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David Herriot swore Blackbeard wrecked his own ship
Blackbeard took about 20 pounds of gold dust off a French slave ship in 1717. Divers found the ship in 1996, without the gold.
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In the fall of 1718, sea captain David Herriot gave a sworn statement in Charleston, South Carolina. He said the men believed Blackbeard ran his own flagship aground that June on purpose. So the pirate could shake off his crew and keep the loot.
Herriot was there. His sloop got stuck beside it while trying to pull it free. Then Blackbeard left him and about 15 others on a bare sandbar and sailed off. And he told it all for a pardon.
The gold came off a French slave ship, La Concorde, taken near the Caribbean island of Martinique on November 28, 1717. It still held 455 captive Africans. Blackbeard kept the ship and named it Queen Anne's Revenge. Back in France, its officers swore the pirates took their gold dust, about 20 pounds of it.
That is about 290 troy ounces, or roughly $1.2 million at mid-October's price of about $4,170 an ounce, if pure. The math is ours. But for 278 years, treasure hunters were sure it sank with the ship.
Then in 1996, a Florida company called Intersal found the wreck. Yet the treasure on it came to a few bits of gold dust and four silver coins. Herriot had it right. |
| Blackbeard as a London pirate book showed him in 1725, seven years after he died. Photo: British Library. |
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The legend
Diggers have hunted Ocracoke and Bath for 300 years because of one line in a 1724 book.
A 1724 pirate book tells it this way. The night before his last fight, one of his men asked if his wife knew where his money was buried. Blackbeard said only he and the devil knew.
So diggers have worked Ocracoke Island, where he died, and the town of Bath, where he lived. The rest of the legend puts the gold on the wreck.
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The evidence
Divers have found four silver coins and a few bits of gold dust on the wreck.
On April 27, 1718, La Concorde's lieutenant, François Ernaud, swore out his account in Nantes, France. It sits in the Loire-Atlantique archives, file B 4578. The cabin boy, he said, showed the pirates the gold.
That fall, Herriot's statement went into the record of Stede Bonnet's pirate trial. Only he and Ignatius Pell said the wreck was on purpose. Both were trading testimony for their lives.
On November 22, 1718, Robert Maynard of the Royal Navy killed Blackbeard at Ocracoke. His men found sugar, cocoa, dye, cotton and a bit of gold dust.
In 1996 Intersal found the wreck, and the state confirmed it in 2011. Its archaeologists list four silver coins and some gold dust. The state's lab calls the 20 pounds unconfirmed.
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What probably happened
Accident or trick, Blackbeard's crew had time to carry the gold off the ship.
The gold left Beaufort Inlet with Blackbeard in June 1718. Most of it was spent or split up by November. Three facts back that up.
First, archaeologists found the wreck in a tight heap the size of the ship. So it sat and broke up slowly, and the crew had time to unload. Second, gold grains turn up only inside the wreck, like change lost in a couch. Third, the jewelry there was snipped up, because pirates shared gold by weight.
Herriot himself is the weak spot, since he was bargaining for his life. And that July, a Navy captain named Ellis Brand wrote that the pirates only meant to enter the harbor.
But either way, the ship sat on the bar long enough to empty.
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What's true
Eight claims. Five are documented. Three are campfire stories.
Legend
Blackbeard buried a chest only he and the devil could find.
The gold went down with Queen Anne's Revenge.
Blackbeard wrecked his ship on purpose to cheat his crew.
Evidence
Pirates took the officers' gold dust in 1717. Nantes archives, B 4578.
Herriot swore the wreck was on purpose. Bonnet trial record, 1719.
Maynard found mostly sugar and cocoa. Cordingly, Under the Black Flag.
The wreck held four silver coins and a little gold. Blackbeard's Sunken Prize, 2018.
North Carolina owns the wreck. Allen v. Cooper, Supreme Court, 2020.
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Where it is
Blackbeard died at Ocracoke Inlet, 46 miles up the coast from his wreck.
Beaufort Inlet is a break in the barrier islands of North Carolina. It sits 135 miles southeast of Raleigh. The wreck lies in 20 to 28 feet of water, a mile off Fort Macon State Park. Ocracoke Inlet is 46 miles up the coast, a bit farther than Boston to Providence.
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| Charleston to Beaufort Inlet is about 230 miles, roughly Chicago to Detroit. Map: Treasure Hunt. |
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What would settle it
A gold grain traced to West African mines would put Concorde gold on the wreck.
In 2017 the state's lab was working to trace where each wreck grain came from. So a match to West Africa would tie the dust to La Concorde.
Or read the paper yourself. The Bonnet trial record is free online at the Library of Congress. Ernaud's account is file B 4578 in Nantes.
To see the gold, go to the North Carolina Maritime Museum in Beaufort. Leave the detector home. The state owns the wreck and keeps the finds for its museum, not for divers. Federal rules ban detectors on Ocracoke's beaches.
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Happy Treasure Hunting!
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P.S. Herriot's deal did him little good. He broke out of jail with Bonnet and was shot dead that November, the month Blackbeard died.
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Sources QAR Project, North Carolina; Ernaud deposition, Nantes, B 4578; Bonnet trial record, 1719, Library of Congress; Blackbeard's Sunken Prize, 2018; Cordingly, Under the Black Flag; Allen v. Cooper, 2020; National Geographic, 2011; Coastal Review, 2022; National Park Service; PSU Connect, Oct. 13, 2026
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