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The Golden Age of Piracy’s Most Terrifying Pirates

Khalid Elhassan March 7, 2025 16 min

Piracy - A Tortuga buccaneer — A Tortuga buccaneer. Wikimedia

9. Queen Anne’s Revenge

A model of Queen Anne’s Revenge in the North Carolina History Museum. North Carolina History Project

After his mentor Hornigold retired from piracy in 1717, Blackbeard continued his piratical career, now on his own hook. Soon thereafter, he seized a French ship, which he remodeled and equipped with 40 cannons, renamed it Queen Anne’s Revenge, and made her his flagship. Blackbeard then formed a pirate alliance, and used it to commit his most notorious act: a successful blockade of Charleston, South Carolina. He held the city hostage and wreaked havoc on the seaborne trade and commerce upon which its economy depended, until he was paid a ransom.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.