Anne Bonny and Mary Reade the forgotten female Pirates of the Caribbean

 

Historical background

               Pirates were common all over the Caribbean during the golden age of piracy about 1650-1730. Pirates were incredibly bad mouthed and swore an awful lot. They tortured their own crews, sometimes to the extent of death as well as their hostages. The Jolly Rodger was an easy way of identifying which pirate captain was captaining a ship back in the day. Common misconception, the Jolly Rodger was not a ship, but the flag pirate captains would hoist to instill fear. Pirates generally had nicknames as Blackbeard who was another pirate near the same area was also a nickname and not his real name.

Preface

An image of the Jolly Rodger Captain Rackham used

Anne Bonny and Mary Reade were pirates in the Caribbean. Both Anne and Mary were part of the crew of one infamous Caribbean pirate, Captain Jack “Calico Jack” Rackham, some debate his first name was John.

A sketch of Jack Rackham himself

A sketch of both Anne and Mary

Anne Bonny

A image of Anne 

Anne was born in Ireland, no one is sure when she was born, but an approximate guess is about 1698. She was the daughter of an Irish lawyer by the name of William Cormac and one of his maids, making her illegitimate. William then splits up with his wife after she found out about him cheating on her. He took custody over Anne. After the scandal, William’s business flopped and he, Anne and her mother moved to Charles Town, when she was 13, her mother contracted and died of typhoid fever.  William oversaw a plantation; however, it was brutal for the slaves. At one point Anne defended herself against a rape that happened in Charles town. William managed to set up a betrothal to Anne with an unknown local suitor. Anne ended up not marrying the person her father set her up to be married to, which caused her father so much upset, he disowned her. Anne married a sailor by the name of John Bonny; they moved to Providence which at the time was a pirate republic with no laws as pirates were unlawful. John worked as a messenger for the government and went back and forth to deliver messages.  Anne was disenchanted with her marriage and ended up being romantically involved with Jack Rackham.  Anne was offered money to divorce John; he refused and abandoned her instead. Sometime later Anne became pregnant with Jack’s baby, as was customary, she was dropped off in Cuba to have her baby. Jack then goes back the next year, and picks Anne back up and the two continue pirating together which was something that rarely happened as the pirates would not come back.   

Mary Reade

An Image of Mary Read

Mary’s mother first gave birth to a son; the father deserted both, Mary Reade was then born in England, some debate Plymouth around 1695 out of an affair her mother had with someone else. After her half-brother’s death, Mary posed as the dead half brother to receive funds from his paternal grandmother. Mary was 13 when her half grandmother died, afterwards she continued crossdressing for a while. She worked as a servant before she joined the military to take part in the 9 years war. She became infatuated with a British soldier, Mary revealed to him her true sex. The soldier was the only one to know about Mary’s identity. After the war, Mary marries the soldier she fell in love with during the war. They moved to the Netherlands and ran an inn. When her husband dies, her business that she created with him flopped. She then moved to what was called the west indies, now modern-day Caribbean. Mary than became a buccaneer while captaining a ship in her own right. Some of her crew surrendered to the British crown because they were offered a pardon if they surrendered from piracy. It’s unclear if Mary surrendered, however, she continued to captain with a smaller crew. Mary’s ship and crew were captured by John and Anne. Mary and some of her crew ended up becoming part of Captain Jack’s crew along with the other crew members aboard. Mary had to reveal herself to be a female to Anne as allegedly Anne was smitten on Mary. Mary also allegedly had an affair with one of the fellow pirates aboard the ship, however a bit of a love triangle occurred when another pirate got jealous and challenged Mary’s supposed lover to a duel. Mary then saves her lover’s life by killing the jealous pirate before a duel can even commence.    

Pirates capturing ships and robbing with two badass women.

The first ship they commandeered was a sloop named William which was added to their fleet as there were no one on board. For capturing hostages, Jack would hoist his Jolly Rodger flag to instill fear on the people they were capturing. Jack would then release them unharmed but shaken. Anne and Mary were said to be the fiercest people on the ship as they would want to fight and harm some of the hostages instead of letting them get away, they would have probably liked to use cannons when necessary. Both also swore while barking orders at the crew along with using weapons during attack. They also drank a fair amount of rum, probably accounting for their fierceness.

A large chunk of items these pirates stole, they sold to get more money. Sometimes the cargo they secured was not that valuable despite terrorising the people they stole from. One common misconception is that pirates raided for valuable buried treasure, this was not the case for any pirate in this time, it was all fiction. The stuff pirates would steal were rum, tobacco and sugar to trade with other pirates. On one such occasion, a lady who was making a canoe voyage was intercepted by the pirates. They stole the fish that she had in her boat as well as her valuable artifacts, she contacted the authorities about this pirate sloop with two brutal women threatening to injure her. Interestingly both these women wore women’s clothes while not participating in active duties, when they were participating, they wore men’s clothes.   

 

Capture:

When the governor of Jamaica heard about it and realised the pirates captured one of his personal ships, he made arrest warrants because of all the news. A privateer responded and his ship was sent out to catch these pirates. When the privateer’s ship came, it was pitch black, all the pirates were resting. After they were aroused, they surrendered right away except for Anne and Mary. They also tried to convince other pirates to fight but no one did. The two fought until they were overpowered by the privateer’s crew.

Prosecution 

Captain Jack, Anne and Mary along with the rest of the pirates went to court in Port Royal, Jamaica. The authorities immediately sentenced all to be hanged, in addition Jack was gibbeted and his body was displayed in what is now known as Rackham’s Cay. Luckily it was discovered that Mary and Anne where pregnant, so they managed to avoid being executed. There was this old rule that stated that any pregnant criminal would not be executed as the authorities believed the unborn baby was innocent either way. Because of this, their sentence got commuted to prison for a long time instead of being executed, after the baby was born, they would most likely have a re-trial, and the death penalty would be carried out. It was said that Anne managed to have time with Calico Jack right before his execution as the two were lovers, however, during the visit Anne acted sour and never forgave Jack for not fighting the privateers and surrendering to them. 

An image depicting a pirate gibbeted, this is not Jack but another pirate captain, William Kidd

Mary died of typhoid fever or what was known as jail fever along with her unborn baby. Anne did give birth, and she somehow avoided the death penalty after giving birth. Because part of the law was you can execute the women after the baby was born. Once out, we are not quite sure what happened to her, she disappeared and was never seen again. Some speculate she changed her name and fell in love with a man and spent the rest of her days raising a family after her marriage.

 

 

Legacies:

As soon as Anne and Mary died, an author by the name of Captain Charles Johnston made a biography complete with wrong facts and put an image of the two right on front of the cover with their story being a big selling point.  

An image of the cover of Charles Johnson's Book

 Mary managed to become a war veteran and the only female one in a time where women could not fight. Both women managed to survive after being accused of Piracy by the crown and sentenced to death the others were executed right away except for Captain Henry Morgan who was a bit before their time. They also are the only two female active pirates we know of in the Caribbean. The place where they were tried still exists in Jamaica, known as Port Royal, you can still see where Jack Rackham’s body publicly rotted over 300 years ago in a gibbet. Both were some of the first crossdressers to not be caught in the act. A portrait of Mary still exists today, one of Mary exposing one of her breasts to a victim.

The portrait I mentioned of Mary

In films and TV, Anne and Mary have been portrayed in two of the popular television series and period pieces from the golden age of piracy from the 21^st century, about 300 years after their deaths in HBO’s Our Flag Means Death: Season 2 and Showcase’s Black Sails. Anne and Mary were the inspiration behind Elizabeth Swann from Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean franchise; Calico Jack’s Jolly Rodger even found its way into the franchise.

Their legacies were also tarnished because they absolutely did not look like what many consider a female pirate for Halloween.

 

An Image of what we consider a woman's "Pirate" costume

in reality This is what the female pirate costumes should look like:

Correct woman pirate costume