exploration of that wreck, and the N.C. Maritime Museum is repository for the artifacts. This symposium is part of the 10th anniversary observance of the location of the shipwreck, announced in March 1997, and also part of the department’s year-long theme, “History Happens Here.”
Dr. Marcus Rediker, University of Pittsburgh, One of America’s foremost experts on pirate ships, slave ships and colonial America’s maritime culture, will speak on those subjects at the symposium. He also will speak on the culture of slave ships using research from a book to be published this fall.
“Slave ships were among the most authoritarian vessels sailing the Atlantic, pirate ships the most democratic, and the relationship between them is puzzling,” Rediker explains. “Many European pirates had experiences in the slave trade, yet they allowed blacks to join their crews. That fact is little known.”
David Moore, Blackbeard expert and nautical archaeologist with the N.C. Maritime Museum, reports that pirates liked the fast and sturdy slave ships. He is a morning presenter, and has researched the QAR and the slave ship Henrietta Marie. Dr. David Dennard, East Carolina University, will present the opening session on class and caste in colonial America. Rediker will present on the pirate and slave ships in the morning and on a slave ship voyage in the afternoon.
The daytime session will run from 9 a.m. - 3:30 p.m. The 6:30 - 8:30 p.m. session will feature examinations of the Guerrero, a pirate ship carrying Africans into slavery, by archaeologist Corey Malcom, with the Mel Fisher Maritime Heritage Society in Key West, Fla. Malcom, Moore and Robert Reedy, archaeologist who has researcher the shipwreck Whydah, will be on a panel during the evening program.
The QAR was located in November 1996 by the Florida based research firm, Intersal, Inc., through information provided by Intersal President Phil Masters to Operations Director Mike Daniel.
Registration for the free symposium is limited and required by Thursday, Feb. 15. It is organized by the DCR Division of Historical Resources, and funded with a grant from the N.C. Humanities Council, and also underwritten by the N.C. Museum of History and the Office of Archives and History in DCR. Cultural Resources is a state agency dedicated to the promotion and protection of North Carolina’s arts, history and culture. Now podcasting 24/7 with information about the Department of Cultural Resources, all available at www.ncculture.com.
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