iF YOU grew up in North Carolina, you know the basic outline of the blackbeard story.
A well-off man’s illegitimate child goes from having nothing to being the pirate captain of a small fleet. In our stories he appears in a haze of smoke - he’s a towering man with a wild beard, a womanizer with a wife in every port, a ruthless combatant, and even after his violent end at the hands of the British Navy, he cannot rest. But the truth of the matter runs deeper than the legend. The man known to us as Blackbeard left a trail of flesh-and-blood people in his wake.
Connected to this one man, there was a crew, captured and put on trial in Williamsburg, Virginia. Some were hanged, some faded back into the swamps of Eastern North Carolina after being released. There were women widowed by him, an entire city blockaded by him. His flagship had other owners and uses before becoming a pirate ship, being named Queen Anne’s Revenge, and eventually wrecking on North Carolina’s shoals.
There were corrupt government officials in cahoots with him (probably). There were secret tunnels (maybe). There was a lawsuit involving the wreck of his flagship that went all the way to the Supreme Court (really). There are a slew of modern-day historians, genealogists, and archeologists dedicated to knowing more about the man and the world he lived in.
Long Way Around is a series that explores this old world, ties it to the new world, and gives each person involved a fair hearing. We take big ideas and snarled threads of history and smooth them out, using curiosity as a compass and everyday language as a guide. No short-cuts.
The mission
To explore the story of Blackbeard with the integrity and thoroughness of academic writing, but with the warmth and fun of a good yarn. This home-grown series will flip both the legend and the truth over and look at it from every angle to help you understand how human beings inherit our stories (sometimes from beloved uncles with tall tales, sometimes finding scraps of paper inside a 300-year-old cannon). At the core of it all is the assumption that after all is said and done, people are just people, and that is the most intriguing thing they can be.
The Logistics
Installments of this story were sent out to our email list on the last Friday of every month through April 2021. The idea was to give you a stout weekend read, and four weekends in between missives to allow plenty of space to curl up with a mug of your favorite beverage and dive in. Late to the party? No worries, you can peruse back issues here.
The blackbeard story should not be relegated solely to history, or swashbuckling folk tales, or marine archeology’s exacting science, or the jungle of family trees that grow in an archive’s shelves. It’s all that and more. we have an INTERDISCIPLINARY tale to voyage through, one that speaks to the fabric of America’s early colonies and storytellers.
Who’s doing the writing?
My name is Megan Dohm. Born and raised in North Carolina, I’m a freelance writer, a photographer, a wearer of too much black and grey, and a story-gatherer. Places of learning and big bodies of water make my heart happy, so this venture fits like a glove (plus, it’s a chance for me to put my history degree to good use). For more about the project, the team, and me, click here.