Who was Blackbeard?

Did pirates actually make people walk the plank?

How does Beaufort County’s history intertwine with pirate facts, myths and legends?

These and other questions will be subject to scrutiny later this month during the inaugural Pirate Parley on the Pamlico.

The parley, actually a symposium on pirate lore and reality, begins at 3 p.m. May 21 at the Turnage Theater, located at 150 W. Main St., Washington.

The program will be followed by a dinner break. Parley participants will reconvene at the Turnage at 7:30 p.m. for a roundtable discussion of pirate history.

Tickets cost $20 apiece, or $15 per person for groups of 10 or more. Students may gain admission for $10 each.

For ticket information, call the Blackbeard Adventure Alliance at 252-948-0550.

The alliance is working to build a replica of Blackbeard’s sloop, the Adventure. The ship would be used to educate tourists and locals alike on the pirate and his times.

Further information may be found at www.blackbeardsloopadventure.com.

“We are very hopeful that this will make people much more aware of the richness of this story,” said Pat Mansfield, alliance president.

During the parley, English author-historian E.T. Fox “will explain the historical realities of pirates and their differences from pop-culture depictions in film and literature,” reads a news release from Kevin Duffus.

Fox recently was featured in a Smithsonian Channel documentary called “The Real Pirates of the Caribbean,” Duffus related.

Duffus, a Raleigh historian-researcher, is author of the book “The Last Days of Black Beard the Pirate.”

He will unveil a parley program titled “Bloodthirsty Pirates or Hapless Marionettes?”

Duffus is expected to make an announcement based on his research of historical records, but, in an interview, wasn’t ready to publicly reveal what he had uncovered.

“The idea behind the daylong event, of course, was to first of all have Beaufort County reclaim its pirate heritage, which seems to have been co-opted by so many other places,” Duffus said.

Bath, North Carolina’s oldest town, was one of Blackbeard’s haunts.

The pirate, also known as Edward Teach, was killed in a battle with British naval forces off Ocracoke in 1718.

“The other impetus, of course, is to present this against the backdrop of the coming Disney movie,” Duffus pointed out.

He was referring to the sequel “Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides,” due out May 20, according to the Internet Movie Database website.

In a telephone interview from his Devon, England, home, Fox described himself as a historian who specializes in pirates.

One of his books, called “The King of the Pirates – The Swashbuckling Career of Henry Every,” is available in America. This book is a biography of Every, perhaps one of the most successful English pirates of his time.

“My presentation’s going to be about where myth meets reality in regards to pirate history,” said Fox, who added he wants to discuss the reality behind such topics as buried treasure and female pirates.

Fox said he’s visited the United States a couple of times, but he’s never has been south of Maryland, so this will be his first visit to North Carolina.

Fox acknowledged he’s excited about seeing some of the places where pirate history unfolded.

“I’ve been writing about this for years,” Fox said.

Also, this week it was announced East Carolina University’s Joyner Library has agreed to lend a couple of rare pirate books for display in the Turnage during the parley.

Two copies of colonial-era author Capt. Charles Johnson’s book, “A General History of the Pyrates” will be on loan as the day’s program unfolds.

The copies date from 1724 and 1728, reads Duffus’ news release.

Duffus reports no one knows exactly who Johnson was or from what sources he obtained information on his subjects.

“Much of what the public believes is true about pirates such as Captain Kidd, Anne Bonny, Henry Every, Black Sam Bellamy and Edward Teach, hinges on the veracity and scholarship of Charles Johnson,” Duffus wrote in the release.

Scholars like Fox “have found numerous factual errors in Johnson’s books, including an entire chapter devoted to a pirate who never actually existed,” the release notes.

The books will be shown under glass alongside other books, artwork and movie posters adorned with images of Blackbeard.

This display, billed as “Interpretations of Blackbeard,” was organized by Mansfield.

Mansfield hopes the parley will inform and entertain people who want to learn more about piracy as it was practiced in the Americas, especially where Blackbeard is concerned.

“Everybody else is doing festivals,” she said. “We’re setting ourselves apart.”