Pirate Queens: The Lives of Anne Bonny & Mary Read 9781526791306, 1526791307

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Pirate Queens

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Pirate Queens The Lives of Anne Bonny & Mary Read Rebecca Alexandra Simon

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First published in Great Britain in 2022 by Pen & Sword History An imprint of Pen & Sword Books Ltd Yorkshire – Philadelphia Copyright © Rebecca Alexandra Simon 2022 ISBN 978 1 52679 130 6 The right of Rebecca Alexandra Simon to be identified as Author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the Publisher in writing. Printed and bound in the UK by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY.

Pen & Sword Books Limited incorporates the imprints of Atlas, Archaeology, Aviation, Discovery, Family History, Fiction, History, Maritime, Military, Military Classics, Politics, Select, Transport, True Crime, Air World, Frontline Publishing, Leo Cooper, Remember When, Seaforth Publishing, The Praetorian Press, Wharncliffe Local History, Wharncliffe Transport, Wharncliffe True Crime and White Owl. For a complete list of Pen & Sword titles please contact PEN & SWORD BOOKS LIMITED 47 Church Street, Barnsley, South Yorkshire, S70 2AS, England E-mail: [email protected] Website: www.pen-and-sword.co.uk Or PEN AND SWORD BOOKS 1950 Lawrence Rd, Havertown, PA 19083, USA E-mail: [email protected] Website: www.penandswordbooks.com

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Dedication Dedicated to all of the forgotten women who forged their own lives on land and sea.

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Contents Prologue: Pirate Queens in Historyviii Introductionxiv Chapter 1

The Lawyer and the Maid

Chapter 2

Anne Bonny, a Not-So-Southern Lady 

23

Chapter 3

The Widow and the Bastard

34

Chapter 4

Mary Read, the Soldier

43

Chapter 5

Anne Bonny, the Pirate

64

Chapter 6

Pirate Queens of the Caribbean

79

Chapter 7

The Trial of Anne Bonny and Mary Read

104

Chapter 8

Women’s Attraction to Piracy

118

Chapter 9 Conclusion

1

128

Appendix I: An Act for Suppressing Pirates in West  Indies (1717)140 Appendix II: By His Excellency Woodes Rogers,   Governour of New-Providence, a Proclamation, 1720142 Appendix III: Calendar of State Papers, Colonial Series,   Vol. 33 (1720–1721)143 Appendix IV: The Boston Gazette 144 Appendix V: The Trial of Anne Bonny and Mary Read145 Acknowledgments  154 Notes156 Bibliography171 Index179

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Prologue

Pirate Queens in History

A

nne Bonny and Mary Read were not the only female pirates to make waves in the maritime world. In fact, female pirates were active ever since the ancient period, and yet they were the ones who would be amongst the most famous pirates of all time. But before we examine their lives, we must take a look at those who came before them. The first known female pirate was Queen Artemisia I (r. 484– 460 bce) of Halicarnassus from the ancient Greek period, born sometime during the fifth century. In 500 bce she married the king of Halicarnassus and had one son. Shortly after his birth, her husband died and Artemisia assumed the throne, and soon waged numerous wars against rival city-states throughout the Mediterranean Sea. Her success as a pirate is thanks to her privileged status as a queen. She consulted with numerous councils about the best methods when going into war and how to wage attacks. Ancient Mediterranean piracy was quite different from eighteenth-century piracy. Ancient pirates raided both land and sea as a form of intertribal warfare. Their prowess earned them respect rather than fear and so they were accepted as legitimate mariners in most Mediterranean areas. Artemisia’s birthplaced, Caria in southwestern Anatolia, was taken over by the Persians so she had no choice but to sail with them to attack Greek ships. However, she managed to defy these conquerors by turning around and raiding the Persian ships. Artemisia had numerous successes attacking rival city-states

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Pirate Queens in History  ix and Persian areas, but her fate is a mystery. It is possible that she decided to retire quietly. Another theory is that she fell in love with another man who rejected her. Either way, she eventually died by suicide.1 The only sources written about her life are Herodotus’s Histories and Polyaenus’s Strategems of War. Ancient Greek culture did not have a favourable view of women, so their works painted her in a vicious light as a power-hungry woman set out to destroy anyone in her path. Therefore, we must take her history with a grain of salt. In the end her exploits cursed her reputation in history and the writings claim that she would never receive any love or respect again. Thanks to the Ancient Greek societal prejudices against women. Approximately 300 years later another female pirate emerged: Teuta of Illyria (r. 231–227 bce) whose history was captured in Polybios’s Histories. Similar to Artemisia, Teuta married a king, Agron of Illyria, who died right after their marriage. Teuta took over and ruled as regent for her young stepson. Her goal: to expand Illyria’s borders through raiding and plundering on both land and sea. She gave sailors passes to act as pirates and attack rival ships at will. Teuta sailed on several of her own ships and took an active part in numerous raids on rival city-states throughout the Mediterranean. Word spread about her expansionist goals and she became known as the ‘Terror of the Adriatic’. She intended to expand Illyria’s borders all the way to Rome. The Romans considered her to be merely a nuisance until she conquered the Greek west coast, opening up the way for her to sail freely towards Rome. The Romans had no choice but to declare war. By then, the Illyrians no longer supported the wars against other city-states so Teuta found herself without allies. Her own governor, Demetrius, refused to support her and betrayed her to the Romans. In a desperate move to save herself, Teuta promised to return Rome’s hostages. Despite her acquiescence, the Roman fleet pursued her

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x  Pirate Queens until she was trapped and forced to surrender. Here Polybious’s account of Teuta’s history ends and no one knows what happened to her for the rest of her life. Polybios wrote from a Roman perspective, which was very antiGreek and did not favour women at all. He described Teuta as a volatile woman out for blood with the intent to destroy Rome. Polybios wrote with the intention to warn women about the follies of attempting to take any power.2 One thousand years later another pirate queen emerged, Princess Awilda of Scandinavia. Her birthdate has never been listed, but it is estimated that she lived during the fifth century. Her story comes from three sources: the Danish writer Saxo Grammaticus’s Gesta Danorum (a twelfth-century sixteen-volume anthology of Danish history, poetry and mythology), the sixteenth-century History of the Northern Peoples by Olaus Magnus, and in Charles Elms’s work The Pirates Own Book, published in 1837. According to Grammaticus, Awilda was the daughter of Siward, king of the Goths, who intended to marry her off to Prince Alf of Denmark. Awilda was so against the marriage that she and several of her maids disguised themselves as men and went to sea to escape. There are several theories as to why she rejected Prince Alfred: one is that she found him physically unattractive; another theory is that he wanted to consummate their engagement before their marriage; and, alternatively, her mother may have convinced her not to marry the man. Shortly after they set out at sea, Awilda and her maids were captured by pirates. Instead of taking her hostage, they were so impressed with her regal air that they elected her as their new captain. In the meantime Prince Alf sent a fleet after her, which culminated in a major battle in the Gulf of Finland. Alf boarded Awilda’s ship, kidnapped her and forced her to leave with him for Denmark. The story goes that she was so impressed by his ruthlessness that she ended up marrying him and became queen

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Pirate Queens in History  xi of Denmark.3 While the writings suggest she willingly became queen, she may have been taken against her will. A millennia later, in the sixteenth century, a woman named Sayyida al Hurra emerged as queen regent of the Moroccan coast and as a powerful pirate leader. Born in approximately 1485 in Spain, she and her Muslim family were forced to flee during the Reconquista (a brutal war between Muslims and Catholics) and they settled in Morocco. In 1515, she married a powerful ruler of the city of Téoutan, who, like Teuta’s husband, died right after their marriage. Sayyida took his title and proclaimed herself the new ruler. The only historical sources of her account are from Spain and Portugal, which depict her as a Moorish enemy and ruthless woman who commanded pirates intent on destroying Spain. It is unknown if she actually sailed with the pirates, but they raided at sea and on land on her orders. She successfully commanded Morocco’s Mediterranean coast for the next thirty years, but in 1542 she was mysteriously dethroned, signifying yet another defeat. Finally, the most significant female pirate to rule the seas before Anne Bonny and Mary Read’s reign was the Irish pirate leader Grace O’Malley who operated off the west coast of Ireland. Anne, who was born and raised in Ireland until she was ten years old, grew up hearing stories about her and was likely inspired by Grace’s success. Like the women before her, Grace (born in 1530) came from a long line of Irish chieftains who ruled Connaught. Her family had castles on Clare Island with a fleet of ships for fishing, trading and pirate raids against English ships. In 1546 Grace married a chieftain named Donal O’Flaherty and moved to his castle at Bunowen, about thirty miles south from her home. They had three children, but tragedy came when her  husband was brutally murdered in a revenge attack after several raids.

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xii  Pirate Queens Grace moved herself and her sons back home and sought her own revenge by taking over the O’Malley fleet of twenty-two ships. She quickly gained a reputation as a fearless captain. In 1566 she remarried another local chieftain, Richard Burke, and moved to Rockfleet Castle in County Mayo, which became the base of her operations.4 The English governor of Galway, Sir Edward Fitton, sent an expedition after her, commanded by Captain William Martin, who ended up having to retreat after Grace brutally attacked him with her forces. But then her luck began to run out. In 1577 she was captured in a raid and imprisoned in Limerick for eighteen months, during which time her husband passed away. After she was freed, she could not inherit her husband’s lands, so she launched more raids against Galway, which was now governed by Sir Richard Bingham. He managed to capture her in Clew Bay and took her three sons hostage. Abandoned by her fellow chieftains and unable to bear the prospect of losing her children, Grace had no choice but to go to England and appeal to Queen Elizabeth I for their release. The queen agreed to see her, but first Grace was subjected to eighteen questions about her family, history, actions as a pirate and her motives. Elizabeth was so impressed by Grace’s eloquent responses and leadership as a pirate that she agreed to have her sons released. In exchange, Grace had to sail for Elizabeth when called upon.5 * * * All of the above-mentioned women had one thing in common: they were all married to powerful men and placed in leadership roles. Yet, unlike Anne and Mary, they were all virtually forgotten in history (with the exception of Grace O’Malley). The reason for this is that their stories were written by either men or enemies who

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Pirate Queens in History  xiii deliberately painted them in a negative light, thereby reducing their history into legend and myth. So why did Anne and Mary escape obscurity? They only sailed for two months and were not from powerful families, nor were they married to exceptional men. The answer is simple: they were alive and active in the right place at the right time. The printing industry was widespread and readily available for consumption all over the Americas and Britain. Newspapers published their exploits and people read the articles throughout the British-American colonies. Pirate trial transcripts were lucrative publications that sold widely thanks to a growing fascination with pirates. The Trial of Jack Rackham and Other Pirates, published in London in 1721, included their names in the description, noting the exceptional women who joined a male-dominated, violent world and were as ruthless as any other pirate. The other main reason is that just three years later, in 1724, Captain Charles Johnson published A General History of the Pyrates, a collection of pirate biographies which detailed their lives. The book’s title page and subsequent advertisements all highlighted the inclusion of ‘female pirates’ with the intention of grabbing an audience: and it worked. This time their stories were meant to excite readers, not destroy their reputations. The result is their permanent place in history and public memory.

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Introduction

I

n November 2020 a statue of two female ‘pirate lovers whose story was ignored by male historians’ was erected in Wapping, East London. The chosen location was on the bank of the Thames in front of a replica of a scaffold and noose, once known as Execution Dock, where condemned pirates met their death. The statue, designed by sculptor Amanda Cotton, was intended to celebrate two female pirates who broke gender boundaries in the piratical world.1 These two female pirates were Anne Bonny and Mary Read, two of the most infamous and fearsome pirates during the Golden Age of Piracy, a period that lasted between approximately 1670 and 1730. They were only pirates for two months – between August and October 1720 – but during that time they earned their well-deserved notoriety. They swore and fought mercilessly with pistols and cutlasses in a world where women should have been confined to the home, either as a wife and mother or in domestic servitude. Instead, they used their femininity to defeat their foes. Their hair flowed long and blew in the wind, and they opened their shirts to bear their breasts to intimidate and shock their victims. Anne Bonny and Mary Read were more than just pirates. They spent their lives struggling against the social shackles of womanhood during a time when there were few opportunities for female agency. Whether or not it was their intention, their lives became the subject of fascination, consternation and awe for men and women alike. According to the feminist writer, Jo Stanley,

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Introduction xv the idea of female pirates was no less than a social outrage and the embodiment of women’s terrifying power. Even worse, the woman pirates’ wickedness was responsible for arousing sexual desire in the men they abhorred.2 But with sexual desire came fear of women as castrators;3 if they could hold such a power over men, they could destroy them. They were able to seduce men to be able to gain their own power and agency; their escape from the gallows was thanks to their pregnancies, taking the man’s seed to give them back their own control. Anne Bonny and Mary Read were alive during the height of what is referred to as the Golden Age of Piracy. Piratical activity ebbed and flowed during three different periods, referred to as ‘pirate rounds’, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The first has been identified as the years between 1670 and 1680, when French pirates, known as buccaneers, roamed the seas throughout the West Indies. The second round took place in the Indian Ocean during the 1690s, which included the activities of British pirates such as Captains Henry Avery and William Kidd, who almost destroyed Britain’s trade with India. The third time period – the one with which most people are familiar – was between 1716 and approximately 1730, known as the ‘War on Piracy’. This is the period in which we meet the most infamous pirates in history: Blackbeard, Stede Bonnet, Charles Vane and Jack Rackham, who was both Anne’s and Mary Read’s pirate captain, just to name a few. The War on Piracy was a conflict in which the British government was determined to exterminate all pirates. They faced ‘a clique of 20–30 pirate commodores and a few thousand crewmen’ who all knew each other.4 Jack Rackham sailed under Charles Vane (the most vicious pirate of the time) and then added Mary to his crew after he and Anne were married and set out to sea as pirates. The third round of the Golden Age of Piracy had the largest number of organised bands of pirates. According to the historian

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xvi  Pirate Queens Marcus Rediker, records show that between 1,800 and 2,400 pirates sailed in the Atlantic between 1716 and 1718 and 1,500 to 2,000 between 1719 and 1722. He estimates that in total, anywhere between 4,500 and 5,000 ‘men went, as they called it, “upon the account”’.5 This number does not account for the women who sailed with pirates during the height of their activity. Anne Bonny and Mary Read are the two most well-known female pirates of the age, but their lives represent the countless number of women who sailed the seas and were lost to history. The life of a pirate averaged just two years unless they were fortunate to retire or somehow leave the profession. The Royal Navy increased its power over the first two decades of the eighteenth century. More and more former privateers, legally sanctioned mercenaries charged to rob enemy ships under a contract called a letter of marque, or even pirates themselves were taking jobs as pirate hunters. Pirates were captured en masse, which guaranteed them death by public hanging in a crowded arena. The 1720s were the riskiest years to be a pirate. So why would two women, who had almost no prospects at sea and were confined to strict social roles, take the plunge into the uncertainty of this life knowing that their capture meant certain death? The answer is quite simple. Pirates were seen as agents of social mobility during a time in which it was nearly impossible to improve one’s position in society. If a person was born poor they would stay poor, and so would future generations. Likewise, if one was born into wealth and status, that would also be inherited. Pirates, however, came from all social classes with various levels of education. Their ships were independent, egalitarian societies where they could vote on their captains and benefit from equal distribution of wealth, unlike naval and merchant ships. This allowed many to become quite wealthy, or at least financially comfortable, if they survived their career as a pirate. They were not beholden to specific countries and governments and considered

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Introduction xvii themselves to be their own sovereign nations. Pirates actively rebelled against the rigid social norms by blaspheming, swearing, cursing, drinking excessively and partying, robbery, and entering into violent encounters without the fear of death. This type of life would seem free to anyone desperate to leave the chains of their own situation.6 The temptation of piracy to women, therefore, could be quite overwhelming. This life offered them freedom from social captivity and a chance to explore the world (or, in Anne and Mary’s case, the whole of the West Indies). Not to mention the fact that their success would give them total financial independence in a world where women could not possess any money or property. Piracy offered them freedom, along with the intoxicating lure of opportunity, rebellion, and the allure of the sea’s dangerous beauty and the adventure it provided.7 In the end, it is easy to understand why Anne and Mary readily joined up with a crew of pirates. Anne Bonny and Mary Read had parallel lives. Both were illegitimate children who spent some or all of their childhood disguised as a boy before striking out on their own. Rather than becoming confined to domestic life, as was expected of women in the eighteenth century, Anne escaped to the sea while Mary entered military life as a man. Anne and Mary held onto their agency like a lifeline and they never let go. They defied all gender stereotypes by taking a traditionally masculine role on a pirate ship. They fought and possibly killed more sailors than anyone else in their crew and they were known to swear and curse more than any of the men. Their long hair flowed in the wind as their shirts were unbuttoned, bearing their breasts for all to see to initimidate their victims. Femininity was their asset rather than a hindrance. Fear did not stand in their way as they thrived in this violent world until their untimely capture in October 1720.

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xviii  Pirate Queens This book is a biography of their lives. It intends to both tell their story to the fullest extent while also addressing long-standing rumors: were they both disguised as boys? Did they live as men on the ship or was their dress merely for convenience? What is the truth about their relationship? Were they merely friends or were they lovers? And finally, why did they become famous while other maritime women have either been forgotten or simply left behind? To answer these questions, I have done my absolute best to stick as close to the truth as possible. The large challenge of writing about these two fascinating women is the lack of existing information. The most significant primary source is the published trial transcript that took place in Jamaica in November 1720, which covered their brief piratical career. In terms of their early life, the only source available is Captain Charles Johnson’s A General History of the Pyrates. This book is arguably the most important primary source for the study of pirate history, not just as a historical tool but also as an instrument to examine how perceptions of piracy spread amongst popular readership during the eighteenth century well after the end of the Golden Age of Piracy.8 At the same time, A General History of the Pyrates is a very complicated resource. Captain Charles Johnson did his research when compiling biographies of the most notorious pirates of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, but the large gaps were filled in with either padded or entirely fictionalized accounts. He even says Anne and Mary’s stories have the ‘air of a novel’, which is timely because A General History of the Pyrates was published around the same time of the rise of this genre.9 The author clearly knew this and wrote and advertised his book in this manner to find readers attracted to this new type of writing. There are enough facts and quotes directly from their trial in the book to be certain that the author was quite schooled in their legal source and therefore it is clear that he also knew the appropriate moments to blend in the fiction.10

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Introduction xix Due to a lack of source material, I have relied on A General History of the Pyrates for the story of their early lives. Regardless of its validity, this book is essential when piecing together the complicated history of these two pirate women. Some of the details are known facts. Anne was, indeed, born in Ireland and then moved to the Carolinas with her parents. Mary was born out of wedlock and raised as a boy so her widowed mother could receive financial support from her grandparents. Other details are unverifiable, such as the circumstances of Anne’s parentage and first marriage to James Bonny, or Mary’s role in the British army. However, the fiction surrounding their early lives still paints a picture of the social realities of women during the turn of the eighteenth century. To fill the gaps, I have used Johnson’s account as the source for their early lives and blended the social context that surrounds them. The goal is to illustrate what life would have been like for domestic servants (in the case of Anne’s mother), the realities of female disguises in the military and at sea (depicted in Mary’s story) and the circumstances in which a woman would leave a comfortable home for the oceanic wilderness of the West Indies. Despite the controversy as a historical source, it is indisputably a major fountain of witness accounts, newspaper reports, trial records, personal letters and manuscript sources.11 Whether or not it is fact or fiction is up to you, but regardless, it makes for fascinating origin stories that fit in with the context of the time period. I have used The Trials of Jack Rackham and Other Pirates to describe their lives as pirates, the circumstances of their capture and their death sentences. Their trial took place in St Jago de la Vega, Jamaica and was published verbatim in 1721. Copies of it exist today in the British Library in London, the National Archives in Kew, the Library of Congress in the United States and many other archives. The longevity of this document shows

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xx  Pirate Queens us its wide publication and readership both in the British Isles and American colonies. If the reader wants to immerse themselves in their real world, I would recommend reading the account of their trial, which is also available online, and part of which has been reproduced in the appendices of this book. Other factual sources are scattered in the annals of history. Proclamations were issued demanding the arrest of Captain Jack Rackham and specifically mentioned the ‘female pirates’. Newspapers in Britain and America described their exploits, trials and Rackham’s subsequent execution. Each source made sure to mention the existence of women on the pirate ship. Other sources are also a cause of interest that contradicts information from A General History of the Pyrates, such as a petition from pirate wives to release their imprisoned husbands which includes the signature of a ‘Mary Read’. I have taken these pieces of information to suggest alternative theories to build upon current historical data. Finally, there are gaps that cannot be filled by A General History of the Pyrates, The Trials of Jack Rackham and Other Pirates, proclamations, various newspaper articles and other sources: the emotional toll of being a woman on a pirate ship. There are areas where I insert my own narrative interpretation based on historical context to flesh out their layered story to showcase how these women may have felt during periods of excitement, loss and betrayal. Due to the gaps in their history and the fictionalised account of their early lives, I have been forced to speculate about how they may have lived and what might actually be their truths. Therefore, I use speculative language, not to emphasise the lack of knowledge, but to highlight how historians must navigate these murky waters. I have delved deep into the historical context about women’s lives during the early modern period both at home and at sea to contextualise their experiences as rebellious female pirates. I do not intend to glorify their actions as pirates, because those

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Introduction xxi mariners committed violent crimes at sea, but I do emphasise how their actions in their world demonstrates their agency and rejection of eighteenth-century women’s gender roles. No matter their behaviour, their lives are an inspiration of how women could control the course of their lives in a man’s world. This book begins with an examination of their early lives over the course of several chapters. Here I rely on A General History of the Pyrates, but I weave in historical context and alternative theories based on individual primary sources. The first two chapters cover Anne’s early life. The first examines her mother, Peg Brennan’s, role as a domestic servant and then mistress for a wealthy attorney. Her life as a maid was complicated and, as the chapter will show, full of difficulties and scandal when she bore an illegitimate daughter. The chapter ends with the three of them arriving in the Carolina colonies for a fresh start. The second chapter examines Anne’s childhood and illicit marriage to a poor sailor named James Bonny, followed by a chapter about her journey and arrival in Nassau on the Island of Providence in the Bahamas. The next two chapters cover Mary Read’s story until her arrival into Nassau. Chapter three tells the story about her mother and upbringing as a boy until her true gender is revealed to her. Chapter four discusses Mary’s escape to the Royal Navy and British army under her male disguise and identity, her marriage to a fellow soldier and her time on a merchant ship before she is captured by pirates and taken to Nassau. Finally, Chapter five discusses Anne’s arrival in Nassau and how she ultimately became a pirate The book then turns to focus on their lives as true pirate queens of the Caribbean. Chapter six focuses specifically on their attacks and how they crafted their fearsome reputations as powerful pirates, and their downfall and capture by a pirate hunter. Chapter seven covers their trial and theories about the ends of their lives.

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xxii  Pirate Queens Finally, this book discusses Anne Bonny and Mary Read’s effect on women and pirate popular culture. Chapter eight looks at how their story fascinated women throughout the ages and inspired them towards a career in piracy. The final chapter emphasises that Anne Bonny and Mary Read were not the only pirates who sailed the seas, and then delves into how they created a legacy into the twenty-first century. Anne Bonny and Mary Read are only two out of countless women who have taken to the sea since the ancient world and those who came after them. This book serves not just as their biography, but also intends to give a voice to all of the female pirates – famous and forgotten – to put them into their rightful place alongside the thousands of men who terrorised the seas.

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Chapter 1

The Lawyer and the Maid County Cork, Ireland, 1694–1707

A

nne Bonny’s tale begins in Kinsale, County Cork, on the southwest coast of Ireland at the turn of the eighteenth century, born out of an illicit affair between a housemaid named Peg and an attorney named William Cormac.1 The scandal would have a fall-out that would ultimately lead to the transformation of a young woman into one of the most infamous and feared pirates in history. Hardly anything at all is known about Anne’s mother outside of A General History of the Pyrates, which means her story is likely largely fictionalised. There is even a possibility that William never married anyone in Ireland. The Irish National Archives heritage registry proves that this William Cormac did exist, but there is only one marriage listed to a ‘Mary Cormac (born Brennan)’.2 Their marriage is recorded to have taken place in South Carolina in 1694, where they would soon have their daughter, Anne.3 Based on this record, it is possible that Peg was William’s only wife and that Anne never set foot in Ireland. This presents another fascinating mystery surrounding Johnson’s blend of fact and fiction. However, this does not mean that her origin story cannot be reconstructed. This woman has been referred to both as ‘Mary’ (as stated above according to the Irish National Archives) and Peg in other retellings. To prevent confusion between Anne’s mother and Mary Read, and to keep with Johnson’s account, I will be referring to her as ‘Peg’ throughout this chapter. Johnson does not

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2  Pirate Queens give Cormac’s first wife a name, so I refer to her simply as ‘Mrs Cormac’. There is the strong possibility that a ‘Mrs Cormac’ did not exist in this context, but leaving her out of the narrative is both an insult to Johnson’s story, which helped keep Anne Bonny’s memory alive, and the erasure of spurned wives in history. Peg’s position as a maid put into the unfortunate position of a mistress and unwed mother tells the story of thousands of other women lost in the annals of history. Because of the lack of factual information, there is an attempt to demonstrate how she would have lived her experience as a woman confined to her social role in the early modern period. It is time to bring their story to the forefront through Peg’s experience. William Cormac, born in approximately 1670 according to heritage records, was one of the most respected men in County Cork based on his reputation as a successful attorney despite his relatively young age of just twenty-four. Like most esteemed men, he had to keep up his image and did so by maintaining his large country estate and marrying his pretty, young wife. As was common for many prominent families, the Cormacs decided to hire a young woman to be their maid and offer assistance to his wife. The young woman they hired was twenty-year-old Peg Brennan, born in 1674. Going into domestic service was the norm for ‘any such woman as is of the age of twelve years, and under the age of forty years, and unmarried.’4 The young couple immediately welcomed her into their home and Peg quickly established a friendly relationship with the lady of the house. As was standard, Peg was given employment for a minimum of one year with a fair wage, a regulation protected by the law since the reign of Queen Elizabeth I.5 Peg was guaranteed financial security and kindness in her new home, but this was not unusual. During the early modern period, the fundamental family unit often included the domestic servants who worked intimately with everyone inside

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The Lawyer and the Maid  3 the home.6 Since the Cormacs had no children, her company was especially welcome and Peg was as loyal to them as kin. Peg was allowed a modicum of freedom and frequently went into town during her free hours to walk around and do shopping for the household if necessary. Despite living in a large home in the beautiful countryside, it was exciting to escape those confines and go into the bustling town’s marketplaces. One day, on one her many sojourns, she struck up a conversation with a young apprentice in a tannery. He was handsome and flattered her at every turn. As the weeks passed, Peg found herself deliberately changing her route to pass by the tannery in the hope she might catch this young man to engage him in quick conversation. Through their many talks she discovered that he was nearly done with his apprenticeship and hoped to open up his own tannery. He learned that she lived and worked in the large estate just outside of town. At some point the two entered into a romantic relationship, which Peg hoped could eventually lead to marriage. If the Cormacs knew about this courtship, they likely would not have minded. It was not uncommon for domestic servants and those in apprenticeships to enter into a relationship and as such there was no reason to hide their affection for each other. This was how most working-class marriages eventually came into being. As a domestic servant away from her own family, Peg had an unusual amount of freedom to take her personal life into her own hands.7 Unfortunately, however, this bliss did not last long. Despite Peg’s stability as a maid, things began to go sour a few months after she moved in with the Cormacs. William began showing her more attention and started making subtle advances towards her. These gestures included light touching on the arm, and standing very close to her while in conversation, which eventually grew into stolen kisses. As a simple maid dependent on her salary, Peg had no choice but to accept these advances even

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4  Pirate Queens if she did not actively encourage them. In the meantime, cracks in William’s marriage began to show. Almost a year after Peg had entered into their employ the couple had still not produced any children. Mrs Cormac became more and more incensed with her husband as her suspicions about him and their maid grew. William had likely stopped coming to her bed for some time and the possibility of an affair between husband and maid caused her to become mad with jealousy. Not only that, William, usually quite mild-mannered, became increasingly angry with his wife. Peg did what she could to stay out of the way, making sure to perform her duties as well as she could so as to not invite any of their frustrations towards her. Soon her only point of refuge was her weekly romance with the tanner’s apprentice.8 Mrs Cormac’s spirits fell and she became more subject to explosive moods as her relationship with William continued to deteriorate. She began to take to her bed more and more with a condition that might have been melancholia, later known as depression. Finally, she announced that she needed to leave the household for a time to recover her strength. Her mother-in-law had kindly offered her to convalesce in her home so Mrs Cormac took her leave and did not return for almost two years. Now it was just William and Peg in the house, though he was often out of her presence due to his work. However, matters would quickly become more complicated. Sometime soon after Mrs Cormac’s departure, William once again began to make more overt advances toward Peg. The occasional touch on the arm continued, and then moved to her back, and she began to receive a kiss on the cheek at the end of her day’s work. According to A General History of the Pyrates, William was always kind to Peg, but there is no speculation about how Peg felt about his advances. Regardless, now that there was no supervision from the lady of the house, William was able to be more open with his affection. As William and his wife had no children and were now living

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The Lawyer and the Maid  5 apart, they were divorced in all but name so he felt justified in entering into another sexual relationship. One night Peg awoke to find William in her bedroom. He went to her bed and she did not refuse him. Even though she was considered a member of the family, she was still their employee, and as master of the household, William held power over her. Young women in domestic servitude were often subjected to sexual harassment, sexual relations, or rape. Was William and Peg’s new affair consensual or a product of rape? It cannot be known for certain, but in many ways, even if Peg was genuinely fond of him, there was a power dynamic at play. The law defined rape as ravishing ‘a woman where she doth neither consent before nor after, or to ravish a woman with force, though she do consent after, is a felony.’ Technically, Peg could have had the opportunity to report her situation as rape, but unfortunately prosecution was much more complicated. For some time she did not conceive a child, which, under the eyes of the law, meant that no rape had occurred: ‘If the woman at the time of the supposed rape, do not conceive with child, by the ravisher, this is no rape, for a woman cannot conceive with child, except she do consent.’9 Even if Peg wanted to claim she had been raped the law would remain against her. Women were considered to be naturally lustful and sinful and these assumptions would be placed onto Peg immediately. If she were married, she would be an adulteress. Adultery, defined as a married woman having sex with an unmarried (or married) man, was punishable by law. Under the 1650 Act for Suppressing the Detestable Sins of Incest, Adultery, and Fornication, adultery was a capital offence and could be punished with several years of imprisonment. Peg, of course, was not married but was now having sex with a married man, which made her a fornicator, a label that was no better than adulteress.10 Regardless, as a woman in his employ and dependent on her salary with no other prospects

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6  Pirate Queens outside marriage, she would have had no choice but to submit to William’s sexual advances.11 Like so many other young women of the time, Peg was now in a very complicated situation. She had her courtship with the tanner’s apprentice while navigating her affair with William. It is very likely that she was not actually having sex with the tanner as they had to steal time while she was in town. There would be very little privacy; their relationship was that of stolen kisses and intimate conversation with the hope that it could lead to marriage and a family. As William’s maid, there were no prospects for her to become his wife. The class divide was too stark and there was also the fact that, legally, William was still married. Things would have to carry on as they were for an indefinite amount of time – either until William tired of her, or Peg could marry her beau. William did not work from home so Peg had some independence in the house as long as she stayed on top of her duties. As a housemaid she was under a strict schedule of cleaning, cooking, handling the washing, and seeing to whatever other errands were necessary. Then William announced he would be gone for a couple of days. This was a welcome surprise for Peg because she had a chance to spend more time with the tanner’s apprentice. When she finished her duties she went into town and invited him back to her home, which he accepted. Now they could have a chance to be alone. The size of the house was both surprising and intimidating to the young man. Of course, he knew that she was the maid for a successful attorney, but he had not expected such a display of wealth. As a poor apprentice, he was filled with envy at the riches before him; riches that Peg had the privilege of enjoying. She gave him a tour of the house, showing off its stately rooms with their fine furnishings. He noticed a box of silver cutlery, and, while her back was turned, he quickly opened the box and pocketed three silver spoons. If the theft was discovered, it would mean terrible

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The Lawyer and the Maid  7 consequences for Peg. Despite this, he kept the silver spoons in his possession as the couple enjoyed an evening together. The next morning Peg resumed her duties to get the house ready before William returned that afternoon. She went into the parlour to polish the silver, as she did once a week. When she opened the box she discovered to her horror that three silver spoons were missing. She could scarcely breathe as her stomach clenched painfully. If the Cormacs discovered the loss, she would be fired without pay or a recommendation and would never be able to get another job. There had to be some mistake. Peg retraced her steps around the house. Perhaps she removed them the last time distinguished guests were over and forgot to replace them? She searched the kitchen, but of course she did not find them. Where on earth could they be? Was it possible they were stolen? At this thought, a realisation slowly began to dawn on her. The only other person, outside the servants of the household, to come over was the tanner. Could he have taken the silver while she gave him a tour around the house? Anger and despair washed over her when she could no longer come up with any other explanation. There was no time that day for her to go into town. William returned just before his evening meal and she had to attend to her evening duties. To her relief, he did not go into the parlour that night. As luck would have it the tanner came back to the house the following day to pay her a visit while William was at his office. Unbeknownst to her, he had the spoons in his pocket with the intention of sneaking them back into their box. He had been hit with a wave of guilt knowing the danger he had put her in and knew he had to put things right. Peg rounded on him as soon as he was inside. ‘Did you see a box of silver when you were over here last’? she asked.

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8  Pirate Queens Not wanting to admit what he did, he replied, ‘No, I saw nothing of the sort.’ ‘Three silver spoons have gone missing since you were here. Do you know anything about that?’ He shook his head. The last thing he wanted was Peg to find out that he actually was a thief and thus lose her forever. ‘Recheck the drawers,’ he suggested. ‘Sometimes these things show up after you first look for them.’ Peg hesitated, considering him carefully. Finally she nodded and crossed the room to begin her search anew. There was no way for him to be able to slip the spoons back into their rightful box, but he had an idea. While her back was turned he stole away and sneaked up the stairs to her bedroom. Once inside he pulled back the sheets of her bed and hid the spoons there. His motivation for this absurd solution is a mystery. He may have been playing a joke on her. Peg might have found it funny to find them in her bed of all places. Or maybe he found some evidence of Peg’s relationship with William Cormac when they were together in their bedroom. In an act of jealous revenge, he may have placed the spoons in her bed knowing she could get caught and have her reputation destroyed. Regardless of the reason, Peg’s future was in jeopardy. When he finished, he left the house without saying a word. Peg had not taken any notice of his absence until well after he left. After she had checked and rechecked every drawer downstairs, to no avail, she realised he was gone. Panic swept over her. This was proof that he must have stolen the spoons and now he had surely run away with his guilt. Her heart broken from his betrayal, she knew her only choice was to report him to the town constable before William returned home. She grabbed her cloak, but before she reached the front door she had a shock that nearly made her fall over. Mrs Cormac had returned. ‘Madam!’ Peg said, ‘What a surprise to see you. Welcome home.’

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The Lawyer and the Maid  9 Mrs Cormac placed her bags on the ground. ‘Thank you, Peg. Kindly please take these to my bedroom. I have some gifts from William’s mother to place in the parlour.’ Peg nodded and picked up the bags, hoping that her mistress would not notice her shaking hands. As Peg went upstairs, Mrs Cormac went into the parlour with some new china to display. Naturally, as the way events always turn, she immediately noticed that something was amiss. The glass top of the silver cutlery box showed three empty slots. The spoons were missing. Shaking with rage, she shouted up the stairs for Peg to return that instant. Her heart sank as she obeyed and walked down the stairs. ‘Peg, can you please explain this?’ Mrs Cormac said, gesturing to the open box. ‘I only just discovered this today, Mrs! I swear I knew nothing about it,’ Peg pleaded. ‘You knew nothing? How could you claim to not know about this theft? Unless you played a role in it!’ ‘No, no!’ Peg insisted. She took a deep breath. ‘I believe it was the tanner’s apprentice in town.’ Mrs Cormac blinked in surprise. ‘How on earth could that be?’ ‘He’s my beau, ma’am. He came over this morning to return an item I dropped in town and I invited in,’ she said, creating the lie on the spot. ‘You invited this young man in? Where is your propriety, girl?’ ‘I was a moment of weakness, I know. But I turned my back and I believe it is possible he came in and took the silver. I am heartbroken. Please, ma’am, you must believe me.’ Peg was angry at the whole situation and even though she was not at fault, tears spilled down her cheeks. Mrs Cormac softened. After all, as a maid in her service for a couple of years, she was quite fond of the girl and considered her to be a member of the family.

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10  Pirate Queens ‘All right,’ she said. ‘Go into town and fetch him.’ ‘Right away, Mrs.’ Peg ran out the door. She arrived at the tanner’s shop before she knew it. There he was, right next to the doorway cleaning his tools and looked up in surprise as she walked in with fury upon her face. ‘You stole from me. You must have,’ she accused him. ‘I did no such thing,’ he said. ‘You did,’ she said, jabbing her finger into his chest. ‘You took the silver spoons whilst my back was turned and lied about it. There could be no one else. I am ready to go to the constable right this instant if you do not come back to the house with me.’ He knew he had no choice in the matter. Even if he could get away with the petty theft, an accusation against him could be enough to cost him his apprenticeship. Worse, if on the rare chance they believed this young woman’s word over his, his reputation would be soiled forever. But it did not matter. He had his little prank, which would be in his favour. ‘Mrs Cormac,’ he said as he gave her a little bow. ‘I’m afraid that Peg speaks the truth but it is only a half-truth. I did, indeed, take the spoons but I did not steal them. I merely intended to play a joke on the young woman; give her a scare and then a laugh when she finally found them.’ ‘That’s a lie,’ Peg said. ‘I have searched high and low and the silver is not here.’ ‘When I was here yesterday, I hid them in your bedroom. Are you telling me that you did not find them?’ He turned toward Mrs Cormac. ‘Ma’am, I have an apprenticeship and a reputation to maintain. Why on earth would I jeopardise my future when I am so close to completing my apprenticeship?’ This was too incredulous to be true. Of course he had not hidden any spoons in her room. But Mrs Cormac, who, despite her fondness for Peg, had been harbouring jealousies about her husband’s attention towards her and once again these came to the surface. Without a word she went up the stairs to Peg’s room. All

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The Lawyer and the Maid  11 the while, Peg followed her, insisting that the spoons were not in her possession and that the true thief stood in the foyer. Mrs Cormac opened the drawers and threw their contents onto the floor and then stripped the bed. There, under the sheets, were three silver spoons gleaming up at her. No one moved or said anything for a moment. Mrs Cormac stood there in shock as anger washed over her. Playing a part in theft against her employers was not just a crime, but an absolute betrayal. Then another realisation came over her. How could Peg not notice the spoons in her bed if the prank happened the day before? A new wave of anger came over her along with a new feeling: dread. The only explanation was that she had not slept in her bed. She must have been in her husband’s bed – her marriage bed. In Mrs Cormac’s eyes Peg had betrayed her as she would her own blood family, and worst of all, proved her suspicions to be correct. The household family, after all, was not just husband, wife and children. As a domestic servant, Peg was considered to be a part of that unit. Rather than blood, her familial loyalty came out of a contract and a generous wage, which was considered to be more significant because of the stakes of trust and reputation placed on the servant.12 Without a word Mrs Cormac took the spoons and went down the stairs. ‘You may go’, she said to the tanner. ‘Consider this matter over. I apologise for the inconvenience we have brought upon you.’ ‘It was no trouble, Mrs Cormac. Thank you.’ He turned and left. Peg would never see him again. Mrs Cormac turned to Peg after the door shut. ‘Tell me, have I not always shown you kindness? Did I not just welcome you into my employ, but into my home with sworn trust?’ ‘Yes, Mistress.’ ‘How long have you been sleeping in my husband’s bed? How soon until you took advantage of my absence while I convalesced?’

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12  Pirate Queens Peg knew there was no use denying that William often came to her own bed, including the night before, but that was a discussion she could not face yet so she gave Mrs Cormac a half-truth. ‘I promise you, I never went to your bed,’ she said. Mrs Cormac turned away and left the room leaving Peg standing alone.13 The household grew more and more tense as the days went by. After several weeks of silence Mrs Cormac sought her revenge by playing cruel tricks on Peg. Perhaps jealousy turned into madness or the remnant of Mrs Cormac’s long illness had addled her mind. Whatever the reason, she began to take other pieces of silver to leave in random places around the home. Sometimes William found the items before Peg did, which made him unusually sharp with her. Mrs Cormac occasionally stretched the game further by ‘finding’ the items and then lashing out at Peg. Unfortunately, Peg had no choice but to grit her teeth and soldier on. She knew she was being punished for her affair with William and there was nothing she could do to stop it. Later, everything would change again. One afternoon, Mrs Cormac approached Peg and announced that her mother-in-law was coming to stay. ‘She is to stay in your room so you must vacate during her visit.’ ‘Then where shall I sleep?’ asked Peg. ‘You will stay in the kitchen,’ came the reply This would keep Peg as far as the rest of the family as possible, and she had no choice but to obey. She knew this was another punishment through humiliation, although the situation seemed confusing. Why could her mother-in-law not stay in the guestroom? And why on earth would she want to or accept to stay in a maid’s room? The reasoning did not matter so she made her bed with fresh sheets and cleaned the room to make it as presentable as possible. Mrs Cormac’s plan was now in action. A week ago she had invited her mother-in-law to visit as a return courtesy for her long

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The Lawyer and the Maid  13 convalescent stay. But Mrs Cormac had an ulterior motive. It was no longer enough getting her revenge on Peg; she wanted to destroy her and her husband’s reputations. To do this, she needed proof that her husband was actually having an affair. This would shame Peg and give her a legitimate reason to cast her out of her home. Having been outed as a ‘whore’ (in her mind), Peg would never find a respectable job or marriage. William’s mother arrived that evening. We do not know the state of this mother-son relationship other than the fact that although she provided him an allowance, he rarely visited her. Her presence could have been welcome or a nuisance. Either way, their home was finally filed with conversation and a mediator to help break any tension the married couple was trying to hide. Shortly after dinner, Mrs Cormac told her husband that she was not feeling well and would retire early. But instead of going to her bedroom, she undressed and went to bed in Peg’s room without telling William. As far as he knew, his mother would sleep in the guestroom and he would not question his wife’s absence from the marital bed. Mrs Cormac lay in Peg’s bed for hours. Looking through the tiny window, she could see that the night had no moon and the room was pitch black. All the better to catch her husband in the act of adultery. Just as she was falling asleep she heard the door creak open and quiet footsteps enter the room. She lay as still as she could, making sure to hide her face under the covers. The footsteps padded over to her and she felt the edge of the bed sink as someone sat on it. The person leaned forward and whispered in her ear. ‘Are you awake, my dear?’ asked William. She kept silent lest she give herself away and nodded. William lifted the covers and climbed into bed with her. In the darkness he whispered Peg’s name, none the wiser that his wife was in bed rather than his dutiful mistress. He took her and ‘played the

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14  Pirate Queens vigorous lover’ while his wife ‘was very passive and bore it like a good Christian.’14 When he finished, he got up and left the room, leaving Mrs Cormac in the dark with only her thoughts. Mrs Cormac, despite whatever anger or heartbreak, felt that she had proof of her husband’s infidelity and was satisfied to know the truth at last. It was humiliating to know for certain that her husband not only preferred another woman over her, but that he displayed a more enthusiastic desire for someone else. And yet she blamed Peg, not her husband. Women were the ones responsible for any sexual misconduct because women were likely to get pregnant at some point, literally bearing the brunt of the blame and displaying all the evidence. With Peg already under suspicion of aiding the tanner’s thievery, Mrs Cormac now had more justification for her ire because, in her mind, Peg was deceptive and secretive, as many other women in her situation were seen during that period.15 Early the next morning, before the rest of the household rose from their beds, Mrs Cormac went into the parlour and grabbed as many pieces of silver cutlery and candlesticks as she could. She carried them upstairs and deposited them in Peg’s trunk. Once everyone finished their breakfast in the dining room, she announced she was going for a walk to take in the fresh air. Her walk led her into town and straight to the constable’s office. She reported to him that she had caught her maid stealing their precious silver with the intent to sell it and run away with the money. He took down her statement and accompanied her home where she led him straight to Peg’s bedroom and gestured toward the trunk on the floor. The constable opened it and, sure enough, found several spoons, knives, forks, and candlesticks. He expressed surprise that the young girl was able to hide such treachery from them, to which Mrs Cormac replied that she was a devious girl full of ill will and intentions, and entirely ungrateful for the opportunities granted in the household.

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The Lawyer and the Maid  15 The constable went downstairs to the kitchen and gestured for Peg to follow him back to her bedroom. To her horror, she found Mrs Cormac waiting inside with her arms folded and a look of triumph on her face. He dragged over the trunk and demanded Peg to explain herself. ‘I never took any of that silver, I swear it!’ Peg cried. ‘The mistress has been carrying a grudge against me for weeks and this must be her revenge.’ ‘Revenge for what?’ he asked her. Peg did not reply. Mrs Cormac spoke. ‘The girl is lying. Several weeks ago I discovered she had stolen some valuables. When I confronted her she cried and pleaded and so I took pity on her. Then I recently discovered this thievery and playing whore to my husband.’ It was over for Peg. The constable wrote down the information and immediately arrested her. He drove her into town and presented her to the Justice of the Peace. All it took was Mrs Cormac’s written statement for him to sentence her to jail. When William found out what Mrs Cormac had done to Peg, he was furious. He confronted his wife and the two of them began a violent argument. They shouted and he slapped her when she accused him of adultery. Things came to a head when his mother entered the room, demanding an immediate explanation for the row. Her daughter-in-law explained everything and to William’s horror, his mother took his wife’s side. She condemned his relationship with the maid and the way he had been treating his poor wife. No wonder she had been so ill! William was incensed at these accusations, especially from his own mother, so he ordered the two of them to leave his house immediately. Mrs Cormac gladly packed her things and left with his mother, who happily allowed her to move in. William and his wife would never live together as a married couple again. Peg languished in jail for the next six months.16 The cell was cold, damp and full of smells from unwashed bodies and human

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16  Pirate Queens waste. During this time she discovered that she was pregnant with William’s illegitimate child. Since Mrs Cormac would testify that Peg’s relationship with William had been her fault, there was no chance she could claim rape. This put her in a precarious situation, not only for her reputation and livelihood but also for the child’s life. In some worst-case scenarios, unwed pregnant women were at the risk of prosecution for their condition, which would be carried out after the birth of the baby. Unwed mothers were seen as ‘lewd’ and could be placed ‘unto the house of correction’, where they might be forced to undergo hard labour as punishment for their indiscretions.17 No doubt Mrs Cormac could pursue this route in revenge should she so desire. The social contract surrounding sex insisted that its purpose was for reproduction rather than pleasure. Premarital sex was assumed to be done for pleasure, regardless of circumstances, which put the person (generally the woman) in violation of this social contract. The rate of illegitimate children, according to census records, was surprisingly low – less than five percent – during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It has been argued that the reason for low illegitimacy rates is that much of premarital sex was nonpenetrative, so even if Peg was having sexual relations with two men, the pregnancy would have come from sex with William. If this were the case, we can assume correctly that Peg’s unborn child was William’s. Furthermore, the vast majority of illegitimate children were the result of sex between a maid and her employer.18 So, while Peg came to terms with her pregnancy and suffered all of the physical complications that came with it, she had to face her looming trial. Women accused of theft were often subject to the same punishments of men who committed similar crimes: transportation to the colonies to work as labourers without freedom, or hanging. The reality was, though, that these sentences were rarely carried out, especially if the woman was pregnant. Transportation to the American colonies was more common

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The Lawyer and the Maid  17 for women, especially as jails became overcrowded during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. However, stays of execution simply delayed the inevitable until they were either released or had their sentences reduced to transportation. Most American colonies did not want women to come over as convict labourers so the court had no choice but to release them.19 Luckily for Peg, there was too little evidence to convict her: she was acquitted and released. While Peg languished in prison changes occurred in the Cormac household. Mrs Cormac’s time away from her husband, prior to her knowledge of his betrayal, had led her to the realisation that her marriage had no love and that she found her life to be better without the burden of marriage. Sometime after Peg was imprisoned Mrs Cormac softened towards her. If her husband had betrayed her, then Peg was also a victim of her circumstance. Mrs Cormac considered Peg’s situation to be worse because the girl was falsely set up by her beau while William kept taking her to bed. Peg could not be guilty of the theft. The maid had always been a kind and loyal servant and her apparent shock at finding the spoons in her bed was too convincing to be a lie. Despite the fact that she knew it was William carrying out his illicit affair, Mrs Cormac still blamed Peg for the situation, but it was not out of ill will or malice. It was simply, as she interpreted it, love, or at least affection, between her maid and husband. Despite giving Peg’s behaviour the benefit of the doubt, Mrs Cormac could not suppress her anger and grief when Peg returned home visibly pregnant. On 8 May 1697, Peg gave birth to a girl named Anne. This was too much for Mrs Cormac so she ordered the girl to be sent home in shame and then she herself returned to her motherin-law’s home with the intent of staying away forever. But no story comes without a twist once a resolution seems imminent, especially when they involve a dysfunctional family. William and Peg settled into a new routine as he elevated her from a maid to mistress of the house. They both doted on young

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18  Pirate Queens Anne and began to talk about their future and what that could behold, especially since Anne was illegitimate. However, before they could come up with a concrete idea, Mrs Cormac threw a spanner into their lives: she wrote William a letter saying she was pregnant. It is important to remember that Mrs Cormac had sex with her husband before Peg’s arrest. But we must also take time and probability into account. The husband and wife had not been intimate since, nor had they been for a very long time beforehand; probably not since Mrs Cormac spent a year away from home. Therefore, William knew that it was impossible for him to be the father of the child and that his wife must have entered into an adulterous affair. Adultery was illegal, especially if committed by the wife (men often got away with it as people ignored their behaviour). His feelings were very mixed on the matter. On the one hand, this was a humiliation and a threat to his reputation as a respectable man who had been cuckolded by his wife. On the other, he now had a way out. One of the only ways to get a divorce, or at least a legal separation, was verifiable proof that a spouse was incapable of marriage, usually in terms of sex, or if the woman was severely abused for the duration of the marriage. Mrs Cormac had not been abused so that would not be a case for legal separation. 20 But she had been absent for much of their marriage so one could say that she was the ‘incapable’ one. Before Mrs Cormac wrote to announce her pregnancy, their childlessness would have been enough evidence for either of them to prove incompatibility. Either Mrs Cormac was barren or William was impotent.21 Now that this was no longer a viable option, William could pursue the avenue of adultery – the other probable ground for divorce. We cannot know if Mrs Cormac was telling the truth about her pregnancy, but William now had a weapon to officially keep the marriage separate. He did not actively pursue a divorce, mostly likely because his mother gave him a regular allowance

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The Lawyer and the Maid  19 to maintain his household as long as he kept his wife in good favour.22 Divorce would also be a scandal of its own. In some sense he was free with an official certification of ‘separation from bed and board’, which was the closest thing the Church would offer him in lieu of a divorce. It could be expected that William might enter into a bigamous relationship since she had been absent off and on during their marriage.23 For his wife, however, that was social suicide. Mrs Cormac was not an unintelligent woman, but it is curious that she might not have realised the power she unintentionally handed to her estranged husband. It could be that in her fury she wanted to destroy her husband’s reputation by making him a cuckold. Or perhaps she hoped this could be an opportunity to come home and try to repair the marriage. There is also the possibility that this could be one final act of revenge against Peg by taking away any claim she might have towards an inheritance for the child. Finally, there is the very, and probably most likely, fact that the author of A General History of the Pyrates was simply concocting a dramatic tale for the sake of his readership. Captain Charles Johnson claims that Mrs Cormac actually did not know that William took Peg into his home to live as his wife. She thought that Peg had dutifully returned to her parents’ home in shame. Everyone tried to keep the matter quiet, but somehow word spread around the town about William’s separation and illegitimate child. As a solution, he and Peg decided to disguise Anne as a boy by dressing the infant in male clothes. A male illegitimate child was much less of a scandal than a girl. After all, a bastard boy could still inherit. As Anne grew into childhood, William claimed the child was actually a nephew apprenticing as his clerk.24 Peg continued to play the role of housemaid for appearances when company was present. Mrs Cormac eventually heard that a little boy had taken up residence in William’s household who, coincidentally, was

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20  Pirate Queens about the same age that Peg’s child would be. She sent a friend to investigate the matter to find out if this was true. After all, only a woman could find out the truth in a matter such as this. Women took a large part in monitoring illicit sex, illegitimacy, and other household crimes such as infanticide. They took this responsibility to fulfil their roles as concerned mistresses, mothers, observant servants and neighbors to maintain the goodness of a moral community. This was defined in a case against a man named Edward Lacy and a widow named Elizabeth Inkberrow, who were charged with complaints of indecency in their community. Elizabeth was accused of ‘lewd carriage’ because she ‘hath gone to bed to the said Lacy,’ and was ‘suspected to be with child.’25 Cases such as this define the role women played in judging and accusing fellow women in an attempt to maintain community purity. Therefore, finding out the truth of William’s household would not be difficult. Sure enough, her friend reported back that the young boy was actually Anne and that Peg was living there as his wife. That was the last straw. Mrs Cormac had been humiliated one final time. She appealed to William’s mother who immediately cut off his allowance. This was a major blow to William who would now not be able to afford his lavish lifestyle. Feeling as though he had nothing to lose, he decided to throw caution to the wind and began showing off Peg as his official live-in mistress. Unfortunately, this rash act of forgoing appearances also exposed the truth about his adultery, Peg’s fornication, and the bastard child. He lost his clients and soon could no longer afford to keep his practice going. Without his business, income, or friends, he knew that there was nothing in Ireland for him anymore. Social custom dictated that the unwed mother return home in shame with her illegitimate child, or, should she have passed away from childbirth complications, the father should give the child to relatives. However, William decided a fresh start could be made for all involved. He sold his home and assets, and with those funds

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The Lawyer and the Maid  21 he moved Peg and Anne with him to London, officially leaving his wife and family behind in the guise of making a better living. At this point in A General History of the Pyrates the focus shifts from Peg to William. We can never know how she felt about the whole situation. As a woman during the eighteenth century, she had no choice but to comply. She was not his legal wife, but she knew she could not return home with a baby in tow and she would never be able to find another domestic service job. Essentially, from the moment William first climbed into her bed several years ago, Peg lost all agency in her life and became trapped by circumstance. Now she was forced to move to a new country and forever leave her own family behind and with it any chance for freedom. Once they arrived in London William established a new practice and referred to Peg as his wife. They continued to disguise Anne as a boy, calling her ‘Andy’, and she resumed her work as an apprentice clerk.26 Should they somehow be discovered, it would be better to have a boy as an illegitimate child. As in Ireland, that was more acceptable both socially and legally as a bastard boy could inherit property. There is very little information about their time in London except that they were only there for a short unspecified period. A General History of the Pyrates claims they left because William lost an allowance his mother had renewed to support their move. However, this is unlikely because his mother had all but disowned him in support of his wife. Unless she had a radical change of heart, William would have been financially on his own. The money from his home and assets would have been enough to get them started, but being an Irishman in England, it must have been very difficult to build a clientele. Life in London was very expensive and opportunities were limited, especially for immigrants. The only solution that appeared to benefit the family was to start completely over. Where did many people during the eighteenth century go to begin a new life? The American colonies. Once

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22  Pirate Queens again, William decided to move the three of them, only this time it would be across the world to Charles Town in the Carolina colonies (later Charleston, South Carolina), where there was a substantial Scottish-Irish population. There he would be able to start his practice without the burden of the home scandal and the discrimination he faced in England. Fellow Irish brethren and Scottish people who disliked the English would welcome them into their communities with open arms. Once they arrived, William and Peg were finally married.27 Regardless of the historical facts, one can only imagine what Peg would have been going through during this whole situation. First she had to endure a new country while maintaining a lie about her child, and now she was being carted across the Atlantic Ocean to an entirely new world. Every change in her life was dictated by a man who was not even her husband. Most heartbreakingly of all, she would not even get the chance to discover if she could find happiness in her new life. Just weeks after they arrived in Charles Town, Peg came down with a fever and succumbed within days, leaving her daughter with just her father. We do not know the exact year they arrived in America and so we can only estimate Anne’s age, but since she had been present in her father’s offices as a clerk, she must have at least been at least ten years old – old enough to be able to follow instructions and be somewhat independent. If this is the case, the family arrived in South Carolina in approximately 1707. She was also old enough to understand her mother’s struggles and the complicated relationship between her parents. Anne could see that her mother was given no choice in any matter and it is very likely that she knew the story behind her birth. This would affect her later in life as she came into her own before she entered the world of piracy.

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Chapter 2

Anne Bonny, a Not-So-Southern Lady Charles Town, South Carolina, 1707–1715

A

fter several weeks of hard oceanic travel, the Cormacs docked in the American South and emerged into warm, sunny light ready to start anew. The family settled on the coast in the major port town, Charles Town (now Charleston, South Carolina). Founded in 1680, Charles Town became the largest city in the South and eventually the wealthiest as well.1 William set up his law practice and was soon able to afford a large mansion in town. Their familial scandal was now behind them. Peg could be William’s legitimate wife and no one knew about the truth behind Anne’s birth. This was the most important factor because known bastardy in the colonies carried a severe social stigma and could be fined or even punished by whipping (although since Anne was born in Ireland, punishment would be null and void but the social ostracisation would be certain).2 The Cormacs had to adjust to their new home. There was the climate to contend with, first and foremost. Ireland overall had a temperate climate with warm summers and cold, wet winters. The American South, on the other hand, was much hotter and more humid in the summer.3 This brought mosquitos that carried diseases such as malaria. The winters were often much colder, which created conditions such as icy rain and even snow on occasion. However, the land was rich and had a similar green and hilly landscape that reminded many of home. The area was ideal for more rural farmers where they had large swathes of land they could work on, and even own if they were lucky.

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24  Pirate Queens The area was also appealing thanks to the large population of Irish and Scottish settlers who gravitated toward the south. They had fellow countrymen for company and the economic prospects would allow William to restart his career. Being surrounded by Scottish-Irish neighbors also provided some comfort because of a long history of antipathy towards the English, who formed the majority of American colonists. Culturally, Charleston was similar to England and since the Cormacs had spent some time in London, they found other forms of cultural familiarity at home. Many planters were, or were related to Members of Parliament so laws were similar while the colonists still enjoyed a modicum of freedom. The architecture was also very similar to England’s so one could feel that they were still in their home country despite being in a new continent a whole world away.4 Unfortunately, tragedy hit the family soon after they found their feet. Peg fell ill and died within weeks of their arrival. There is no record of the cause of her death. A General History of the Pyrates simply states that she ‘happened to die’.5 There could have been a myriad of causes. She may have caught malaria, which would be the most likely ailment, or perhaps she became pregnant again and died in childbirth. Peg, like the majority of women in the American colonies, died at home in her bed. She was buried in a small family burial ground, as was common on large properties or plantations.6 It was very unusual for a widowed father to raise his own child, let alone a daughter, during the eighteenth century. Usually other relatives or grandparents would take the child in. Anne’s father could easily explain this away, however, by saying they had no relatives, or his relatives were too poor or had too many children, or were either dead, too old, or too frail to raise a child. Now that William was a single parent, he decided it would be best to close his law practice so he could keep a better eye on his daughter. He also found a much more lucrative line of work more suited to him: merchandising. He worked closely with merchants by

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Anne Bonny, a Not-So-Southern Lady   25 drawing up legal and financial contracts while taking a stake in their companies. Soon enough, he earned enough money to move himself and his daughter just outside of the city to a plantation to start his own agricultural enterprise.7 As Anne entered into her teens, Charleston’s port became even more active with many more ships constantly sailing in and out every day. Sailors roamed the streets and were familiar figures to local residents. The trading port completely transformed the Carolina economy, and it became one of the wealthiest colonies in North America. The harbour was said to be ‘on a Point very convenient for Trade, being seated between two pleasant and navigable rivers.’ The ships that entered Charleston carried African slaves (dead and alive), sugar, molasses, rum and other manufactured goods. In return, South Carolina traded items such as naval stores, deerskins, timber, indigo and rice (the two most valued goods), which were all headed for Europe.8 It was the perfect place for mariners to find their fortune. Living in a port city allowed Anne to get to know sailors as they came into town all year round. Her previous life in Cork and London gave her much exposure to the maritime world and this gave her a sense of familiarity. They swooped onto shore with a liveliness that transformed into raucous night-time behaviour as they headed towards the taverns and brothels to spend their wages and find release from weeks or months confined on board. Despite their disruption, incoming ships were necessary for the colony’s survival. They would bring in goods such as ironware, pewter, window panes, paint, carpets, curtains and all manner of necessary items from abroad. More importantly they brought news: newspapers, broadsides, books and gossip that kept people entertained and up-to-date on worldly events that would otherwise take a long time to reach their ears.9 Merchants were not the only types of sailors to arrive in the Carolinas. Pirates often frequented these ports as well and were

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26  Pirate Queens welcomed by colonists. For years colonists struggled with trade goods. In 1651 the British passed the first set of what were called the Navigation Acts. These banned all of their American and plantation colonies from trading with Britain’s European competitors, such as the French and Dutch. Most importantly, they sought to cripple the Spanish, with whom they had the most intense conflict over the control of numerous plantation islands such as Jamaica. The acts were designed to bolster English trade and to keep the colonies closely tied to their mother country.10 Colonists throughout the Caribbean and North America complained that trading solely with England and other English colonies did not supply them with adequate or desired goods that they could have received from ‘our neighbours the French and Dutch at easy rates’.11 Colonies began to work with pirates who robbed all sorts of ships indiscriminately and at will. This became a decades-long struggle between Britain and its colonies who felt that these trading acts intruded on the independent rights they had enjoyed.12 South Carolina had a long history as a haven for pirates thanks to its large Charleston port. The colony was sometimes even referred to as a ‘second Jamaica’ in terms of pirate activity.13 They had been trading with Spain for some time but now they had no access to goods such as wines, spices and textiles from other exotic places that might not be available from British ships.14 However, since this was no longer an option, Carolina merchants were left with only their Caribbean trading partners. This was not enough to sustain their businesses, so they had no choice but to turn to pirates for goods. The pirates were paid in cash and developed friendly commercial relationships with local merchants, so the merchants wanted the pirates to keep coming back.15 Provisioning pirates and privateers to bring goods back into the Carolinas proved to be much more lucrative. Colonists were therefore complicit in this illegal trade by offering pirates a place to stay and

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Anne Bonny, a Not-So-Southern Lady   27 giving them food and other fresh supplies. In return the pirates gave them plundered goods and riches.16 Anne probably did not know about the global economic issues, but she had plenty of exposure to the politics of piracy and maritime trade from a formative age. Meeting sailors and gazing out to see caused her desire for freedom to grow. Sailing as a woman could be nothing more than a dream, but it strengthened her nonetheless. She became intimately familiar with the piratical activity in her new home. For example, when pirates were captured and found guilty they were publicly executed in front of large crowds as a source of entertainment and morbid fascination. Group executions were common in the Carolinas. At one point thirty-one pirates were hanged together in Charleston.17 Anne undoubtedly would have attended at least one of these events, and as someone who desired to break free of her confines she must have felt some pull of sympathy toward these men who were known to sail free of any constraints. William, however, was completely ignorant of Anne’s fascination toward pirates and other sailors. If he had known, perhaps he would have changed his child-rearing practices. The Americas were delivering on their promises of new opportunities and William had big plans for his daughter. Unlike in England and Ireland where only a son could inherit landed property, he found that women could inherit whole estates or at least parts of estates.18 William planned to make Anne the sole heir of his new plantation. As an attorney and a plantation owner, he was considered to be part of the Colonial American elite and thus made sure Anne was educated. She learned to read and write first and foremost, but in order to transform her into a future desirable plantation wife, William made sure to extend her education accordingly. Like other elite city girls, she learned skills such as ornamental needlework, French, music and dancing to mark her

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28  Pirate Queens social status. She may have even been sent to private schools to master English grammar and composition, geography, natural philosophy and history.19 Unbeknownst to William, and even Anne, this education also would prepare her for her future life as a pirate. Needlework could help her sew clothes and repair sails and other materials when necessary. She was able to read laws and ordinances that would pop up in Caribbean taverns she’d eventually frequent to keep herself abreast of the news. Knowledge of geography, natural philosophy and even history gave her an edge in understanding the Caribbean climate, seas and island topography that all successful pirates would need to understand. Even being multilingual could prove to be handy if they came across sailors from other nations. If the education seemed tedious and dull, it would prove to have its uses later. Unfortunately, though, in order to prepare Anne to learn how to manage a large household and estate, he also had to find her work as a maid in another large property. She had her education but now she needed female rolemodels who could teach her how to be a wife and homemaker. She was nearly thirteen years old and would be of marriageable age before they knew it. Because William never remarried and Anne was now too old to have more tutelage under a governess, working in a ladies’ household as a maid was the best solution. Before long, he had her placed in a suitable household and sat back with relief knowing that she would finally get the additional female education necessary to make her a plantation wife. Anne did not take well to life as a maid. The domestic work was stifling and it was pigeonholing her into a trapped life. Every day was the same. She would wake up, milk cows or feed whatever cattle might be on the property, wash clothes, prepare meals or at least find some work in the kitchen. Even her clothing stifled her. General dress for women included a minimum of three

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Anne Bonny, a Not-So-Southern Lady   29 parts: a skirt; a bodice and a pair of sleeves that were tied into the bodice; and a laced, vest-like garment with some boning to provide support and shape, covered by shoulder pieces known as ‘wings’. Undergarments were even more cumbersome – she could be wearing up to five pieces of clothing depending on the season.20 Her outfits constrained her movements. This indoor life left her immobile both mentally and physically. If the property only had a few or no slaves, she would have had to spend some of her time toiling in the fields during planting and harvest seasons.21 This type of work suited her better. She preferred to be outside in the fresh air and sun getting exercise and generally being active. Having spent part of her childhood as a boy enjoying the freedoms that came with that, then being allowed to do as she pleased in their new home, everything now proved to be unfamiliar and unwelcome. Despite her education, she had no enthusiasm for using her skills with a needle and thread and her cleaning and cooking skills were rudimentary at best. The clothes she was forced to wear were torture to her and new rules of decorum were frustrating and entirely foreign. Furthermore, she had a strong-willed, independent streak that would make her resistant to following orders. Needless to say, her role as a lady’s servant would not be a success. She also learned the uncomfortable facts about life as a woman the hard way. Suddenly she was simultaneously ignored and microscopically examined and judged. Speaking out of turn could earn her a quick slap across the face. Her opinions and ideas were ignored or outright ridiculed, which infuriated her. As a boy in London, she had never had to hide her thoughts and opinions. Anne struggled socially in her new position. Captain Charles Johnson described her as having a ‘fierce and courageous Temper’ that put her ‘under Condemnation’.22 Stories circulated about how she attacked anyone who upset her or acted too forward. One such tale is that she stabbed a fellow male servant with a

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30  Pirate Queens knife when he tried to kiss her, while other accounts suggest that he attempted rape. Johnson claims that he found this story to be untrue, but regardless, rumors circulated that Anne was an attempted murderer. He believes the reality was that Anne was, indeed, nearly raped but instead of stabbing her attacker, ‘she beat him so, that he lay ill of it a considerable time,’ which would have been a very effective defense against a possible rape.23 Whether or not this story is true, Anne would have been at risk of sexual exploitation like her mother so she knew the necessities of fighting to the death from a young age. Similar to her mother’s situation, female servants were just as likely to be coerced into some form of sexual relationship by a higher ranking servant as the master of the household.24 It is no wonder she made sure to lose her employment. After her dismissal, Anne’s behavior became more erratic, much to her father’s frustration. She spent most of her days leaving the plantation to head into Charleston where she would pace up and down the docks watching ships sail in and out of port. People saw her chatting up sailors, standing closer to the men than was appropriate for a young lady while laughing a little too much as they carried on their conversations. Word began to spread in town, particularly amongst higher class ladies, of a red-haired Irish girl carousing with sailors, unaccompanied by a chaperone. Soon people realised that this was the respected attorney and plantation owner William Cormac’s wild daughter. His business declined as people decided to avoid a man who could not even discipline his own child properly. William’s practice lost more and more clients so he began spending more time in town to try to uncover the mystery as to why his business was failing. Before long, he heard the rumours of his wayward daughter’s scandalous behaviour at the docks. At this point people were claiming that Anne was frequenting local taverns and having affairs with fishermen and drunks.25 William

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Anne Bonny, a Not-So-Southern Lady   31 was humiliated and furious beyond belief at his daughter’s behavior, and at the damage to his business and both of their reputations. He went down the docks and found her, dragging her back home and banning her from leaving the plantation. He did not count on Anne’s resourcefulness. She saw firsthand how her mother’s restrictions ultimately destroyed her life. Anne could also not bear the idea of being trapped inside a home and forced back into the role of maid or mistress of a household. Her life was slipping away before her eyes. But despite being under constant watch, she somehow managed to slip out of her home periodically. She made her way back to the docks and continued to carry out her affairs, although much more carefully this time. Anne’s liaisons were not just for pleasure: after years of meeting sailors and hearing stories of sailing and pirate adventures, she wanted to leave what she considered to be the prison of womanhood. There was much talk about a pirate city in the Bahamas and she felt that it was there where she could find true freedom. She turned her back on her life and leapt into the unknown towards adventure. There are two theories in regard to Anne’s arrival in the Bahamas. The most popular story of her escape to the sea concerns a man named James Bonny. According to Johnson, Anne and James began a whirlwind love affair and secretly got married when she was sixteen years old. This was a major blow to Cormac, who intended to arrange a profitable marriage for his daughter in the hope of taming her wild ways. Anne’s marriage would have meant heirs for the plantation to establish William’s legacy while bringing in more property, money and even a title. Marriage was not driven by love, which Anne clearly desired.26 A proper suitor would make his interest known to William and together they would enter into a marriage contract with the suitor’s father. William and his daughter’s potential father-in-law would agree on financial settlements and hopefully settle on a suitable

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32  Pirate Queens marriage agreement. Bonny was not a suitor. In William’s mind, he had defiled his daughter and reduced her status to that of a fornicator. Anne’s reputation was ruined and could even result in the plantation being fined up to 5lb of tobacco or £10 (10 pounds sterling) as the maximum punishment.27 To add insult to injury, Bonny was not even a particularly skilled sailor with any prospects. Not only that, he was known to occasionally dabble in the illegal profession of piracy. Overall, James was a ‘young fellow, who belong’d to the sea, and was not worth a Groat,’ and who ‘provoked [Anne’s] father to such a degree’ that he disowned and banished her from their home, an action that was a more common consequence for daughters rather than sons.28 Anne was furious and sought revenge by setting fire to her father’s home (although it did not do much damage.) To her, James was her salvation from the constraints of traditional womanhood. James, however, was not happy with the situation. Thanks to Anne’s banishment, they lost whatever dowry her father would have provided. James was motivated by the prospect of becoming a wealthy man. Now that incentive was gone and he was trapped in a marriage with a young woman whom he did not particularly love or desire. Anne, on the other hand, remained passionately in love with James and was excited to start their adventurous life together. Unfortunately, it would prove to be an unhappy one.29 There is another theory of how Anne left the Carolinas for the West Indies. The above-mentioned scenario is told in Anne’s biographical chapter in A General History of the Pyrates, but the book’s appendix tells a different story. There is a possibility that Anne left South Carolina as a single woman. According to this version, Anne desired to escape her home so badly that she befriended a woman named Anne Fulworth, sometimes known as Fulford, who was planning on sailing to the Bahamas to join her husband. The younger Anne, of course, already knew plenty

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Anne Bonny, a Not-So-Southern Lady   33 about the Bahamas and desperately wanted to go there herself, but as a young woman she could not find any ship that would take her on her own. It is possible that she met Anne Fulworth and convinced her to pose as her mother so they could travel together. Fulworth agreed and together they sailed south. Once in Nassau, Anne struck out on her own under her adopted name and then met James Bonny.30 There is one source that supports this alternate theory. In October of 1720 the Boston Gazette published a story about a pirate attack against a 12-tonne, 4-gun ship named the William. The pirates involved were, among others, ‘Jack Rackum […] and two Women, by name Ann Fulford alias Bonny, & Mary Read.’31 This implies that Anne had been known under the name Fulford or Fulworth before she was known as Anne Bonny. Since her official birth record has her listed as Anne Cormac, daughter of William and Peg, it is plausible that she either sailed as an adopted daughter of another woman or she may have found a way to the Bahamas on her own under an alias. And yet, the later trial transcript published in 1721 lists her as ‘Anne Bonny’. Perhaps this was a way to hide her identity or spare her father further embarrassment – or both. Whatever the truth, Anne arrived in the Bahamas by 1719 with the name of Bonny where she would eventually meet her second husband, Jack Rackham, and change her life forever.

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Chapter 3

The Widow and the Bastard London, 1685–1697

O

ne of the things that makes Anne and Mary’s story unique is their parallel origin as illegitimate children. Like Anne, there are no official records about Mary’s early life and the majority of what we know about her adulthood comes from theTryals of Jack Rackham and Other Pirates. All information about her childhood and adolescence is told in A General History of the Pyrates, which means Mary’s story is also mostly fiction. There is a strong likelihood that Captain Charles Johnson chose to give Anne and Mary similar childhood experiences to make their biographies more intriguing to an audience. By placing them both as illegitimate children, Johnson also passes judgment upon their moral character and how this attracted them to piracy. A child born out of wedlock was one born from sin and therefore these two young women had a natural proclivity to enter a life of depravity. Of course, this means that Mary’s mother had to have a similar story to Peg Brennan’s. Mary’s mother is nameless in Johnson’s book and there is no archival record of her. This is further proof that Mary’s early life was entirely fictionalised while Anne’s had some partial truth thanks to official Irish records that show the marriage between William Cormac and Peg Brennan. But Mary’s story is no less important because it demonstrates even more the reality of life for daughters of single mothers in early modern England. With the lack of a legitimate historical account, her

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The Widow and the Bastard  35 story is reconstructed to give a wider historical context for the women of this time. Mary’s mother was a young, happily married, working-class woman. He husband was a young sailor and was away at sea for several months at a time. In the meantime, his wage was sent home in increments to sustain her. At the turn of the eighteenth century sailors’ wages were on average 30 shillings. A voyage might net a sailor a total of £2–3, so the money she received was already meagre enough.1 She took in work such as mending to earn more money for the household, and this became especially necessary when she discovered that she was pregnant before her husband’s next voyage. It was a joyous time and promised them a long future as a happy family. The heartbreaking reality is that there was the strong likelihood that this envisioned future was not to be. Life at sea was dangerous. Illness and injury were commonplace and often could lead to death. Popular ballads about sea life discouraged women from marrying sailors because of philandering and eventual widowhood, 2 and though her husband was not away long enough at sea to be unfaithful, the latter warning came true. She gave birth to a baby boy whom she named Mark and looked forward to him meeting his father.3 Then came the tragic news that her husband had died on his voyage, leaving her alone with a newborn child and the sudden lack of income. As a widow with a baby, Mary’s mother was now amongst the ranks of a large community of women who had lost husbands at sea and were doomed to immediate hardship. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries half of all sailors’ wives were widowed during the child-raising years,4 and over seventy per cent of these widowed women were often victim to numerous financial calamities. If her husband left her with a considerable amount of debt, she would be at the mercy of collectors or even thrown into a debtor’s prison.5

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36  Pirate Queens How could a woman like Mary’s mother find a way to support herself and her child? The most pressing issue at hand was finding a new source of income right away so she could supply her and her child with food, shelter, and other necessities. Because of the increasing social constraints women faced, many were excluded from traditional female professions such tailoring, inn-keeping, blacksmithing, butchering and milling.6 The best solution would have been to earn a living from her home, such as taking in mending, baking, or even brewing beer. If she were fortunate enough to have a larger home, she could take in borders and earn a wage through their rent or convert an extra room into a place for business. Unfortunately, however, being a young couple with a husband just starting out in a maritime career, their home was not of a reasonable size and operating a money-making enterprise from there was not a feasible option.7 In some parts of England a widow would be able to inherit her husband’s property and income. Generally, she was entitled to a minimum of thirty per cent. According to the Treatise of Testaments and Last Wills: [If the husband] leaveth behind him both a wife, and also a child or children: In which case the custom observed in diverse places of this realm in England […] the testator cannot bequeath any more of his goods, than the third part of the clear goods, for in this case the said clear goods are to be divided into three parts, whereof the wife ought to have one part, the child or children another part, and the third part […] remaineth to the testator, by him to be given or bequeathed to who he thinketh good.8 Mary should have been taken care of, at least in a minimal sense, but the tragic reality is that this law was eventually abolished in the north of England and London by the turn of the eighteenth century.9

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The Widow and the Bastard  37 Another solution was remarriage to escape the probability of destitution. She was a good age: under thirty-five years old and therefore still young, attractive, strong, and able to bear more children. Maybe a sexual relationship could lead to another marriage. Unfortunately, this would not be so and Mary’s mother would remain in the nearly fifty per cent group of perpetual widowhood. Despite the fact that she should have had a relatively easy job of finding a new husband because of her age and health, she had her existing financial situation to consider. If she did not have enough of her own resources, property, or money for some form of dowry, she would have been less desirable as a wife, especially one who already had a young child.10 Finding someone to remarry would take time and this was a luxury she could not afford. She had rent to pay and needed her own food in order to breastfeed her son and keep him healthy. She had one fortunate solution, however, through her husband’s family. Her in-laws were willing to provide her with an allowance to keep her and her infant son afloat. This was not uncommon if a widow was fortunate enough to have a large family to sustain her, especially if it was one with the financial means to help out.11 They bore the financial burden, not just to support the children, but also to prevent the widow from falling into idleness and give her an opportunity to be able to live as productively as she could.12 Mary’s in-laws’ generosity was a small consolation for a young widow who had been madly in love. The grief was almost impossible to bear but at least she had a small comfort and legitimate security. Even so, loneliness set in. She lived alone and her husband’s family was not very close by. According to Johnson, her own friends and family lived outside of London, which left her further isolated. Some months after she became a widow, she met another young sailor. They entered into a passionate affair, fulfilling other warnings about marrying into sea life. The songs were often

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38  Pirate Queens about women’s sexual desires and their proclivity to flirt with and seduce other sailors in their husbands’ absence. Perhaps this solace gave her the feeling of being back with her late husband. Whatever the reason, it was only a temporary fix. Sailors’ wives sang songs justifying this behaviour while painting a bleak picture of loneliness and debt (two situations in which Mary’s mother languished): How could you say there was many wives that did drink, rant, and sing, Which I protest there’s not any of us that practice this thing? Are we not forced to borrow, being left here without chink? ‘Tis in a cup of cold sorrow we so often do drink.13 Mary’s mother drank from this cold cup of sorrow and gladly stayed in the arms of this sailor. The affair only lasted a few weeks, but this was enough time to discover that she was pregnant with her second child. This would have grave social implications for her. It was one thing for a woman to have sex before marriage, which destroyed the idea of purity and chastity, but it was another matter entirely for a widow to have sex with someone else. Now she was at a large risk of losing her allowance, which would leave her in dire circumstances with an extra mouth to feed. She managed to keep her pregnancy secret from her extended family. Thanks to the distance between them, they did not visit that often and mostly corresponded through letters. Mary’s mother gave her in-laws frequent updates about their grandson. She hid her pregnancy with bodices and voluminous skirts and spent as much time seated in their presence as possible. After she gave birth to her baby girl, Mary’s mother would give her to a neighbor when her in-laws came to visit. There must have been an unspoken understanding between them. Widows were aplenty in maritime communities, after all, and affairs with sailors were not infrequent. For now, the ruse worked well enough.

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The Widow and the Bastard  39 This was not without complications, however. She could not hide Mary for long. Soon her son would start talking and would no doubt mention a sister. She could not bear the idea of giving her daughter away. As she was still breastfeeding she did not have to spend much money on the baby girl, but nonetheless the allowance she had was always stretched a bit too thin. As if Mary’s mother had not suffered enough, more tragedy would strike. Her infant son, now over a year old, fell ill and died in her arms within days. Her heartbreak at the loss of her infant son left her incapacitated with grief. Her allowance would be lost once her in-laws discovered that they no longer had a grandson. There was no time to mourn; she had to find a solution. Over the next few months, as she forced herself to carry on and care for Mary, a plan began to take shape. Her most important priority was to recover from her grief so she could be the mother her daughter deserved. She decided to leave London and her painful memories behind and go to the countryside to live with a childhood friend, where she could raise Mary further away from her grandparents.14 There was no need to worry about her child’s status because she would simply say that her father died at sea and no one would be the wiser. There was one problem, however. Leaving the city would make it nearly impossible for her elderly in-laws to visit their grandchild, who they had not even met yet. When Mary’s mother wrote to tell them of her plans to leave London, they were angry and heartbroken. To punish her, they informed her that they would no longer provide her with an allowance. This did not concern her for the time being. She had enough to live on for a time and her friends’ charity would certainly be enough for the two of them to survive until she managed to get back on her feet. They set off at once as soon as she could pack up their meagre belongings. The two of them found some happiness in the country. The clean air, trees and fields were a tonic and after some time Mary’s

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40  Pirate Queens mother began to see colour in the world again. Mary grew into a precocious child who loved nothing more than to run through the fields and be outside as much as possible. For the next few years they grew together and her mother was content to see her daughter discovering the joys in the world. After four years she began to run low on money as her friends’ charity waned. She had no more savings and there was no work for a widowed mother in the countryside. She had to admit defeat and return to London to find a way for them to survive without being reduced to begging. She had not communicated with her former in-laws since they left London, but they were still her best hope for financial security. She came up with a plan that seemed too outrageous to work, but she had no choice but to try. Mary’s dresses were ripped up and turned into shirts and trousers. The little girl was told she was now a boy and would not be wearing dresses any more. This suited Mary fine; she enjoyed physical activity and trousers would make running around much easier. Mary could no longer use her name, her mother explained. If she was going to live as a boy she must have a boy’s name. To simplify matters, Mary was renamed ‘Mark’, her deceased brother’s name; the two names were similar enough to avoid any confusion on Mary’s part. Mary’s mother then wrote to her former in-laws explaining that she and Mark were moving back to London.15 The grandparents, of course, were unaware of their grandson’s tragic death and of Mary’s existence. Luckily, passing off Mary as ‘Mark’ would not be a difficult task. Young children’s gender status was ambiguous because they often wore long gowns until they were about five years old.16 By the time they arrived back in London, Mary would be out of the gown-wearing stage and used to living as a boy. Her mother stopped referring to her as Mary and began using male pronouns when referring to her. She taught her daughter that she could only answer to

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The Widow and the Bastard  41 ‘Mark’ from now on and the little girl accepted her new identity without question. The plan worked. Mary’s grandmother was so ecstatic to have her grandson back in her life that she immediately reinstated their allowance in order to provide a place to stay in London. Mary’s mother was given a crown a week, which was more than enough to keep them in a modest home without hardship. Relief had come their way at last.17 The two lived comfortably for several years. Mary’s mother’s in-laws grew older so visits became more and more infrequent as the years passed. Mary loved her grandparents and was sad not to be able to see them, but her mother was relieved. Mary was growing up and while she identified as a boy named Mark, there was no doubt that she was developing into a young woman. Soon she would have breasts and start menstruating; how could that be explained? Even if Mary was unaware of the biological differences between boys and girls, the changes that come with puberty would be confusing. She was a smart child and at some point would realise that she was growing more into her mother’s form rather than a man’s. When Mary turned thirteen, her mother sat her down and told her the truth. She was not a boy and she was not named Mark.18 As she had been so young when her mother put her in disguise, Mary had no memory of being a girl and certainly did not know how to live as one. As a boy she was indulged, and allowed a modicum of childhood freedom and independence that any young boy would have. Now this would all be taken away. Her shirts and trousers were replaced with bodices and dresses. She had to grow out her hair and she was no longer allowed to roam the streets playing with her friends. As was expected for a young girl, she became confined to the home and was forced to learn feminine duties such as cooking, sewing and cleaning.

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42  Pirate Queens During this transition, her beloved grandmother died and with it her mother’s weekly allowance. Her mother began taking in mending and other sorts of housework in neighbours’ homes. There was no time for mourning and Mary was left to process her trauma completely alone. Then came the final blow: at the age of fourteen Mary was now old enough to be put to work as a maid. Before she knew it, she found herself in a Frenchwoman’s household.19 The similarities to Anne’s story are striking. Mary also was not suited for this sort of domestic life: as a boy she’d had no real housework training. Instead, like Anne, she had to learn everything from scratch. Her clothing restricted her body as she worked around the house, stoking fires, cooking, cleaning and carrying out any orders that her mistress demanded. It seems that Mary had a more adaptable attitude because she never got in trouble for rebellion, nor did she get into fights. However, Mary would not be able to make a permanent adjustment. She only worked as a maid for a short time until she decided to break free of this unbearable social confinement. Once she could afford to, she bought new male clothing, stripped off her female dress and resumed the familiar and natural shirt and trousers. She bound her chest and cut her hair back to its boyish length and stole away in the night towards the London docks. For whatever reason, staying in London was no longer an option for her. Either her mother was gone from her life or she could not bear to maintain that relationship after experiencing the traumatic experience of learning that her whole life was a lie. As fortune would have it, war (the War of the Grand Alliance) had broken out in Europe several years before and England was in need of sailors. Now that she was Mark Read again, she managed to enlist into the British Navy. Her new life had begun.

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Chapter 4

Mary Read, the Soldier The English Channel to Flanders, 1697–1719

L

ooking out over the English Channel, Mary felt a surge of excitement run through her as she faced the new life and challenges ahead. Even though she entered into the strict and dangerous life as a soldier, she found a sense of freedom returned to her. Life now seemed full of endless possibilities even though she had to enter a life of violence in the War of Grand Alliance. Also known as the Nine Years’ War, this was a conflict between France and a European coalition of the Dutch Republic, England, Spain and Portugal to prevent France’s territorial expansion under the rule of King Louis XIV. The war lasted from 1688 to 1697. Since Mary was born in approximately 1685 and fought in the war at around the age of twelve or thirteen, she entered at the very final stages of the conflict. Due to her young age, she served as a powder monkey on the British manof-war, carrying sacks of gunpowder from the ship’s hold to the gun crews.1 After the war ended Mary continued to work in the Royal Navy for a few years – an unpleasant experience overall. The Royal Navy was notorious for its terrible working conditions. High-ranking naval officers were often cruel and gave out harsh punishments for the smallest infractions. Everything was regimented and highly controlled, and if one served under a bad captain life would be even more miserable. Payment was also a major issue. Mary was not guaranteed to be paid on time and there was no real equality

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44  Pirate Queens with funds. This hurt her because she was in the lowest-ranked position as a cabin boy and had very little security.2 To make the situation even more difficult, there was also the issue of food and water. Ships had to carry enough of each for at least a six-month voyage, journey in addition to everything else that was required: supplies, goods, weapons and medicines. Fresh food such as meat and vegetables ran out or rotted quickly leaving a meagre diet of legumes and salted dried meat. The lack of vitamins led to outbreaks of scurvy. The ships were overcrowded and as a result there was very little fresh air below deck. Illness ran rampant and medical care was virtually nonexistent. With such crowded spaces, one sick person could decimate a whole ship. Life was also dangerous with a high risk of injury during battle, which would often lead to infection and death.3 Unfortunately, Mary was stuck in this position for years until peacetime was interrupted again as England entered into another war: the War of Spanish Succession. Seeing another chance for a new opportunity and to escape the cruel conditions, Mary left the Royal Navy as soon as she could and headed to Flanders in The Netherlands to join the British army. Unbeknownst to Mary, she was about to become an active player in the most significant conflict during the Golden Age of Piracy. The War of Spanish Succession (also known as Queen Anne’s War in the Americas) lasted from 1702 to 1713. It took place on both the sea and on land and pitted the Spanish and French against the English and Dutch, which explains why Mary fought in the British army in Holland. The purpose of the war was to decide the future of Spain’s monarchy. In 1700 the Spanish Hapsburg king, a sickly and disabled man named Carlos II, died without an heir. Carlos II named the French Bourbon Philip of Anjou, grandson of King Louis XIV of France (the ‘Sun King’), as his successor. The Dutch and the English both feared that France would then become the most powerful kingdom in

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Mary Read, the Soldier  45 Europe so they joined forces to prevent King Louis’s accession to the throne.4 Much of the war was fought at sea, which meant that England needed brave and able mariners who were also unafraid of fighting to the death. As a result, they offered pardons to any pirates who would be willing to fight for the English government in the war against the Spanish. This provided many pirates with a chance to go into semi-legitimate careers as privateers: essentially pirates who were given a contract (known as a letter of marque) with orders to attack specific enemy ships. In payment, they were allowed to keep eighty per cent of the loot that they could steal. This was a much safer option than continuing their piratical careers and guaranteed them good pay without losing too much of their autonomy, so many pirates accepted this offer. Thanks to the help of these sailors, England would eventually win the war and gain new territories such as Gibraltar, along with complete control of the slave trade, including those in the Spanish colonies. Unfortunately, however, the privateers’ letters of marque were now expired and they were given no other forms of legitimate work. Since there were so many ex-privateers and even ex-Royal Navy officers it was inevitable that many would return to piracy – and they did.5 Pirates flooded the Atlantic Ocean once again and this time they were more numerous and powerful than ever before. Thanks to the War of Spanish Succession many of the pirates knew each other and created alliances. This bred some of the most infamous pirates who ever lived: Blackbeard, who sailed under Benjamin Hornigold (later known as the ‘pirate king’ who founded the pirate city, Nassau); Charles Vane; Jack Rackham; and later, of course, Anne Bonny and Mary Read. Anne could not fight in the war in any capacity, but Mary would become one of many pirates birthed by the war who created the third and most notorious era in pirate history. But before that we must examine Mary’s journey through the war and eventually to sea. When Mary arrived at her destination

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46  Pirate Queens in Flanders she entered the British army as a cadet due to her age and lack of experience in combat. Her disguise worked well and she had no problem passing as a younger boy. There were more women who disguised themselves as soldiers than one might think and it was not as nearly as complicated as it might seem. Most women who served in the army grew up in a working-class, singleparent household and were therefore more used to hard labour than a child who grew up in more privileged circumstances. As a young boy, Mary grew up doing physical tasks around the home, such as repairs and carting water, wood and other supplies. She was slim, wiry and somewhat muscular so she could keep up with the physical demands of army training. Clothing was also not too much of a complication. Men’s styles during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were of wide jackets and large caps and hats that would have hidden a womanly shape and facial features. As for lack of facial hair, this was not a problem since a man could enter the army as young as fourteen,6 and so women could be disguised as boys. Female soldiers were not uncommon. In 1762 an anonymous writer claimed that there were so many women in the British army that they should have had their own battalions. We will never know how many women served in the eighteenth century because their stories were only known after their time in service.7 A detailed example of a successfully disguised female soldier is that of Deborah Samson who fought in the American War for Independence under the pseudonym Robert Shurtliff. Coming from a poor family, she had laboured on farms since she was as young as five years old. As a farm laborer rather than maid, she was given male clothing to make her work less constrictive. The strenuous work caused her to grow up muscular with broadened shoulders. Not only that, she grew to be much taller than most women of the time – 5ft 8in tall – which gave her a somewhat masculine appearance that would later work in her favour.

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Mary Read, the Soldier  47 When the War of American Independence broke out, Deborah got carried away on a wave of American patriotism and decided to enlist in the war disguised as a man. On 20 May 1782 she was recruited by a muster master named Noah Taft who later described her as a tall young man with a ‘firm jutting jaw and prominent nose’. From there she was given her marching orders and, thankfully, not required to undergo any physical examination. (Fortunately also for Mary Read, since these were not required during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.)8 We can see through Deborah’s experience how she was able to successfully become a soldier, which also gives us insight into Mary’s success. But what about injuries? These were, of course, practically guaranteed in combat so how might a woman in disguise protect her identity in that situation? We can look, once again, at Deborah’s experience. In one battle she was slashed in the forehead by a sabre and was also shot in the thigh by a musket. She collapsed and was taken to a field hospital where her head was bandaged successfully. For an unknown reason, her thigh wound was not treated. The bleeding alone would have made it impossible to hide, but Deborah managed to conceal it from the doctor, perhaps by passing the blood off as someone else’s. Needless to say, to protect herself she must have administered surgery on herself by extracting the musket ball from her thigh with a knife, thus demonstrating the extremes a woman would have to go through to maintain her male identity. Deborah’s sex was eventually discovered. While Mary had to reveal herself as a woman to marry her fellow soldier, Deborah was forced by circumstances out of her control. She fell ill and was taken to a doctor’s home to recover. While she recovered in his wife’s care Deborah’s true gender was discovered. This could have been the end of her career at best or, at worst, she could have been court martialed and arrested as a woman illegally fighting in the army. However, like Mary, Deborah was

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48  Pirate Queens accepted and praised as a soldier because of her valiant efforts. In the end, she received an honorable discharge and finished her soldiering career without any scandal.9 Mary Read and Deborah Samson are both very much exceptions to the rule of women successfully living as soldiers. However, there are obvious parallels between the two in that they both were able to disguise themselves, show exceptional bravery in battle, and end up praised for their work even after their gender was discovered. Mary was eighteen years old when she joined the army at the outbreak of the War of Spanish Succession. Thanks to her female stature she was still able to disguise herself as a young male soldier so she did not need to worry about inconveniences such as the lack of facial hair. Thanks to her recent naval experience she soon impressed her fellow soldiers, despite her young age. She was brave, never complained, had strong stamina and took orders well. The army was a much more enjoyable place to work than the stifling and often cruel realities on the naval ship. She had more respect and equality amongst the men in this environment than she ever had before. She enjoyed her work as a foot soldier and had ambitions to rise in the ranks. There was an opportunity to apply for a commission, but to her dismay she would have to pay a fee, which she could not afford. According to Johnson, she had no intention of staying as a foot soldier forever so she quit her position as a cadet and found a new role in a cavalry regiment. This is an interesting development since she would be required to ride a horse and normally soldiers had to pay for their own horses. If she could not get the funds to pay for her commission, then where did the money for a horse come from? Most likely she simply made a lateral move from cadet to cavalry soldier and used her savings from the navy to buy her horse. Since she had been raised in the city and then sailed in the Royal Navy, she had very little to no experience riding a horse.

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Mary Read, the Soldier  49 Luckily, she was a quick learner. As soon as she was comfortable riding long distances at a fast pace she once again proved herself to be a more than capable soldie. Then a complication entered her life: she fell in love. One of the soldiers in her regiment was a young Flemish man with whom she struck up a good rapport. As time passed, their conversations became more frequent and deepened as they developed a mutual trust. Bonds are important in the army and thanks to their congenial relationship they were assigned as tentmates. This made the situation even more difficult for her because she was attracted to him from the instant they met. She also had to hide her gender from him. For the most part everyone slept in their clothes so that avoided the problem of revealing her body. As for menstruation, it is possible that the physical activity stopped it altogether or she secretly used rags and other means to disguise it. He, of course, did not know she was a woman so for the time being she had to continue the painful sting of unrequited love and friendship. Even so, she found ways to make sure that they were together as much as possible. As their relationship deepened, she sensed a strong foundation of trust and respect from him. Was he unknowingly developing feelings for her as well? Casual conversation grew into deeper topics and laughter, which even led to some physical touches between them as well. Mary caught herself nearly openly flirting with him, which would sometimes make him end the conversation and walk away, but the banter always resumed a short time later. Her feelings and desires consumed her so much that she became too distracted to work properly. She began making silly mistakes that were quite out of character to her superior officers who had only ever known her to be one of the most competent soldiers in the regiment. Chores such as maintaining her weapons and other accoutrements were neglected, which risked putting herself in danger should they go into active combat. She would be so distracted that she once saddled her horse incorrectly and

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50  Pirate Queens nearly got thrown off during training. Other chores and duties fell to the wayside both to the confusion and frustration of her fellow soldiers, especially her dear friend. Her superiors began threatening her with expulsion because her poor weaponry and performance posed a risk to the entire regiment. To make matters worse, Mary’s behaviour in battle became rash. When they finally met an opposing force he was called to the front while she was ordered to stay behind. The idea of him being wounded or killed was too much to bear so she disobeyed her commanding officer and charged after him. Unfortunately, the confusion of fighting did not prevent her from getting caught and she was thrown into solitary. Her fellow soldiers were not angry at her, however. They had noticed that her odd behaviour started not long after she and the Flemish man became friends and tent-mates. Whether or not they suspected her true identity is unknown but they knew that her relationship with her friend was different than others. They assumed that her rash behaviour was down to a touch of madness and hoped that solitary would give her a bit of rest to clear her head. Her love, fortunately, survived the battle without any major wounds. When her tent-mate got back to camp he found out what happened and was absolutely livid. He confronted her the moment she came out of confinement and returned to their tent. Her actions had put everyone in danger and his trust was shaken. Mary knew she had no choice but to tell him the truth. This was a huge wake-up call for her and she realised just how erratic her behaviour had become. Finally, she acted. One night after everyone had gone to sleep she woke him up. Without saying a word, she began to undress. To his great shock, he finally found out that his dear friend was actually a woman in disguise. According to Johnson, ‘he was much surprised at what he found out, and not a little pleased.’10 He responded immediately and took her into her arms and they made love that night.

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Mary Read, the Soldier  51 Mary was ecstatic now that the truth was out and that he had consummated their relationship. His love for her, however, was slower to grow. He took ‘it for granted, that he should have a Mistress solely to himself…’11 and ’thought of nothing but gratifying his passions with very little ceremony.’12 Mary loved him but made it very clear that she could not just be a mistress after this. Her declaration moved him and made him realise how he had been using her. They continued their sexual relationship and finally he fell in love with her and began to behave as a man courting her to be his wife. Mary accepted his marriage proposal with all of her heart. Now they would have to find a way to carry out their nuptials without ruining their careers. Mary’s major concern was whether or not her fellow soldiers would accept her as a woman and her husband worried about whether or not they would welcome her as his wife. Wives in military camps were not plentiful but at the same time not entirely uncommon: six wives per hundred soldiers was standard in British armies.13 When their campaign paused for the winter, they went to a nearby town and secretly bought her a set of women’s clothing and were officially married. Word had already got out about Mary’s true identity and the secret engagement. Much to her relief, however, her marriage was not only accepted by her regiment but it was also celebrated. Some of the troops found out where they were getting married and surprised the couple by attending the wedding and giving them part of their wages as a wedding gift. If Mary’s true sex had been discovered by the members of her company, she would have been condemned and drummed out of the army as an impersonator and a camp-following prostitute. Emerging as a married woman took away this moral stigma and gave her more social privileges than she might have received otherwise. This also worked in the army’s favour. By accepting their marriage her husband was now under even more control because he would face harsher punishments for

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52  Pirate Queens keeping company with prostitutes. Now his superiors could be certain that he would not fall into any dishonourable habits and would be encouraged to stay in a positive light in his wife’s eyes.14 In this way, wives were often thought to make soldiers more motivated to fight harder. The sixteenth-century humanist, Sir Thomas More, believed that in his ideal utopian society, wives should be encouraged to go to war with their husbands because this would cause men and their women to fight harder and thus make the army stronger.15 It is a good thing that Mary and her husband made their marriage known because the consequences could have been quite severe had they kept their union secret. If Mary had been caught, she would have been seen as a camp follower with a reputation of causing disruption. Camp followers were often whipped and over time some of those punishments became more brutal: ‘One very common punishment for trifling offences committed by […] such-like persons was the whirligig. This was a kind of circular cage which turned on a pivot: and when set in motion, whirled round with such an amazing velocity, that the delinquent became extremely sick, and commonly emptied […] her body through every aperture – much to the amusement of the spectators.16 Male soldiers who married without permission or married secretly could be severely punished. Some might be forced to run a gauntlet of up to 200 soldiers, which meant she would have to run between two rows of these men who would strike her with sticks or other weapons. She could be forced to endure this punishment up to a dozen times. The brides could be sentenced to serve a minimum of one year in a workhouse.17 To avoid this complication, British armies became more generous toward soldier marriage by the eighteenth century. Soldiers needed permission to make sure the wife was ‘suitable’ and would not bring any complications to the regiment,18 but since Mary had already proven herself to be one the most capable and respected soldiers in her company, there

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Mary Read, the Soldier  53 was no question about her suitability as a wife and a woman in the camp. But the couple decided it was time for them to start a new life together as man and wife outside the army. They received an honourable discharge and settled in the nearby town of Breda in The Netherlands and opened up a tavern called The Three Horseshoes, which proved to be quite a successful enterprise. Their company loved and respected them so much that they helped supply the newlyweds with the funds to open the place, and became frequent customers, raving the tavern so much that it became a popular army haunt.19 Her husband managed the business while Mary worked with customers and took charge of the beer. Brewing had traditionally been women’s work. It was a domestic process and brewing women were known as ‘brewsters’. However, despite doing the majority of the work, she would never be able to own the business. Her husband was the one to get the licence and Mary would technically be his employee. She had no familial property of her own and any wage she might make as a tavern maid would belong to her husband because both she and the business were legally his property. 20 She did not mind this imbalance of power, even after living as his equal in the army, because they enjoyed a fairly successful business. Hops, the staple ingredient, were plentiful and ale began to grow in popularity. 21 Just like her mother, Mary’s happiness would not last. After an undetermined amount of time – anywhere from a few months to even a few years – her husband fell ill and passed away very suddenly. It was common for women, young and old, to be widowed at any point, especially during wartime, and Mary’s life was even more precarious in terms of her economic status because she had no legal right to keep the business. If she wanted to continue her life as it was, she would need a legal guardian of some sort to conduct any legal transactions for her.22 Unfortunately, since her

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54  Pirate Queens father died before she was born and her husband had no known male relatives, she was out of luck. Mary would not be fortunate enough to receive any help without family. Her social status dropped considerably as a widow and her professional identity died with her husband. The tavern was taken away from her and she lost all opportunities for economic independence. Men would not help her and she found little support amongst women as well. Regardless of age, widows were commonly seen as sexually deviant or promiscuous women who were on the hunt for a second husband. As such, they were deemed to pose a threat of tempting married men, even though people generally understood that women needed to remarry to regain any form of security. Without remarrying, Mary would be at the mercy of public or religious charities, and this would strip away the final shreds of her dignity and agency.23 Before she fell into dire straits, she decided to get back into her men’s clothes and rejoin the army once again as Mark Read. She no longer had the option of rejoining her old regiment. Her horse had been sold to help pay for initial tavern expenses and the memories were too painful, so she joined a ‘Regiment of Foot’ on one of the frontier towns near the border.24 There was no extra expense of a horse and she still had both her and her husband’s weapons to secure her place. The War of Spanish Succession was long over at this point but European countries always needed to be prepared for future conflict so there was always work in the military. She found her place easily as her reputation preceded her. The name Mark Read was familiar in army circles, especially amongst those who had served for years. Her mysterious absence and reemergence as a soldier went unquestioned. The only mystery that everyone did question was her apparent lack of fighting skills. Her regiment believed that she would be one of the best soldiers: Mary took orders without question; she was quiet and non-confrontational; and she kept all of her

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Mary Read, the Soldier  55 effects in impeccable condition. However, her performance in training and battle was disappointing: she was slow and often fell behind during exercises; and her accuracy with weapons was sub-par, which posed a huge risk in battle for her and her fellow soldiers. Grief is a fickle beast which ebbs and then flows with the strength of a tidal wave. Her secret identity meant she could not confide in anyone, so she had to bear the emotional weight of her tragedy without any support. She could not focus completely on training and fighting. After several warnings, her superior officers finally decided that they had no choice but to kick her out of the army. Perhaps they knew that something about her was amiss rather than simple incompetence because they gave her an honourable discharge, which would allow her to seek employment or station elsewhere. It was time for a fresh start. Mary decided her time in Europe was over and she needed to strike out in the New World where new opportunities undoubtedly awaited her. Her negative experience in the navy had left a bad taste in her mouth but she knew employment at sea would be the only way for her to reach the Americas for a new life. Plus, she would need wages to support herself as she settled wherever she might land. Volunteering for indentured servitude, which would indebt her to a plantation owner for seven or more years, was out of the question for a woman who refused to be beholden to anyone. The best place to go was Amsterdam, Europe’s most active commercial port city. As Mark Read, she inquired at the docks until she found a merchant ship that was hiring new crew members. Her experience in the navy and army made her a desirable candidate and she was hired on the spot on a Dutch merchant ship, which worked out well since she was fluent in the language. The ship was heading to the West Indies to bring back sugar, one of the most desired items from the colonies. The growth of the slave trade allowed the sugar industry to explode in the Caribbean,

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56  Pirate Queens where the tropical climate was perfect for cultivating sugarcane. For the first time, sugar was available cheaply for the masses and everyone in Europe clamoured for it. Thanks to this ‘sugar craze’25 other items such as cocoa, coffee and tea became more palatable, causing those commodities to accelerate in popularity as coffee houses grew across the continent.26 There was no shortage of jobs for Mary. Mary faced a new challenge when she went back into the maritime world. She’d been young when she worked in the Royal Navy so had not had to take very many measures to disguise herself as a young cabin boy. All it took was baggy clothes and shorter hair. As an adult, however, she had to be much more careful. It was unusual for a woman to serve any position on a ship during the eighteenth century, and most of the time they were banned from doing so. Several of the infamous pirate codes specifically forbade the presence of women on the ship. The pirates’ code, also known as ‘articles,’ was created to determine how to equally distribute pay, choose superiors, consequences for behaviours such as drinking and gambling and maintaining peace and decorum on the ship. Captain Bartholomew Roberts, also known as ‘Black Bart’, was a Welsh pirate who would become the most successful one to ever live, having robbed some 470 ships in his three-year career between 1719 and 1722. Part of the reason for his success was his creation of a detailed set of codes for his crew to abide by. One of these codes stated, ‘No boy or woman to be allowed amongst them. If any man were found seducing and of the latter sex, and carried her to the sea, disguised, he was to suffer death.’27 Why such a strict law? It was intended to prevent acts of jealousy, possession and violence amongst the crew. Long periods of time on a ship without sexual release would have put a woman in a precarious position. Captain John Phillips was another pirate who created a strict set of articles concerning behaviour towards women. ‘If at any

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Mary Read, the Soldier  57 time we meet with a prudent woman [any woman who was not a prostitute], that man that offers to meddle with her, without her consent, shall suffer present death.’ Preventing rape was another important way to keep the peace amongst the men. Fear of a woman’s power over the men would illicit primal competition. Not only that, being convicted of rape was a guaranteed death sentence that the captain could carry out. This article, therefore, also provided a legitimate reason to keep women off the ship.28 Mary had to keep all of this in mind when she decided to leave the army and take to the ocean as a fully-fledged adult woman. She resumed her male identity as Mark Read and joined a ship headed for the Caribbean. Mentally, she was an excellent candidate for this line of work. People joined the armed services for several personal reasons, many of which are driven by social circumstances (in her case, being an illegitimate daughter after enjoying the advantages of boyhood). Work in the army gave Mary discipline and the gumption to be able to follow orders and a strict daily routine. Her professional experience allowed her to pass as a physically fit, albeit young, seaman.29 Now that her mental grit gave her the pass she needed to join a ship’s crew, she faced another challenge of disguising herself. Passing as a man was easy in the army, but at sea in such close, intimate quarters, it would be much more difficult. Instead of a private tent, she would be sleeping in a hammock next to dozens of other sailors just a few feet away.30 Working on a ship was a different kind of physical labour. Her years in the army had made her muscular, but she needed to be more dexterous to succeed as a sailor. Climbing ropes to make repairs required flexibility and an upper body strength that she would have had to overcompensate for in order to overcome this physical challenge. This would not create too much attention, especially as she passed for a younger man, or even a boy. As long as she could do her work, she went about her business mostly unnoticed.

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58  Pirate Queens However, once she could master these types of duties another challenge immediately presented itself: avoiding any sort of injury lest she reveal her sex. The coarse ropes would swing even in the lightest of breezes as she climbed to handle the sails. Stormy weather was the greatest risk to any sailor. She would have to clamber up the shrouds out onto the yardarms that would swing in a low, giddy arc, backwards and forwards above the waves. A single slip or a missed handhold and/or foothold could mean death or injury and therefore discovery.31 It was best to suffer in silence if she could manage it or to hopefully find a collaborator who would keep her secret should she need extra care. But what about the physical and biological realities of being a woman on board a ship? Binding her breasts was an easy obstacle to overcome and since ships could be pretty dirty, she was able to hide any sort of feminine facial features. In fact, this was the easiest part of a male disguise. All ships had boys as young as nine or ten years old in the crew. They were welcome additions because they were quicker and more agile than older men. Their youth was also an advantage because they could be trained in seafaring skills and master them much earlier. Since most women, including Mary, would have passed easily for adolescent boys, she would be welcome in the crew. As an adolescent boy, she did not have the complication of growing any facial hair. Clothing was another simplicity that Mary welcomed. Sailors’ clothes were ideal for disguising a typical woman’s body shape because they were generally large enough to hide a feminine figure. Her clothing would generally be a loose shirt with a waistcoat or jacket (depending on the weather) along with baggy trousers or even, in some cases, petticoat breeches if no other item could be found. Those were easily passed as culottes. Trousers allowed her to easily climb ropes and go up and down ladders without difficulty. They were easy to mend, clean and dry because they would not drag and snare like skirts. The final

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Mary Read, the Soldier  59 item of clothing was a handkerchief worn around the neck for sun protection. Long hair was not an issue, either, as sailors often had their hair tied back into a ponytail.32 Overall, these clothes served as excellent practicality, protection and as a work uniform to allow them to assimilate. Even more importantly, even if women were not dressing in male clothing for disguise, it gave them a sense of power because of the freedom the clothes granted them both physically and mentally.33 Bathroom issues, however, were more complicated. Toilets were either buckets or the open sea as men urinated over the railing. Defecation usually was done in boxes or in carved holes to drop the waste into the ocean.34 The latter was easy enough, but urinating was a different story. A common solution for a woman would be to make a small funnel out of a horn or piece of metal that they would stick into their trousers and use as a makeshift spout.35 Another complication was menstruation, but it might not have been the most pressing problem. The arduous work and simple diet might have caused a cessation in their periods completely, similar to modern athletes today. If a woman was young enough, she might be able to delay the onset of puberty by a couple of years. Even if Mary continued to have her period on the ship, she could still hide it by wearing dark-coloured trousers or using straps of cloth that women used in general. Plus, sexually transmitted infections such as gonorrhea and other ailments such as piles were common among sailors, and would sometimes leave blood stains on clothing. A bloodstain here or there would not merit any comments or cause suspicion.36 Mary was a resourceful, intelligent young woman with a lifetime of experience under male disguise, both as a prepubescent child and a grown woman. She took all of these complications in her stride and adapted brilliantly. How else did she sail without discovery? The year was either 1718 or 1719 when Mary set out for the West Indies as a merchant in her early thirties. Life was going well

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60  Pirate Queens for her. She had a new purpose and welcomed the new sights and experiences. Her superiors could be quite rough and the food was plain, and while wages were not always very steady the conditions did not compare to those she experienced in the navy. They sailed from port to port in Europe, England and Ireland before they officially set out west. Then something happened that would change her life forever: her ship was attacked and captured by pirates. It turned out that they were English and were pleased to discover that she was the only fellow English person on board. Rather than risk being killed or marooned, she agreed to join their crew, still disguised as Mark Read. Johnson does not give a timeframe of her tenure on this pirate ship, stating only that she followed ‘this Trade for some Time’. At some point during their travels, they learned that the king of England had delivered a proclamation that would allow pirates to be granted a pardon if they submitted themselves to maritime authorities. This document was valid throughout the whole of the West Indies and they would be able to sail without risk of arrest. Together they all agreed to take advantage of the opportunity. They landed on an unnamed island where they all successfully took the pardon and agreed to move on with their lives. Mary was not satisfied, however. She was enjoying life on the pirate ship where they were all treated equally and beholden to no nation. Yes, there were grave risks in that capture pretty much ensured a hanging, but she found this environment to be more relaxed and welcoming than any other she had served. Her money was running out but word reached her that the new governor of the Bahamas, Woodes Rogers, was hiring privateers to sail against Spanish ships that threatened the islands. She, along with several members of her former pirate crew, decided to head to the Island of Providence to find work as privateers, which was supposed to pay even better than piracy. Together they boarded a ship and

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Mary Read, the Soldier  61 sailed to the Bahamas, where they would dock at Nassau, also known as the Pirate Kingdom.37 * * * This is where the historical timeline diverges from Johnson’s account and reality. He cites that the reason Mary did not rejoin the army is because the Peace of Ryswick ‘had been concluded’.38 This peace effectively ended the Nine Years’ War, which Mary likely fought in early in her career in the Royal Navy, as discussed earlier. However, the Peace of Ryswick was signed in 1697, which would have made Mary only twelve years old at the end of the war. It is an impossibility that she would have fought in the army and married a soldier when she was barely able to menstruate. As stated earlier, Mary most likely fought in the War of Spanish Succession, which began in 1703, at the age of eighteen and concluded in 1713 when she was twenty-eight years old. With her skills and life experience, it is much more reasonable to suggest that she was in her twenties when she met and married her fellow Flemish soldier. There is also the question as to the truth of Johnson’s whole account. There are no historical sources that list anyone named Mark Read as a soldier, but this does not mean that she did not fight under another unknown name. However, since she would be such a skilled and fierce pirate, it is reasonable to believe that she had sufficient military training to be able to hold her own and succeed in such an environment. Mary may have had some pirate lineage. On 25 March 1698 a woman named Ann Canterell became a widow after her husband, John Read, was executed for piracy. She was now destitute with a son and a daughter, whose name was Mary and who was born around the time of our Mary Read’s birth, 1685. In an attempt to avoid her impending poverty, she wrote a letter to her late husband’s captain, Adam Baldridge, which states, ‘I

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62  Pirate Queens have been Informed [that] my late husband John Read dyed at [Madagascar] and left a Considerable sum of mon[ey] in yor hands for my selfe and his Children…I hope you will be so kind, as to pay it, for my selfe and family are in a very poor Condition, and in great want thereof.’39 This letter provides evidence of a family’s despondency that coincides very closely with Mary’s biography in Johnson’s book. It is possible that Johnson may have based this chapter on Ann Canterell’s situation. If that is the case, Mary would have known at least some details about her father’s career and death. Not only that, growing up in the bustling port city of Bristol, England would have exposed her to sailors during her formative year. A career in piracy would not have been that daunting for her. There is also a possibility that Mary might not have been in the military at all, especially since there are no official records to verify Johnson’s account. In 1707 a large group of pirates were arrested and threatened to either be transported or to hang for their crimes. Their wives, a total of forty-eight women living in Jamaica, came forward to petition Queen Anne to seek their pardons. Many pirates had made homes for themselves throughout the Caribbean and provided quite well for their families, provided that they were not captured. If these pirates were executed, their families could fall into poverty, homelessness and even starvation.40 The women either signed or made their mark on the petition pleading with the queen that their husbands were skilled sailors and would better serve the Crown if they were placed into the Royal Navy rather than punished. Their husbands had undoubtedly learned their lesson. A group petition such as this shows that there was a whole network of pirates’ wives that supported each other enough to come together in such a way. Unfortunately, their petition was not heeded and the women all became widows. Most interesting is that one of the signatures on the petition is that of a woman named Mary Read.41 It is not implausible that

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Mary Read, the Soldier  63 this could be our own Mary Read. She would have been around twenty-two years-old in 1707. As a pirate’s wife in Jamaica, she would be familiar with Caribbean life, pirate society and be able to survive on her own for long periods of time. Jamaica was known to be a dangerous place to live in the early eighteenth century, so it is not unreasonable to assume that a woman would have to learn how to defend herself. This would explain how Mary became a skilled enough fighter to join a pirate crew. If she were widowed in Jamaica she may have been able to support herself and eventually make her way to Nassau by 1720. Perhaps she still ended up fighting in the War of Spanish Succession disguised as a man on a privateer ship, which would explain her ability to live as a sailor. No matter which story is true, Mary was self-sufficient and resilient enough to become one of the fiercest pirates of the Golden Age.

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Chapter 5

Anne Bonny, the Pirate Nassau, Island of Providence, The Bahamas: 1715–August 1720

A

nne was twenty-one or twenty-two years old when she and her husband, James Bonny, reached the famed pirate kingdom, Nassau, on the Island of Providence in the Bahamas. By the time she arrived there, in 1718 or 1719, Nassau had long been a popular place for pirates and other degenerates for several years. This new land was her haven – a place to solidify her position as a pirate’s wife ready for her next adventure. Pirates were attracted to islands such as the Island of Providence since they organised themselves into various fleets throughout the Atlantic. According to Alexander Exquemelin, author of The History of the Buccaneers of America, the West Indies was an ideal place for them to begin their operations for several reasons. First, this part of the Caribbean was full of uninhabited islands and cays which made it an ideal place to hide and store any of their stolen goods as necessary. The islands’ intricate coastlines were the perfect places for natural security from pirate hunters and naval ships. Pirates had to be able to sail off quickly so they would hide their larger ship in exchange for a smaller one (if able) to travel between these numerous tiny islands for protection. The British navy’s Man O’ War ships were too large to navigate these tiny inlets and pirates could thus be safe in the West Indies. The West Indies itself was also ideal for plunder because of the numerous Spanish, English, French, Portuguese, and Dutch

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Anne Bonny, the Pirate  65 trade routes. Nassau sat in a perfect location: the Bahamas are situated off the coast of Florida and provided easy access west into the Caribbean and north to the North American colonies. The Island of Providence was in the middle of the busiest trading sea lanes in the eighteenth century. The most important reason the West Indies became an ideal location for pirates because they were heavily contested amongst the major European powers during the seventeenth century. Many wars and rivalries for control of plantation islands such as Jamaica, notably between Spain and England, caused them to change ownership many times over. Treaties and truces were passed, rescinded and rewritten. The political instability caused the major powers to become too distracted to effectively fight against the growing number of pirates in the region. These conflicts also gave struggling governors ample opportunity to trade with those who were happy to raid travelling ships.1 Several decades before Nassau became the ‘pirate kingdom’, another city reigned supreme as the infamous locale for so-called degenerates: Port Royal, Jamaica. This island was the most heavily contested between England and Spain in the Caribbean due to its proximity to the other major plantation islands, routes to Central and South America and to the North American colonies. After years of war – which allowed pirates to settle there – the two countries finally agreed a shaky truce called The Treaty of Madrid in 1670. The treaty granted Britain ownership of Jamaica and in return the British promised protection for the Spanish, including against pirates. The treaty was intended to end all conflicts between England and Spain, who had been bitter rivals since the failure of the Spanish Armada invasion of 1588.2 Jamaica still remained a hotbed for piracy, and despite the English issuing a formal decree of ownership in 16743 the pirates kept Port Royal for themselves. Though in close proximity to other Caribbean islands, it was not easy to navigate because of

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66  Pirate Queens its difficult coastal terrain and excellent hiding spots for pirates. Because of this the English could not rid the island of pirates, nor could they enforce laws very effectively. Jamaica soon became known as an ideal place for other social outcasts such as drifters, enslaved people who escaped into the mountains (known as maroons), indentured servants, transported criminals, prostitutes, religious radicals, and political prisoners who were all able to find some modicum of autonomy in this relatively lawless place. This would not last, however. In 1692 an earthquake struck Jamaica and a large chunk of Port Royal sank into the sea, causing most pirates to scatter. The Royal Navy swooped in and took control of the island, setting up a permanent base and establishing order. Piracy and other criminal activity would no longer be able to flourish there. Not long after, the War of Spanish Succession broke out and many pirates were hired as privateers to fight for either the English or Spanish. In exchange for their service, they were pardoned of all of their crimes and allowed to keep any loot they could steal from the ships they captured. At the end of the war in 1713, however, these privateers found themselves out of work and gradually drifted toward the Bahamas. As the gateway to the Caribbean and southern North American colonies, they were a prime spot for merchants and pirates. Similar to Jamaica, the area was also a place that the British and Spanish fought over. The Spanish intended to use the islands to prepare their own pirate ships to attack British ships, while the British wanted the islands as a defensive base to protect against attacks on their North American colonies. This infighting happened during the War of Spanish Succession, which allowed pirates to once again swoop in and claim the islands as their own. For the next decade, the Commissions of the Board of Trade and Plantations made numerous complaints about the pirate problem and warned that the issue could cause the islands to permanently fall into

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Anne Bonny, the Pirate  67 Spanish hands.4 It was too late, however. By 1713 the Island of Providence was now home to an official pirate city at Nassau. It was at this time that a privateering captain, Benjamin Hornigold, arrived and found Nassau in chaotic disarray. The city was violent, dirty, full of disease, and populated mostly by criminals, pirates and prostitutes.5 However, he felt the location was perfect to set up an official pirate base so he set about organising the city and establishing law and order. In time he became known as the ‘Pirate King of the Pirate Kingdom’, and over the next few years the Bahamas attracted hundreds, or even thousands of pirates.6 Word spread about Nassau’s excellent opportunities for pirates to gather after Hornigold’s successful transformation of the city. The Island of Providence was not only fully sheltered, it held an abundance of food, water and natural resources to replenish and restock supplies and build or repair ships. This was partially thanks to an already established population of planters and plantation owners further inland. Traders came to Nassau to sell their goods to pirates and buy plundered items for cheap in return. By 1715 there were so many pirates that British officials began to refer to it as a ‘nest of pirates’. One person who left Nassau described them as committing ‘great disorders on the island, plundering the inhabitants, burning their houses, and ravishing their wives.’ Many of Nassau’s residents left ‘for fear of being murdered’.7 * * * Before Hornigold established his pirate kingdom, a man named Woodes Rogers, who later would become one of the greatest pirate hunters and governor of the Bahamas, was gaining a reputation as an excellent leader as a privateer during the War of Spanish Succession. In 1708 he began one of the most successful privateering ventures of the era when he sailed around

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68  Pirate Queens the world and captured a Spanish galleon loaded with gold and other valuables.8 This culminated in 1709 when he sacked the South American city of Guayaquil (in present-day Ecuador). To the Spanish, he acted no better than a pirate as he robbed and murdered people on sea (and on land as well). To the British, this demonstrated his fantastic leadership skills by holding his crew together during long voyages in areas where he would have no help or support. Not only that, he was also meticulously organised. He kept detailed records and daily logs, maintained strict naval laws for his crew, and even found businessmen to sponsor his voyage and took their representatives to ensure proof of his obedience and success. After the war’s end, he petitioned the government to let him hunt pirates.9 As a former privateer, he knew where pirates would likely sail and how they would hide and defend themselves. Naturally, in 1717 the government was happy to give him their approval, establishing him as one of the chief pirate hunters during the War on Pirates.10 That year alone, it was estimated that there were about a thousand pirates at sea throughout the West Indies, so the time was ripe to bring in someone able to get rid of them. This would be a tall order – between 1716 and 1720 there were up to 2,000 pirates in the Caribbean and Atlantic Ocean.11 As a reward for his successes and service to the Crown, Rogers was officially appointed to become the first Royal Governor of the Bahamas in 1718. Once in office, he wasted no time cracking down on piracy. One of the first things he did was issue a royal proclamation to pardon any pirate who surrendered himself before 5 September 1718. Several pirates ended up accepting the pardon, but many others such as Charles Vane and Edward Teach, alias Blackbeard, refused.12 In terms of his role as a strict governor, one of the first official actions Rogers took was arresting a merchant known to trade with Vane, a pirate who was notorious for the violent force with which he attacked ships. The poor merchant was shipped back to England in chains, an action that was met

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Anne Bonny, the Pirate  69 with praise by Admiralty officials. They agreed that Rogers was the one to set an example for all of the Caribbean-based royal governors.13 * * * If Anne was sixteen years old by the time she married James Bonny, she would have left the Carolinas in 1713, right at the end of the War of Spanish Successful She would meet her second husband at the age of twenty-one or twenty-two, putting her arrival into the Island of Providence in 1718 or 1719, meaning that she sailed with Bonny for approximately six years. This was a period of true delight for Anne; she was finally free of the strict social expectations her father put upon her. Life at sea was exciting, brutal, dangerous and exhausting and she loved every minute of it. The world opened up for her. Blue water glittered as far as the eye could see as they sailed south. She landed on islands dotted throughout the West Indies: the Bahamas, Jamaica, the Leeward Islands and many others. She met people from all over the world, sampled new foods and experienced a myriad of new cultures. Tropical birds soared over their ship, their bright and multi-coloured plumage glinting in the sun. Storms came through and rocked the ship, which was both terrifying and thrilling. Most importantly, this voyage drove her into the life of piracy. As a mere wife on a ship with no real responsibilities, she could not take part in any major duties or fighting, but Anne was witness to an egalitarian way of life. The men were able to make collective decisions to chase certain ships, assign duties and doled out wages and winnings equally.14 She even got a small share of the profits, much to her delight. Fighting was dangerous and she raced around tending to injuries while staying out of harm’s way. Anne became familiar with the many types of weapons and found time to experiment with them during idle moments.

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70  Pirate Queens James Bonny, on the other hand, did not share her enthusiasm. He resented his wife and felt cheated after what should have been an economic windfall. Instead, he was forced back onto a ship to make a dishonest living at constant risk of capture. Watching Anne’s enthusiasm and quick assimilation into the culture filled him with disgust. She paid him no attention and his attraction toward her started to wane. How could a woman be so excited to engage in a life of violent crime? He no longer saw her as a woman, but as a fellow degenerate. Once they docked, he would try to have nothing to do with her. Anne was none the wiser. The work on the ship kept her so busy that she scarcely noticed her husband drifting away from her. She heard some rumblings from the men that he was not pulling his weight and that they were stuck with a woman to work in his stead. Instead of insulting her, this gave Anne even more incentive to prove her worth and skills. Eventually, she gained some grudging respect and began to learn how to perform more duties and handle weaponry. Over time she began to receive more of an equal share of their winnings, which she stored away for safekeeping. Sea life suited her: this was where she belonged and she vowed to make it her home. Like all sailors, pirate or not, they eventually needed to find a port to dock. Ships needed replenishing, money had to be exchanged and spent and many were ready to rest or retire for a spell. They all decided to set a course for the Bahamas where they would dock at Nassau. They knew the region had a new, powerful governor, but this was still a place where pirates congregated and was a natural stopping point. They set a course north-east to the former pirate republic. Anne intended this to be a short stay, assuming that her husband would quickly find them a new crew to join. After her six-year adventure on the pirate ship from North Carolina into the West Indies, she was excited to meet more of the brethren and hit the

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Anne Bonny, the Pirate  71 high seas once again. Unfortunately, her husband would prove to be a big disappointment. From the moment they arrived at Nassau Anne noticed the change in her husband that had developed at sea. James seemed to have little desire to fraternise with other pirates or to secure their positions onto a new pirating voyage. Not only that, the fact that her father had disowned her and deprived the couple of what should have been an ample dowry caused James’s resentment towards her to grow. He left her alone more and more often until she found herself quite neglected. Then came an event that would pit Anne against her husband forever: he was employed under the governor of the Bahamas, Woodes Rogers, to become a pirate hunter. To Anne this was an unforgivable betrayal and proof of his cowardice. To her, he was no longer her husband. She would never be able to respect him or be near him again. Now she was in a position of frightening uncertainty. Thankfully she had her share of profits so she could live independently of her husband, but not knowing where or how the next opportunity would come, Anne began to despair. She found solace in the local taverns and soon became quite well known in town. Like other women in pirate-laden port towns, she befriended sailors and pirates who passed through and engaged in numerous affairs.15 Pirates were more than happy to make her acquaintance after being stuck in each other’s company for long periods of time. After spending weeks, or even months, confined in close quarters with only men for company, they would have been ecstatic to find female company on land. Privacy was non-existent at sea so masturbation, or, in some cases, other forms of sexual release between the men, would have been almost impossible to hide. It is no wonder that pirates immediately went straight to local taverns where they could purchase a night of female company.16

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72  Pirate Queens What were men to do during long periods of time without the pleasurable company they longed for on shore? There are some arguments that homosexual relationships began in the absence of female company, and this was punished ruthlessly by the Royal Navy during the eighteenth century because it was viewed as going against nature, discipline and order.17 Homosexuality was not an uncommon reality. When Europeans began colonising the Caribbean during the seventeenth century there was such a huge shortage of women that men formed sexual relationships with each other. This became a large problem in the eyes of the governors so in 1645 the French governor of Tortuga (modern-day Haiti), Jean La Vasseur, imported 1,650 prostitutes to the island to give the men a sexual outlet.18 This lack of female company had to be compensated for once ashore. Waterfronts at every port city were crowded with taverns, many of which were run by women. These establishments were generally family owned, but it was the landlady and her daughters who were in charge and ultimately set the tone. Pirates would come into these taverns and shower women with their earnings, buy them drinks and pay for their company. This was so lucrative that pretty women would be hired as tavern prostitutes to increase revenue and patronage.19 Since port taverns were such a draw to sailors, it is no wonder that Anne frequented these places for company during her marital estrangement. These activities carried on despite the fact that there were long-standing laws against excessive drinking or other illicit activities such as gambling and whoring. Even after the time of Benjamin Hornigold’s reign, and during Rogers’s regime, there still was no strict legal system to enforce these rules. Hornigold himself enjoyed getting rip-roaringly drunk in both Nassau and Port Royal at the end of his voyages.20 Churches existed for moral guidance, but the fact remained that economic security was a much higher priority for patrons, workers and governors. Such

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Anne Bonny, the Pirate  73 was the incentive for this trade that tavern-keepers were known to extend credit to their returning customers, who were usually pirates.21 Commercial and social ties were essential for them to keep up their morale.22 Taverns were clearly the ideal place for Anne to meet other sailors and pirates, both for company and information. They were used as social hubs for all sorts of sailors and were places where they could find a place to stay, along with drinks, food, and company both sociable and sexual.23 Taverns also functioned as informal places of knowledge exchange, politics and networking, and were spaces where people could engage, converse, and socialise with each other without the constraints of social hierarchy.24 For Anne, a tavern was a place for her to soak up knowledge about the world she was currently excluded from. One of the most important functions of taverns was their role as spaces for information exchange, particularly about other ships and sailors. This could be a tricky business because taverns were also places for merchants and members of the Royal Navy to coerce people into their crews. Merchants would hire ‘spirits’ who were basically recruiters who went from tavern to tavern and offered down-on-their-luck men jobs on ships. If they were resistant, the spirits would get them drunk and manipulate them into signing themselves into a contract; the poor soul would wake up the next day on a ship with no idea how he got there.25 Pirates, however, could only survive if they had a loyal crew and honour among thieves, so they did not force men to join their ships. The exception to this rule was if they had already taken a ship and held some people captive.26 It was in these places that Anne’s life completely changed when a certain pirate entered one of the taverns she frequented. This man was the notorious Captain Jack Rackham, who sailed with the cruel pirate captain, Charles Vane. By the time he came to Nassau, he had become known by the nickname ‘Calico Jack,’

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74  Pirate Queens bestowed upon him by Vane for his penchant of wearing fine clothing no matter the situation.27 This seemed to fit right in with his work-hard play-hard personality. While sailing under Vane, he was more than enthusiastic to spend all of his earnings on alcohol, even when he became captain. This is likely why he would never be known as the most successful pirate who ever lived. That is not to say that he never took a prize. Rackham had his moments of success during his career. Before he met Anne he had managed to capture a Spanish ship off of the coast of Cuba. He and his men waited until nightfall to silently board the vessel fully armed with pistols and cutlasses. Only a few of the Spanish crew members were aware of the robbery and were threatened with death if they said a single word. The next day when the rest of the ship awoke to find their goods gone, they were furious and embarrassed to have been robbed so blindly.28 This existence suited Rackham quite well until he sailed into Nassau in early 1720. He decided to take a break from piracy for a while so he took advantage of the Proclamation for the Effectual Suppression of Piracy, in which he confessed his crimes and received a royal pardon from King George I.29 Soon afterwards he met a friendly red-headed woman in one of the taverns he frequented. Rackham was immediately attracted to Anne. She had a fiery temper and personality, she swore, and drank as much as any respectable pirate – qualities that would be regarded as shocking and uncouth for a woman, but this made her more desirable to the seasoned pirate. Sometime in the spring or summer of 1720 the two fell in love and wanted to marry. However, there was the small inconvenience of the fact that she was already wed. Anne and Rackham knew they had no option but to approach James Bonny to ask for an annulment. This was a major blow to her husband’s pride because he knew that he had been cuckolded many times by his errant wife. To their relief and surprise,

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Anne Bonny, the Pirate  75 however, James agreed to an annulment for a substantial amount of money and a witness present while they signed their papers. Unbeknownst to them, this was not an altruistic move on his part. It was time for James to have his own revenge. It might seem like this put Anne up for sale and this assumption would be correct. The practice known as wifeselling was not uncommon in early modern England and the British-American colonies, especially in the West Indies. The plantation colonies struggled with a low female population, potentially putting permanent colonisation at risk. Caribbean islands such as Barbados averaged a male to female ratio of 9 to 1. 30 Because of this desperate situation in the population demographics, marriage became an exchange of property with women as the object. Anne’s was put onto the market to create a divorce bargain. Like Anne, the women who volunteered to be put up for sale in order to get their divorce only did so if they were certain they had met a man who was preferable to their current husband. 31 Rogers appreciated James’s loyalty, but did not believe in divorce – especially not for a pirate. Rackham and Anne were both in a difficult situation. After some discussion, Rackham decided to attempt to go down a degrading route for his beloved: the wife sale. While this method could also be used in lieu of getting a divorce, this practice was quite rare. Rackham and James initially came to an agreement in which Rackham would pay Bonny an undisclosed large sum of money. This time they were able to get some reliable witnesses, but James Bonny clearly had a change of heart because the sale did not go through. Rogers was staunchly against this practice, no matter the context. Even though the sale was nearly complete, Rogers refused to recognise its validity. Anne’s chance of freedom was quickly disappearing before her eyes. Not only that, Rogers turned the blame onto her rather than the two men fighting over her hand.

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76  Pirate Queens He threatened to have her whipped and thrown into prison for such ‘loose behaviour’.32 Rogers threatened to order Jack Rackham to whip her as further punishment for both of them. Not wanting to be thrown in jail, Anne promised that she would not seek the divorce and would prove herself to be a good woman to her husband.33 This was, of course, a lie. Once James believed he received his wish and restored his pride, Rackham and Anne decided to take matters into their own hands. They decided to sneak away at night with a new crew and head back onto the high seas as pirates. On 22 August 1720 they stole the fastest known ship in the Bahamas called the William, which belonged to a sailor who was known to be loyal to Woodes Rogers, which Rackham rechristened the Revenge. Anne was ecstatic. Not only was she free from the shackles of her unhappy marriage, she was back on the ocean where she belonged with the man she loved. Before they could escape, however, Rackham needed to find a crew. In general, recruiting new sailors was a fairly simple process. Broadsides were posted on walls in taverns or on the sides of buildings and notices were placed in newspapers to advertise the need for experienced seamen. Pirates, of course, could not rely on such public advertisements. They were recruited by word-ofmouth in the taverns. Sailors and pirates alike would gather there, waiting to find out information about a ship in need of a crew, along with the latest gossip about the commanders. And it just so happened that Anne knew many of the taverns and their patrons during her time estranged from her husband. However, it was also possible that Anne was unable to help Rackham choose anyone for the new crew. According to Johnson she was heavily pregnant by the time they were planning their escape back into piracy. He states that Rackham had her smuggled to Cuba to stay with friends where she would bear his child and then return to him. This part of her history is murky. No details

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Anne Bonny, the Pirate  77 exist about her experience there and there are no records about what happened to the child, though if this is true it is possible that he was sent to Anne’s estranged father or adopted by one of the locals. Her time in Cuba was short and she soon returned to Nassau. It very well may be that this story was concocted by Johnson to add a fictional narrative to her biography. If it is true, it complicates the timeline of her arrival in the Bahamas and subsequent separation from her husband, suggesting that she may have been in a relationship with Rackham for well over a year.34 This could explain why James Bonny initially agreed to sell her but then abruptly changed his mind. Perhaps he learned that Anne was pregnant with Rackham’s child and wanted her punished to the highest degree. This could also be why Rogers wanted to whip her and threaten her with imprisonment. These are questions that can never be properly answered, but nonetheless it would do her a disservice to omit this detail. What we do know for certain is that Anne was with Rackham when they went to sea in August 1720. Rackham needed an experienced crew to ensure success on their pirate voyages. The most important thing to a pirate was trustworthiness, otherwise they were doomed before they began. Younger sailors were more likely to sign on with enthusiasm and would trust their captains more than older, more experienced sailors, and younger volunteers were often caught up in the idea of rebelling against society.35 It just so happened that a war veteran with maritime experience had recently landed in Nassau looking for their next career. Word of mouth pointed this person in the direction of a man named ‘Calico Jack’ who was assembling a new crew at lightning speed. Rackham hired Mark Read on the spot. Rogers was furious when he discovered that Anne and Rackham had escaped under his nose. This was a direct assault on his authority and a threat to his reputation as a successful pirate hunter. Even worse, a woman had thwarted him. On 5 September 1720

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78  Pirate Queens he issued a proclamation for their arrest, specifically mentioning Anne’s name, stating that they must be treated as ‘Enemies to the Crown Great Britain’.36 Rogers remained intent on finding them and reissued his proclamation a month after their escape. This time he mentioned another female pirate, Mary Read. This tells us that ‘Mark Read’ no longer existed and that Mary was allowed onto Rackham’s ship as a female pirate. It is unknown how Woodes Rogers knew about Mary since his ire had been directed at Anne and Jack Rackham. However, news of two women pirates escaping under his nose would generate a great deal of attention: WOODES ROGERS, Esq. GOVERNOUR of New Providence, &c. A PROCLAMATION. Whereas John Rackum […] and two Women, by Name, Ann Fulford alias Bonny, & Mary Read, did on the 22d of August last combine together to enter on board, take, steal, and runaway […] Wherefore these are to Publish and make Known to all Persons Whatsoever that the said John Rackum and Company are hereby proclaimed Pirates and Enemies to the Crown of Great-Brittain, and are to be so treated and Deem’d by all his Majesty’s Subjects.37 Anne Bonny, Mary Read and Jack Rackham may have escaped for a new life, but they all had a price on their heads.

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Queen Artemisia I of Halicarnassus (Simon Vouet, early 1640s). (National Museum)

Queen Teuta Orders the Murder of Roman Ambassadors (Augustyn Mirys, c. 1720).

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Princess Awilda from The Pirates Own Book by Charles Elms, 1837.

Portrait of Sayyida al Hurra (Victorcouto, 2011). (WikiCommons)

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Grace O’Malley and Elizabeth I, Anthologia Hibernica Vol. II, 1794. (WikiCommons)

A 16th-Century map of County Cork, Ireland, where Anne Bonny was born c. 1697. (Courtesy of the John Carter Brown Library)

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A Compleat Description of the Province of Carolina in 3 Parts, 1711. This is a map depicting the borders of the Carolina colonies in the early 18th-century, where Anne spent her adolescence. (Courtesy of the John Carter Brown Library)

A Sketch of Charleston Harbor. This is where Anne perused the docks and kept company with sailors and pirates. This is the area where she eventually met James Bonny. (Courtesy of the John Carter Brown Library)

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Breda Castle, The Hague, Netherlands. This is the city where Mary Read opened up a tavern with her husband after leaving the army. (Th E van Goor, Beschryving der stadt en lande de Breda (The Hague, 1744). (Wiki Commons)

Carte des Isles Lucayes, 1758. A Map of the Bahama Islands in detail. The Island of Providence is clearly labeled in the centre of the map. (Courtesy of the John Carter Brown Library)

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A Map of Nassau, c. 1800. The ‘Pirate Kingdom’ where Anne met several pirates, including Jack Rackham. (Courtesy of the John Carter Brown Library)

A Portrait of Woodes Rogers, governour of the Island of Providence during the time Anne lived in Nassau. (William Hogarth, 1729). (National Maritime Museum)

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Captain Rogers attacked by a Seal. Another depiction of Governour Woodes Rogers, demonstrating his skills and ruthlessness. (Courtesy of the John Carter Brown Library)

Captain Charles Vane from A General History of the Pyrates. Captain Vane sailed as a pirate from 1716–1721, when he was hanged in Port Royal, Jamaica. He was known to be the most violent pirate of the age. Captain Jack Rackham sailed under Vane from 1716–1718 until taking a pardon and arriving in Nassau. (The Library of Congress)

Captain ‘Calico’ Jack Rackham from A General History of the Pyrates. Rackham operated as a pirate captain from 1718 until his capture in Negril Bay, Jamaica. (Library of Congress)

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‘Historie der zee Roovers’, Hermanus Uytwerf (1725). The skull-and-crossbones flag is attributed to pirates, commonly known as the Jolly Roger. Jack Rackham is one of the few pirates to have flown the Jolly Roger on his ship to warn their victims of an impending attack. (Courtesy of the John Carter Brown Library)

Anne Bonny as a pirate. Anne is often depicted in men’s clothing with her long hair flying behind her in the wind as she aims a pistol at an unseen victim. She was frequently described as baring her breasts during battle. (Courtesy of the John Carter Brown Library)

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Mary Read as a pirate. Read was often depicted wearing men’s clothing with her long hair flying behind her. She wields a cutlass as she prepares for battle. Like Anne, she was often described as baring her breasts during battle. (Courtesy of the John Carter Brown Library)

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By his Excellency, Woodes Rogers, Esq; Governour of New-Providence, &c. A Proclamation (September, 1720). His official proclamation advised for the capture of Jack Rackham and his crew with a specific mention of Anne Bonny and Mary Read. This suggests that Mary was known as a woman before she became a pirate rather than being discovered on her pirate voyage.

Anne Bonny [left] and Mary Read [right] convicted of Piracy Novr. 28th, 1720 at St Jago de la Vega. The two women stand on an island ready for battle. They are depicted in men’s clothing but their breasts are not displayed. This image gives them a more masculine look, demonstrating their defiance of gender roles. Both women wield a sword, an axe and have their pistols stored in sashes across their chests. (Courtesy of the John Carter Brown Library)

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Mary Read Kills her Antagonist, 1837. This picture, over 100 years after he death, shows Mary [right] killing her foe by stabbing him straight through the abdomen. She is nearly unrecognizable in this image compared to 18th-century portraits in A General History of the Pyrates. She is presented as very masculine in men’s clothing with short hair and no breasts. (Library of Congress)

Anne Bonny, a Pirate (1725). This is from a second edition of A General History of the Pyrates. This image is much less famous than her earlier portrait. In this image she is much more masculine presenting as she wields both a sword and axe. This time her breasts are not on display, indicating that she is not in battle.

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Mary Read, a Pirate. This is also from the second edition of A General History of the Pyrates. Like Anne she is presented as much more masculine-looking as she holds her axe and sword. Her breasts are also hidden, suggesting that she is not in battle.

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Pirates’ Camp. Jack Rackham and his crew occasionally camped on various coastal regions in and around Jamaica. This is an artistic rendering of what a typical pirate camp looked like in the 17th century. (Met Museum)

King’s Square, St Jago de la Vega, Jamaica. This is the main square in the city where Jack Rackham, Anne Bonny, Mary Read and the rest of their crew stood trial in November 1720. (Courtesy of the John Carter Brown Library)

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St Jago de la Vega offices. This is where the Admiralty Court sat, the department with jurisdiction to capture pirates and prosecute crimes committed on all bodies of water. (Courtesy of the John Carter Brown Library)

The Trials of Jack Rackham and Other Pirates (London, 1721). This was published several months after the trial. The trial was transcribed verbatim and comes out to 24 pages. This edition was printed in Jamaica and others were soon printed in London and North America.

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The Hanging of Stede Bonnet, 1725. There are no images of Jack Rackham’s hanging in Gallows Point, Jamaica (later Rackham’s Cay). This portrait of the pirate, Stede Bonnet, is one of the best depictions of pirate hangings during the Golden Age of Piracy. Bonnet sailed with the pirate Blackbeard from 1717 to 1718 until he was arrested. He was found guilty of piracy on 10 November 1718 and hanged in Charleston, South Carolina on 10 December 1718. (Courtesy of the John Carter Brown Library)

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Captain Kidd in a Gibbet, 1701. After Jack Rackham’s execution, he was put into a gibbet and remained on display for 3 tides to serve as a warning to other pirates. There are no images of Rackham in a gibbet. This portrait of Captain William Kidd, who was executed 23 May 1701, shows him hanging in a gibbet on the Thames after his execution at Execution Dock, Wapping, London, where pirates were publicly hanged. (Met Museum)

St Catherine Parish Register, 1721, listing Mary Read’s name amongst those who were buried in St Catherine’s Parish, Jamaica. (Family Search)

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St Catherine’s Parish Register, 1733, listing the name Anne Bonny amongst those who were buried in St Catherine’s Parish in 1733. This suggests that she lived out the rest of her life in Jamaica until passing away at the approximate age of 36. (Family Search)

Summer Amusement at Margate, or a Peep at the Mermaids (Thomas Rowlandson, 1 September 1813). This images shows a group of men spying on women swimming naked for their own pleasure. This shows the sexualisation of women in relation to the sea through the male gaze. These women symbolise mermaids, mythological women of the sea who would seduce sailors and lure them to the bottom of the ocean. A woman in the back prepares to hit an older man, presumably her husband, spying the women. (Library of Congress)

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A cigarette ad featuring Anne Bonny firing upon a crew used to promote Allen & Ginter Cigarettes, 1888. (Met Museum)

A cigarette ad featuring Mary Read engaged in a duel against a Spanish sailor used to promote Allen & Ginter Cigarettes, 1888. (Met Museum)

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A cigarette ad featuring Jack Rackham firing upon a Spanish crew used to promote Allen & Ginter Cigarettes, 1888. (Met Museum)

Charles Vane, Jack Rackham and Anne Bonny portrayed by Zach McGowan, Toby Schmitz and Clara Paget in the television show Black Sails, 2014–2017, Starz. (AA Film Archive)

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Chapter 6

Pirate Queens of the Caribbean The Caribbean, in and around Jamaica, August 1720–October 1720

N

ow Rackham had his crew and he could finally fill his ship and get ready to go pirating. The new crew was ready for adventure and riches. Rackham replenished the vessel with supplies and weapons and decorated her with the ‘Jolly Roger’, the notorious flag flown by pirate ships, depicting either a devil holding a triton with the image of a bleeding heart or the more famous skull and crossbones. These were either red or black so they stood out against the sky.1 Anne was happy to be back at sea again while Mary’s enthusiasm was tempered by some trepidation. Unlike Anne, Mary never had the experience of living openly as a woman. She did not know how the male crew would accept her even though Rackham had specifically chosen her to be a member of his crew. Though this could have been due to Anne’s influence or Rackham’s need to create a crew as quickly as possible rather than merit. Even though Anne had some influence with Rackham as his wife, it was very unusual that women were allowed to participate openly on a pirate ship. Aside from the practical considerations, sailors had other reasons to ban women on ships. They were seen as a cause of bad luck, conflict, or breaches in the male social order of maritime solidarity and pirates generally avoided bringing women on board for these reasons.2 However, the idea that a woman’s presence on a ship brought bad luck is a common

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80  Pirate Queens misconception which dates as far back as the ancient Roman period. Old folk tales spoke of these ‘sirens of the sea’, describing them as dangerous and beautiful women who came out of the water to seduce sailors before dragging them to the bottom of the ocean. Since sirens were women, these legends evolved over time into a superstition that women in general were unlucky. This Roman legend, however, contradicts ancient Greek folklore, which describes water as a female element, giving women power that was denied to men. According to Greek legend, the Great Goddess of the Cretans symbolised fertility and protected sailors during their journeys. From the siren came the legends about mermaids, another female symbol in nautical folklore. The mermaid is portrayed as a beautiful symbol of death and of man’s ambivalence toward women. She was a temptress, like Eve, and her tail was said to represent the Garden of Eden while her hair symbolised an insatiable sexual appetite. Like the siren, the mermaid served to lure sailors to their death or drove them to such distraction that they would abandon their duties. The most interesting part of this is that no one knows where the tales originated. Sirens came from Rome, yes, but what inspired them? We do not know. What we do know is that over time these tales led to the idea that women would disrupt the ship’s order and bring bad luck.3 The truth was that female pirates were hardy and chaste workers without an agenda to take power away from men. If anything, their presence could create more harmony on the ship by bringing a touch of femininity that would remind the men of a maternal figure. The women, however, simply wanted to be their equal, but they have been portrayed in mythology as destroyers of men who must be stopped.4 It is difficult to know why these myths about pirate women were perpetuated. Historian Jo Stanley argues that men needed to create colourful stories of women at sea because they found it difficult to believe that women could be competent

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Pirate Queens of the Caribbean  81 seafarers. It was better to invent a character that could be placed in the realm of extraordinary wonder rather than acknowledge the existence of this reality.5 Women might not have been on the front lines in battle for the most part, but captains and lieutenants were known to bring their wives on board and even their children on occasion. They were employed to cook, clean and nurse the men, taking on the motherly role that many surely missed. In the pirate world, they would have performed these roles as well as acting as the sailors’ lovers and mothers. On land, similar to Anne’s experience in Nassau, women would have been available as prostitutes, informants about pirate hunters, suppliers, seamstresses and other forms of caretakers. Pirates did not exist in isolation, however; they existed in the world, and Anne and Mary were ready to take it on.6 There has been some mystery surrounding Mary’s identity when she made it onto Rackham’s ship. Johnson speculates that Mary may have started the voyage as Mark Read until she was ‘discovered’ in a moment of seduction from Anne. This leads us into one of the most common discussions about these two women pirates: were they lesbian lovers? According to Captain Johnson Anne did fall in love with Mary’s male identity, Mark, and the two remained very close even after Mary revealed herself. As stated earlier, their closeness was such that Rackham became filled with jealously to the point of murder. Homosexuality was both silenced and taboo. Most historians agree that the concept of homosexuality is modern because the idea of sexual identity was not fully established until the nineteenth century.7 Jo Stanley has suggested that many women who fell in love with women could not identify or understand their feelings.8 Historians of transvestism Ruldolf Dekker and Lotte van de Pol have argued that ‘it is logical that those women would think: if I covet a woman, I must be a man’.9 Lesbians may have thought that

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82  Pirate Queens cross-dressing and acting like men allowed them to love women during a time in which Europeans could not conceive of the idea of lesbianism.10 This could be why centuries of historical research have ignored the possibility that close female friends might have been, in fact, romantic. But the reason for this is quite simple: there was very little written on the subject of homosexuality, especially that between women. During the eighteenth century those who were caught engaging in same-sex relationships could be executed regardless of their gender. Women, however, were never criminalised for having sex with another woman.11 Another caveat for women was that if both women presented as female, their relationship would not be subject to suspicion, nor would it be taken seriously. Like Rackham, men did not feel threatened when a woman in female clothing openly expressed romantic feelings toward another woman in women’s clothing. The patriarchal view of the time ensured this tolerance because there was no perceived threat to the man. Sexual relations between two women were completely non-threatening because, in a man’s view, their virginity would remain intact. Sexual acts that did not involve the male seed were seen neither as a threat to masculinity nor as a priority to legislators and reformers.12 Another reason why a lesbian relationship was not seen as a complication was because women were economically dependent on men; i.e., the relationship could go nowhere. The real problem came when one of the women dressed as a man and presented herself in a masculine manner or was employed in a traditionally maledominated profession. Suddenly it seemed that the femininepresenting woman was, to all intents and purposes, having an affair with another man, so both would be severely punished.13 Lesbians at sea, therefore, would have had an easier time during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries by passing as men on pirate and other ships.14 Anne and Mary’s situation, if we believe Captain Johnson’s account, was more convoluted because while

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Pirate Queens of the Caribbean  83 both ultimately presented themselves as women, they still carried out a male profession. The first suggestion that they carried out a lesbian relationship was in a brief updated passage in the 1725 edition of A General History of the Pyrates. According to the publisher of this edition, Mary entered into piracy because she had fallen in love with Anne in Nassau.15 However, there is no other historical piece of evidence to support this. Rictor Norton, a social and literary historian who focuses on LGBTQ+ history, argues that Anne Bonny and Mary Read were ‘at most’ bisexual, but their ‘obvious enjoyment’ of cross-dressing and close friendship makes them a relevant case study to the history of the lesbian experience.16 They clearly loved each other, but whether or not it was romantic or based on friendship remains to be seen. Nonetheless, this idea eventually became accepted as fact in literature. Ideas about a possible lesbian relationship between the two did not solidify until the 1974 when feminist writer Susan Baker published an essay called ‘Anne Bonny & Mary Read: They Killed Pricks’, which detailed a lesbian relationship between the two. She uses the contemporary women’s movement’s ideas to break the silence of lesbian identities, which have been lost or ignored in historical writings. Baker cites the passage in A General History of the Pyrates that describes how Jack Rackham flew into a jealous rage when he believed Anne was having an affair with ‘Mark’ Read but then calmed down when he realised Mark’s true identity.17 This idea grew and became widely accepted as fact ever since. It has even been suggested that their sexuality was one of the reasons behind their guilty conviction and death sentences in Jamaica.18 The fact of the matter is that there is little likelihood of a romance between Anne and Mary. The most obvious reason is that they were both married to men at the time of their capture. As we have learned, despite growing up as a boy, Mary fell in love

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84  Pirate Queens with a fellow soldier and married him. Later, while in Rackham’s employ, she married another member of their crew. According to Johnson, Mary became immediately ‘smitten’ with a young man who was captured and forced into their pirate crew. Her love intensified to the point where ‘she could neither rest Night or Day’. In order to stoke his affections, she knew she had to find common ground with him. Mary made sure he only knew her as ‘Mark’ so he would be more comfortable in her company. She stole moments to speak ‘against the Life of a Pyrate, which he was altogether averse to’. This lie worked and they ‘became Mess-Mates and strict Companions’. After some time he grew to trust her as a friend so Mary took the opportunity to reveal ‘her Breasts, which were very white’. The young man was shocked but immediately became aroused at the sight of her and they started a passionate love affair. Similar to her relationship with her first husband Mary’s love and affection for this sailor was so strong that she developed a strong sense of protection towards him, despite being averse to any hint of male weakness. She even took his place in a duel against a fellow pirate after they quarreled. As was customary for pirates, they laid anchor at a nearby island to go ashore and carry out their fight. Mary was ‘uneasy and anxious’ and doubted his competence with a weapon against a skilled pirate. She did not stop the fight because she could not bear the idea of him being ‘branded with Cowardice’, so she challenged her lover’s foe by secretly arranging a duel two hours before the agreed time. There she ‘fought him at Sword and Pistol, and killed him upon the Spot,’ demonstrating that no risk was too great to come between her love for her man.19 Anne and Mary were both pregnant as they stood trial, so clearly they were having sex with men on their ship. But were the two women lovers? Similarly stated as above, the possibility is simply inconsistent with history. The most reliable details come from their trial and everything known about their inner

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Pirate Queens of the Caribbean  85 lives comes from Johnson’s biography. When the story deviates from the legitimate primary source, we know that the author has dived into fiction, which includes the interlude about a possible lesbian or polyamorous relationship.20 It is impossible to say for sure, though it would make for a good story while shining a light on valuable LGBT history often lost or misrepresented over time, which is undoubtedly why the idea persists to this day. * * * Mary’s worries were, fortunately, unfounded. Pirate ships were relatively egalitarian and places where marginalised people could escape their previous lives and begin anew. One only needed to be strong and fearless to be accepted into the crew. Mary certainly fulfilled those requirements and found no difficulty integrating. Overall, she was happy to get back out to sea and continue living her independent life. Anne and Mary were up to the challenge of living in this masculine world, both in disguise and out. They were able to because their own experiences and personalities allowed them to draw upon a long-standing tradition of female cross-dressing that was especially popular in early modern England. Female crossdressers such as Anne and Mary were generally young, single, and from humble origins. Mary had to dress as a man out of economic necessity to escape a life of servitude and make her own way independently in the world. Bonny had to because she rejected her father’s fortune and security and had chosen a life of love and adventure on the high seas.21 Rackham could not help but feel a bit curious as to why she liked the pirate life. He above all others knew about its difficulties, risks and the fact that women generally were not accepted onto ships. Mary could keep a watchful eye on Anne and knew that she had the determination to succeed as a pirate despite knowing the risks

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86  Pirate Queens of capture. Later, when Mary was imprisoned, she was asked why she was willing to go into piracy if she knew capture meant the noose. She reportedly replied: As to hanging, it is no hardship, for were it not for that, every cowardly Fellow would turn Pyrate, and so infest the Seas, that Men of Courage must starve. That if it was put to the choice of the Pyrates, they would not have the Punishment less than Death, the Fear of which to keep some dastardly Rogues honest; that many of those who are now cheating the Widows and Orphans, and oppressing their poor Neighbours, who have no Money to obtain Justice, would then rob at Sea, and the Ocean would be crowded with Rogues, like the Land, and no Merchant would venture out; so that the [Piracy], in a little Time, would not be worth following.22 There is truth in this statement. If there was no great risk, then any sailor could claim to be a pirate whether or not they were shameful cowards. By coming onto the pirate ship of her own volition rather than the privilege of having a pirate captain as a husband, Mary breached the wall of hostility towards women at sea.23 Anne did not feel any of these worries. She never had to disguise herself in order to make a living or simply survive. Whether or not she sailed to the Bahamas as a married woman or under a false name, people knew her gender and did not question it. Despite her reputation as a loose woman who seduced pirates, she was well-known as a spirited woman with little fear, which impressed her fellow pirates. The best part of her new journey was that she was free from her unhappy marriage and the tyranny of Woodes Rogers. Even if Rackham had decided women were not allowed on his ship, she would not have had to disguise herself since she was his wife. That alone allowed her more freedom and authority on the ship than she would have had on any other (had she been

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Pirate Queens of the Caribbean  87 allowed on board).24 Anne did not have a care in the world about her sex as she was self-sufficient, independent and tough. It would not be surprising if it was Anne who convinced Rackham to allow Mary to join the crew once her true gender was revealed. They knew that Rogers was on their tail. Together, the three decided it would be best to get as far away from the Bahamas as possible, so Rackham set his sights south-west for Jamaica, the former pirate haven and now one of the wealthiest islands in the Caribbean. In the eighteenth century Jamaica was considered to be one of the most important British colonies in the Americas thanks to the sugar trade. For the first time fine, granulated sugar was affordable to everyone in Europe. Sugar made up 96.4% of the colony’s exports, which included associated products such as rum and molasses.25 In 1719 sugar exports were valued up to £237,714 (the equivalent of over £28 million in 21st-century currency).26 The vast wealth coming out of the island, combined with the numerous small and rocky coves full of hiding places made this a good location for hunting booty. Fewer pirates sailed in this area than previous years, which also gave Rackham more potential pickings, but there were significant risks. Because of the island’s economic prosperity the Royal Navy expanded its control and set up active maritime courts. Waters were heavily patrolled to guard merchant ships. The decreased piracy in the region also left Rackham vulnerable because they would have less chance of help during any battles. As an experienced pirate and now a firsttime captain, he reasoned that the key to their success would be to target smaller ships. Like many other pirates, Rackham sailed a vessel that was smaller than most merchant ships. A pirate needed a fast and light ship that could withstand dangerous conditions and potential attack while providing safety and a quick getaway. The drawback, of course, was that his ship could not accommodate a

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88  Pirate Queens large enough crew to defeat that of larger, more powerful ship in battle.27 However, Rackham’s lighter, faster ship would be able to escape danger quickly and navigate through the hidden creeks, hollows, and inlets. Rackham decided the safest course would be to avoid Port Royal altogether so they set out towards Jamaica’s north-western harbours. The strategy seemed to work because they soon encountered several small ships. They attacked with no mercy and successfully robbed them, but the takings were small, leaving the pirate crew frustrated. Mary knew from her experience as a soldier and her previous pirate voyage that an angry crew could mean disaster so she advised Rackham to find a new strategy to appease the men. Gritting his teeth, Rackham made the decision to have them all lie low until better booty came along.28 By the beginning of September luck finally came to their aid. They encountered eight fishing boats off of one of Jamaica’s harbours and successfully overpowered each ship. Pirate attacks such as theirs were successful thanks to the skill of disguise. Once a merchant or fishing ship was spotted, the pirates would hail them, usually with a distress call. Once their targeted ship was too close to turn back, they would take down their distress signal and raise their Jolly Roger. By the time Rackham, Anne and Mary sailed the seas, the pirate flag was well-known throughout the West Indies. The fishermen were unprepared for a fight. The pirates brandished their weapons as they roared into battle. Mary, thanks to her military experience, led many of the charges. If not, she made her presence known with her brandished swords and pistols, Anne by her side. Anne had no military training and had few opportunities in previous pirate battles to hone her fighting skills, but she was fortunate to have Mary on board to guide her. She was more patient than Rackham and the other men, and as a woman, Mary knew she would have to be much faster, stronger,

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Pirate Queens of the Caribbean  89 fiercer and deadlier than any other on board. This was a tall order but Mary was determined to turn Anne into a successful fighter. Luckily, Anne proved to be a quick learner and absolutely fearless. Anne and Mary worked together to formulate a battle plan. There was no use in pretending that they could ever be seen as equals to everyone else on board. Any foes they came across in battle would focus their attention on capturing them and possibly even raping them. Instead of disguising themselves as men, why not embrace who they really were? They decided to wear traditional female clothing on board during peacetime to prove that nothing could hinder them in performing their duties. In battle, they would wear men’s clothing (which was, after all, more practical and allowed more freedom of movement) but they would keep their hair loose and their shirts open. Their long hair would be the first surprising sign of their femininity but their breasts would be their real weapons as they struck. No one would expect women to come charging at them in full force. Their nakedness and cross-dressing, Mary explained to Anne, would give them power and frighten their enemies into submission. Cross-dressing had a mythological component that both aroused and terrified male pirates. Maritime mythology concerning seductive mermaids and sirens influenced a view that female pirates were seen as pagan goddesses and matriarchal fantasies that had to be destroyed for men’s safety. Mythological pirate men were seen as the most virile of males. Women invading their space would diminish their maleness, especially if they came aboard assuming the men’s virility by taking on their dress.29 Jo Stanley argues that women pirates were depicted with unsheathed swords while dressed in tight clothes, which gave them ‘an erect, boyish impression’. This provoked a form of penile envy in the men, because this imagery of the female pirate reminded the men of the penis they would like to have, giving them conflicting feelings of attraction and jealousy.30 Early prints of Anne Bonny and Mary

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90  Pirate Queens Read express this anxiety about gender. They were depicted with feminine hairstyles – long, curly hair that flowed behind them in the wind – with large breasts openly displayed, while they also appeared to have facial hair stubble on their faces,31 painting them with a contradictory aggressiveness that threatened the natural social order. The fishing boats were such small prizes that, at first glance, it might seem that they were unsuccessful yet again because they only procured several nets and fishing tackle. But thanks to his tutelage under Charles Vane, Rackham was a shrewd man and had a plan. They would use the stolen goods to disguise themselves as fishermen and head to the larger nearby island of Hispaniola. They sailed into one of the French ports and befriended a few fishermen who were hunting some boar they had spotted on the coast. The pirates traded some fishing supplies for food and goods and then lured the men onto their ship for a celebratory dinner. A fight ensued and Rackham’s pirates overpowered several of the Frenchmen and forced them into the crew.32 Flush with these replenished supplies and a few fresh sailors (Johnson was not able to speculate as to whether or not the French fishermen consented to join them), they set sail back towards Jamaica. Their spirits were lifted and their energy was renewed and soon they were attacking every schooner that crossed their path.33 Anne’s fighting had improved to the point that she was Mary’s equal. The two fought side by side in their men’s clothing, their hair flowing behind them as they battled against their foes. The level of their success is unknown, but word spread in the area about a group of pirates who fought mercilessly. And what was even more shocking, people whispered, was that there were two women on board who appeared happy to fight alongside the pirates. Rackham’s reputation preceded him as word spread around Jamaica of a band of pirates that included two women, and they increased their attacks. At the same time Anne and Mary

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Pirate Queens of the Caribbean  91 had become even more notorious, thanks to the proclamation issued by Rogers demanding the capture of Rackham and the ‘female pirates’. The reason for such an intense ‘manhunt’ was also personal. Rogers was furious at their defiance as they had escaped under his watch. This made him appear weak and unable to fulfill his promise to protect the Bahamas from piracy. Anne in particular was the target of his ire since she had broken the law and escaped her marriage to join up with Rackham. Rogers’s most loyal sailor, Anne’s cuckolded husband James Bonny, continued to burn with humiliation and rage. He offered his services to hunt them down and kill them. The governor agreed and immediately supplied him with a ship and letter of marque (a legal document giving private mercenaries jurisdiction to attack specific ships) to hunt them down. Bonny was fortunate enough to team up with Charles Vane, who knew Rackham so well that he could predict his route. Together they set out, determined to succeed and get their reward, and in James’s case, revenge. Perhaps this is one of the reasons Anne dressed in men’s clothing: to avoid recognition (as was common for women who needed anonymity).34 But James Bonny would never reach his foes. He died when their ship was hit by a storm. Vane survived and changed course to pursue another path of piracy. Unfortunately for him, he would be captured and executed, on 29 March 1721 at Gallows Point, Jamaica – the same spot where Rackham would later meet his own demise.35 Activity slowed down for a bit after a series of attacks in Jamaica’s waters. Merchants and fishermen had been warned to avoid the northern coasts so once again Rackham was forced to lie low, and for the next month they hid around Harbour Bay. Generally, Rackham preferred to hunt around the coast of Jamaica because its success as a plantation island made it a prime location for trading lanes. There were plenty of opportunities for intercepting

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92  Pirate Queens merchant ships and capturing them in a quick, efficient manner.36 However, for several weeks Rackham did not come across any prize ships, leaving his crew frustrated and bored. He had to change tactics so ordered them to sail north-east. Finally, in October 1720, after meandering around the Caribbean for over a month under the hot, tropical sun with morale dropping quickly, they found a prize. They spotted the thickly-wooded coast of Hispaniola (today known as Haiti), with two British merchant ships idling near the shore, seemingly unaware of any danger. Much to Anne and Mary’s delight, Rackham ordered their ship to turn out of sight so they could attack the merchants with the advantage of surprise. According to the testimony of James Dobbin, one of the sailors on these British ships, Rackham and his crew came upon them and boarded the ship before the merchants could attempt to defend themselves. Dobbin was shocked when two women dressed as men, their hair flowing wildly around them, giving them almost an otherworldly, ethereal appearance, emerged in the battle. Anne and Mary cursed and swore with more ferocity than any of the other pirates, and their shirts were open, exposing their breasts for all to see. Their decision to fight partially naked was not meant to be sexual; they used their femininity to defy their enemy’s expectations of pirates. Two women, forced to either hide or submit to restricted social norms, were now taking back their womanhood to show the world that they were not slaves to domesticity. Their fighting skills were equal to or even better than the men, and their ferocity was unmatched. Their language was a signal that they had no fear of anyone or any consequence. Like the terrible beauty of the sirens, this vision was indescribable. Dobbins had never encountered women who behaved in such a manner, and he and the other merchants were stunned into submission. Anne and Mary’s strategy had worked and the British merchants immediately surrendered, which suited the pirates. It was a major

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Pirate Queens of the Caribbean  93 disadvantage for pirates to lose any of their crew during an attack. Thankfully, both sides escaped without any casualties. Anne was pleased with herself because she finally proved to herself and Mary that she had mastered her weapons. Mary was extremely impressed by Anne’s fast improvement with her fighting skills, and Rackham and his men were blown away by how effective Anne and Mary’s strategy proved to be. These two women would help them become unstoppable. This battle would prove to be the success the pirates needed to spur them forward. They managed to take both merchant ships, which contained ‘apparel and tackle of them, worth about £1,000 of current money of Jamaica’.37 It would also be their most lucrative attack. That month they were only able to capture another two vessels. Rackham and his crew continued to sail around Jamaica, confident that they would find more booty to capture. They were not wrong. On 19 October they came across a small schooner, The Neptune, off the coast of Porto Maria Bay. The little vessel was on its own, making it particularly vulnerable, and captained by a man named Thomas Spenlow. Rackham ordered his men to shoot with ‘small fire’ from their muskets and pistols to intimidate Spenlow into surrendering. This battle would be much more disappointing after their plunder earlier in the month. This time there was only one ship to take and the pirates managed to get away with just the schooner, fifty rolls of tobacco and nine bags of allspice, worth only £20 in Jamaican currency. To make up for this sad collection, Rackham ordered his men to take Spenlow captive and forced The Neptune to follow. They held Spenlow below-deck for the next forty-eight hours. The next day they ran into a complication that would come back to haunt them a month later. Rackham came upon what he thought was a schooner in the distance, but turned out to be

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94  Pirate Queens a simple canoe. With two major plunders under his belt, he felt that no person at sea stood a chance against him. Anne and Mary advised him to move on. What use could a simple canoe be? He ignored them and ordered his ship to overtake the tiny boat. As they approached, they discovered it was being operated by just one person: a woman named Dorothy Thomas. Once again, Anne and Mary demanded that Rackham sail on and leave her alone, but he ignored them. He captured Dorothy and dragged her onto the ship and interrogated her. Dorothy was alone and absolutely terrified. Pirates were known to abuse female captives physically and sexually,38 though it is unknown if Rackham and his men actually did this. Dorothy’s reasons for sailing alone in a canoe are unknown, but she carried some valuable items, which Rackham managed to steal. He decided to show mercy and said he would release her, but Anne and Mary were furious and demanded that Rackham let them kill her. ‘If we are caught, she could testify against us at trial’, they insisted.39 Dorothy had the perfect view of every single pirate on board, and seeing two women amongst the crew would make them even more memorable. Much to their ire, Rackham ignored their demands and let Dorothy go. This did not bode well. Their captain had put them in very real danger. Rackham forgot about the matter when, later that day, they managed to capture a merchant ship, the Mary and Sarah, lying off the coast of Dry Harbour Bay, Jamaica, and captained by Thomas Dillon. Another big fight broke out with poor Spenlow trapped in the hold. Rackham fired a gun at the ship and within minutes Dillon and his crew jumped into the boats and headed towards the shore. Rackham’s crew, including Anne and Mary, began firing at the boats to try to stop their escape. Dillon realised that they would be caught, so he decided to hail Rackham in order to stop the fight and negotiate. One of the pirates, George Featherstone, shouted that they were English pirates and the crew need not be

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Pirate Queens of the Caribbean  95 afraid because they would not be harmed. After some hesitation, Dillon and his men turned back and sailed to their ship. Rackham was true to his word, not a single man was harmed, but he made sure that the pirates ransacked the ship thoroughly. This time the monetary reward was considerable, about £300 worth of Jamaican currency, but no goods, and they now had a third ship under their command. Dillon and his men were captured and imprisoned on board.40 Spenlow was released from captivity the day after the Mary and Sarah was captured. He was even more fortunate in that Rackham was courteous enough to give him back his schooner. After all, what did Rackham need with a small vessel now that he caught another merchant ship? However, Dillon would prove to be a key witness at Rackham’s trial in November. He was particularly struck by Anne and Mary’s presence on the ship, especially when they turned out to be the fiercest pirates on the ship. Dillon later testified that Anne Bonny had a gun in her hand and she and Mary ‘were both very profligate, cursing and swearing much, and very ready and willing to do anything on board.’41 In addition to fighting, Anne worked as a powder monkey to help the men fire the cannons, which shocked their victims even more.42 Anne and Mary were frequently described as having their hair flowing wildly behind them, opening their shirts to bear their breasts, and firing their guns at will. Pistols were the guns of choice for pirates in battle. Unlike muskets, they worked at close range and were not cumbersome with constant reloading. They were not perfect, however. They could only be fired once, but they also made an excellent club with which to fight. Anne and Mary compensated for this challenge by wearing several pistols in battle. In addition, they were described as waving cutlasses. These were also a weapon of choice for pirates. They were similar to a sword but smaller, and had a short, sturdy blade with a strong, protective

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96  Pirate Queens hilt that allowed for good balance and accuracy. Plus, their small size made them ideal for safekeeping in a pirate’s belt. They were great for cuts, thrusts, and parries, and with the right skill could easily finish off their victim after the pistol smoke cleared.43 Like the pistol, the cutlass was essential for close combat and even in the heat of battle a pirate could still control their cutlass and have it ready and armed.44 Why not a sword? They were simply too long and required specific footwork and sophisticated technique to use effectively. Anne and Mary’s dress was a source of intense interest. Dorothy Thomas, in particular, was shocked at seeing two women on board in their men’s clothes with their shirts open. She would later comment that she definitely knew they were women due to the ‘largeness of their breasts’.45 She is the only witness to specify the size of Anne and Mary’s breasts, which suggests that they may have seemed larger than usual, which would end up being very significant in her statements. Later at their trial Anne and Mary would reveal that they were both pregnant at the same time. This makes sense for both of them because most women of the time became pregnant very soon after marriage, or at least at the start of sexual activity,46 as there was little contraception available. Sometimes herbs such as saffern or pennyroyal were used to prevent pregnancy, which would have been boiled and sweetened and taken as a tea.47 But these were rare items and would have been impossible to find in the Caribbean. The most common form of contraception was the withdrawal method, which was also not a guarantee.48 Since both of them set sail together and had relationships at the same time, it is totally plausible for their pregnancies to coincide. The unusual size of their breasts in battle would also be a sign of their pregnancy as women’s breasts grow during the first trimester. Another point of interest is that, according to Spenlow, they changed out of their men’s clothes into dresses when they were

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Pirate Queens of the Caribbean  97 not engaged in any fighting. The most common way women hid their pregnancies was by wearing full skirts and aprons that would conceal their bellies through their third trimester.49 Not only that, even in this condition Anne and Mary were allowed to have full agency over their bodies because they both finally had the choice to display their true selves without any risk to their lives.50 These successes were short-lived, however. Rackham became cocky and began to act recklessly. Instead of picking and choosing victims that guaranteed success, he ordered chase and attack on any ship that came into their path regardless of their size or number of guns they had. Generally, a pirate wanted to minimise their risk in order to maximise their profit. Yes, this required them to take extreme risks and daring to get as many goods as possible, but they had to be very calculated in determining which risk was worth the attack and would guarantee them the highest monetary gain.51 Rackham was not making any tactical calculations, and this would be his downfall. To make matters worse, with Woodes Rogers’ warrant out for their arrest, another governour issued his own proclamation to capture Jack Rackham and his crew: the governour of Jamaica, Sir Nicholas Lawes. He hired a former pirate-turned privateer named Jean Bondavais who was infamous for attacking numerous Spanish fleets during his pirate days. As a former pirate, Bondavais knew all the hideouts, coves and sailing lanes that Rackham would be likely to use, and he caught up with him off the coast of Jamaica, where he was trying to get new recruits. Rather than making a run for it or at least disguising his identity, knowing full well he was a wanted man, Rackham wasted no time in firing upon Bondavais’s ship. The pirate hunter, surprisingly, was woefully unprepared for a battle so retreated back to Jamaica. There he ran into a famed pirate hunter named Captain Jonathan Barnet, who had a commission to chase down pirates in and around Jamaica and had spent time hunting Rackham with his own small fleet.52

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98  Pirate Queens Captain Jonathan Barnet was an experienced and hardened seaman. He had worked as a pirate hunter for years and was determined to rid the Caribbean of as many pirates as possible. He chased relentlessly and was often merciless. Before his career as a pirate hunter, he served the governor of Jamaica, Archibald Hamilton, as a privateer for over five years, during which time he became very familiar with pirates’ methods and hideouts. Like all privateers, Barnet was paid in the goods he stole from pirate ships. That meant he knew which items were most commonly desired and stolen. This gave him information about where they had been active and where they were likely headed. If he did not know where a certain pirate shielded himself, Barnet could deduce the location based on his previous knowledge. A shrewd man and determined man, he even hunted Governor Hamilton behind his back and discovered that Jamaica’s leader secretly traded with pirates. Barnet provided proof of Hamilton’s misdeeds to the Admiralty Court, and his patron was promptly removed as governor, effectively ending his career. This was no different when he was charged to find Jack Rackham and his company of female pirates. He was more than happy to do so because Rackham was very high on the list of most-wanted pirates thanks to Woodes Rogers’s publicity tactics to bring him down. Rackham breaking his pardon to steal the William out of Nassau, in addition to the other reasons, made Rogers determined to avenge him.53 Barnet knew he would benefit very nicely after he captured this ship. Barnet spent some time hanging around Nassau and other places known for pirate activity. He befriended sailors in taverns and inns, and over friendly conversation and drinks was able to extract gossip about some of the more infamous pirates. Finally, while in Port Royal, Jamaica (once the largest pirate stronghold in the West Indies), he got the information he was looking for. Word of his attacks had spread along the coast thanks to warnings from

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Pirate Queens of the Caribbean  99 Captain Thomas Spenlow, Dillon and Dorothy Thomas. With this information, and having prior knowledge of pirate hideouts and an extensive geographic familiarity with the coastline, Barnet surmised that Captain Rackham had taken his loot and sailed into a cove in Negril’s Bay just off the coast of Jamaica. He immediately mobilised his crew to set out toward Jamaica. By happenstance, Barnet encountered Jean Bondevais. They decided to become a team and together they sailed toward Negril’s Point.54 Negril Bay was not too hard to locate as it was only a few hours away by ship from Port Royal. From a safe distance they finally spotted a black ship that lay in a small cove just offshore. This was a bit of a surprise because the location was not exactly a secure hiding place. The bay was thick with mosquitos, making them susceptible to illness such as malaria, and the coast was a four-mile stretch of sand and swamp. They would be extremely uncomfortable and vulnerable to any passer-by. Something must have happened because Rackham would have to be desperate or ignorant of their exposure to take shelter there. This was perfect for Captain Barnet, however, and it would hopefully be an easy capture. He decided that the best time to attack would be at night with the element of surprise providing him with a huge advantage over Rackham…The pirate captain would not have the time to arrange a counter-attack. Not only that, Barnet was convinced that he could minimise his losses and damages in whatever type of battle that ensued.55 And so Barnet and Bondavais anchored their ships just out of sight and settled down to wait. In the meantime, Rackham and his crew were celebrating their recent wins. Wine and rum flowed freely as they all sang songs, smoked, laughed and played raucous pranks on each other. In Rackham’s view, Negril Point was the perfect place to hide because who would bother sailing into such a place? He had developed a grandiose confidence and was naturally convinced

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100  Pirate Queens that no one would ever find him in these isolated coves. But as the crew continued to drink copiously, Anne and Mary both became angrier and angrier, especially with Jack Rackham. The women were not stupid. They knew that Rogers had likely set out pirate hunters after them once they left Nassau. That was why they sailed toward Jamaica in the first place. But now that they had captured several ships and let a ship’s captain and woman go free, who knew how long it would take for them to be found? It was one thing for another captain to report them as he himself might be accused of piracy, so they felt that Spenlow was less of a threat. Dorothy Thomas, on the other hand, was their main cause for concern. An innocent and defenseless woman out for a casual paddle in her canoe would surely be believed. All it took was one trip to the local Admiralty office and they were done for. The two women anxiously roamed the deck keeping a lookout. They had warned Rackham repeatedly that he was becoming too rash and that their hunters could easily catch up with them if he was not careful. Rackham did not heed their warnings. Sea captains, on the whole, were not easily overruled. Their focus was on their goal, which in this case was gaining and celebrating their spoils.56 So while he and his crew fell deeper into a raucous drunken stupor, Anne and Mary were keeping guard alone. Barnet and his crew could hear the sounds of celebration, but they decided to wait until a few hours after it was pitch dark when the pirates would most likely be too drunk to fight properly. At around ten o’clock, Barnet gave the orders, ‘Out with all your sails, a steady man at the helm, sit close to keep her steady […] Ho, we gather on him.’ Rackham was within perfect hailing distance. ‘Is all ready?’ Barnet called out to his crew. ‘Every man to his charge. Dowse your sail, salute him for the sea. Hail him!’57 The men cheered at this and they sailed in to close the gap between their ships. Once Rackham’s ship came into view, he raised the British flag as a warning and shouted, ‘Strike immediately to the King of

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Pirate Queens of the Caribbean  101 England’s colours!’ Anne and Mary shouted to the crew that they had been spotted and were under attack. The pirates’ laughter died and was replaced with angry murmurs. The women urged them to shut up and grab weapons. They ignored her and one of the pirates shouted back, ‘We will strike no strikes!’58 It was no use. Much to Anne and Mary’s horror, they would have no choice but to fight against a pirate hunter when the majority of the men were too drunk to stand. Captain Barnet demanded them to name their captain. Anne urged her husband to negotiate and avoid any chance of battle but he ignored. Rackham ran up to the helm and shouted, ‘Jack Rackham from Cuba!’59 He removed his hat and gave a mock bow. Barnet gave the signal to prepare the guns but first called to Rackham to surrender for quarters. Rackham was not one to give up a fight, nor was he a man who would be able to stand wounded pride. Instead of taking this chance of a peaceful surrender, Rackham declared that they would give no quarter nor take any. This would be a fight to the death. Ignoring Anne and Mary’s insistence that they could not win this fight, Rackham gave the orders to prepare the guns and ready themselves for battle. The men scrambled to get their weapons, stumbling and swearing all the way. It would be no use – none of them would be able to fire a weapon properly. By some miracle, they managed to load their swivel gun and fire upon Barnet’s ship.60 The battle had begun. Anne and Mary ran amongst the crew handing them guns and swords while shouting orders to get them into position. As chaos reigned, Barnet gave his men the command to fire the swivel gun. Before anyone could react, a cannonball shot through the side of Rackham’s ship with a deafening boom, scattering several men and wounding and killing a few others. Splinters of wood flew everywhere and screams pierced the air as everyone attempted to prevent damage to their eyes. When the air settled, Anne shouted at Rackham to give orders to officially

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102  Pirate Queens attack. He just stood there, eyes wide with fear and shaking in a drunken panic. With a sinking heart, Anne knew they were doomed. Rackham, a man who never shied away from any fight, lost his resolve. He ordered every man to hide below deck. The men darted about in confusion and began to head below. Anne’s sadness was immediately replaced with white-hot rage. She took up their weapons and began shouting at the crew to stay on deck. Mary would not allow anyone to shy away from their duty to defend their ship. ‘If there’s a man among ye, ye’ll come up and fight like the man ye are to be!’ she shouted to them. They ignored her cry and continued running down the stairs. Some shouted back at her to call for a surrender. Mary gripped her weapons and let out a roar of frustration. She should have expected this. Despite young men’s need for adventure, their enthusiasm and courage would ultimately leave them during battle, especially if they were inexperienced.61 In her rage, she fired her pistol several times into the hold, wounding some of the men and killing at least one.62 The two women readied themselves, weapons brandished, hair flying behind them and shirts open. Neither of them was a coward and nor would they suffer anyone else to be. They were prepared to fight to their death, even against overwhelming odds. Captain Barnet and his men easily boarded the ship and engaged the women in a brutal combat. The fight was lost before it began, but Anne and Mary fought harder than they had ever fought in their lives. All of Barnet’s crew knew that there were two fierce women on Rackham’s ship, but they were still so surprised at their ferocity that several did not even lift their weapons. They just watched in awe as Anne and Mary swung their swords and fired their pistols, hair whipping around them and shining like silk in the moonlight. Their breasts on full display to show off their power and resolve. Later, Barnet would admit that he was most impressed with how they fought and declared them to be the bravest and toughest opponents he had ever faced.

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Pirate Queens of the Caribbean  103 Anne and Mary were quickly subdued, overwhelmed by the sheer numbers against them, and the ship was lost. They fell to their knees as their hands were tied behind their backs. Several of Barnet’s sailors kicked open the door and disappeared downstairs, where loud yells erupted. Several moments later, Anne and Mary’s fellow pirates were led one by one above deck and taken as prisoners onto Barnet’s ship. Rackham was the last to emerge. He barely met Anne’s eyes but the loathing on her face was enough to burn anyone who looked at her. The next day Barnet sailed back into Port Royal and turned over Anne, Mary, Rackham, and the rest of the Revenge’s crew to Major Richard James, a local militia officer, who took them to the Admiralty Court. The Admiralty officials charged them with piracy, clapped them in irons and gave the orders to send them to Spanish Town where they would await their fate in prison, commonly referred to as the gaol.

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Chapter 7

The Trial of Anne Bonny and Mary Read St Jago de la Vega, Jamaica, November, 1720

A

nne Bonny, Mary Read and Jack Rackham were transported to St Jago de la Vega (also known as Spanish Town), Jamaica. They knew that if they were found guilty, they would be publicly hanged and then strung up in a gibbet for all to see for an indefinite amount of time. Words cannot describe how Anne must have felt as her hands were tied. Rackham pleaded with her, begging forgiveness, but she turned her back on him. All her life she fought and scraped her way to independence and complete agency and now thanks to this despicable coward it had been stripped away after just two short months. As she looked down at her bound wrists, she saw not just the ropes and irons, but the threat of an imminent death at just twenty-three years of age. She stared ahead with steely determination, refusing to acknowledge her husband’s presence. He was dead to her. Mary was much more pragmatic about the situation. Her husband meant nothing to her anymore, which was fine. She did not need him. Yes, she loved him or else she would never have stepped in and fought a duel in his stead, but his betrayal and cowardice in battle was the end of the line for her. Years of violent life had taught her to always be prepared for death at any point, but she would have much rather died in battle than by the hangman’s noose. She also knew that the likelihood of not receiving a death sentence was slim, but that did not mean she had to accept it.

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The Trial of Anne Bonny and Mary Read   105 Rackham sat in stunned silence at this turn of events. He never imagined his captaincy would end after just two months. If only his wife and that other woman had obeyed his orders and gone down into the hold with them. Barnet might never have been able to capture them. Or maybe they should have been more convincing when they urged him to slow down on their attacks. Why weren’t the other men brave enough to fight? This tragic turn of events was not his fault. Over and over, he cried and pleaded with Anne to forgive him. If she did then everything would be okay. It would mean he was not a coward, that this was not his failure alone. But his young wife refused to answer his pleas. When his begging and tears elicited no response, he began shouting in rage, spewing violent epithets in an effort to project his despair onto someone else. All the while, none of his men spoke. Rackham was utterly alone. All any of them could do was sit silently as they sailed toward their destination, Port Royal, where they would face their judgement. When they arrived they were dragged off the ship and carted several miles away before being taken to a prison. The men shared cells while Anne and Mary were separated and forced to sit alone and wait until they were called forth. After the Royal Navy had taken control of Jamaica in 1692, just after the great earthquake destroyed most of Port Royal, the majority of pirate trials took place in St Jago de la Vega, which housed the West Indies Admiralty Court to oversee the laws of the ocean. These trials were presided over by the chief justice and four assistant judges.1 For decades beforehand, all pirates were shipped back to England to await trial and execution, but by the turn of the eighteenth century they had become so numerous that it was not economically viable to continue this practice.2 The solution was to establish Admiralty Courts in their Caribbean and North American colonies to try pirates exactly the same way it would

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106  Pirate Queens have been done in England. Jamaica even had the same legal definition of piracy as Britain: ‘All Treasons, Felonies, Piracies, Robberies, Murthers or Confederacies committed upon the Sea, or in any Haven, or Bay, where the Admiral hath Jurisdiction, shall be inquired, tried and adjudged within this Island as if such offence had been committed on the Land.’3 Jamaica also had its own Admiralty Court to try and execute pirates since 1678 so they were well-practised in the matter.4 Pirate trials were not intended merely to punish these criminals; they were also expressions of social and economic power: the need to move goods freely without risk, maintain proper social order, protect the nation against aggression, and to make sure that as much wealth as possible was kept in the hands of those who created it.5 Rackham, like all pirates before and after him, was to be made an example of to those who turned to this life of crime. The time had come to put the pirates on trial, which would be held in the courts at St Jago de la Vega. The prisoners were being held in Middlesex Prison, the only jail in Jamaica until the late eighteenth century. It was a crowded, miserable place, once described as ‘pestilential’.6 On 16 November the male members of Jack Rackham’s crew, including himself, were taken onto the stand to face the court. Sir Nicholas Lawes decided to preside over the trial since he had issued one of the proclamations to capture Rackham. He served with eight counsellors including Chief Justice William Needham. Also included were Captain Vernon, Commander in Chief of His Majesty’s Ships of War in Jamaica, and Captain Davers, another commander of the king’s ships. The pirates knew that they had no chance of escaping a death sentence with presiding captains. Lawes began the trial by reading the king’s proclamation, An Act for the Effectual Suppression of Piracy, as was custom when laying out piracy charges.

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The Trial of Anne Bonny and Mary Read   107 All Piracies, Felonies and Robberies committed in or upon the Sea, or in any Haven, River, Creek or Place, where the Admiral or Admirals have Power, Authority or Jurisdiction, may be Examined, Enquired of, Tryed, Heard, and Determined and Adjudged, according to the Directions of the said Act, in any Place at Sea, or upon the Land, in any of his said late Majesty’s Islands, Plantations, Colonies, Dominions, Forts or Factories to be appointed for that purpose, but His said late Majesty’s Commission or Commissions under the Great Seal of England, or the Seal of the Admiralty of England […] which said Commissioners should have full Power jointly or severally [...] to commit safe Custody, and Person or Persons against whom Information of Piracy, Robbery, or Felony upon the Sea, should be given upon Oath [...] And it is thereby further enacted, That such Persons called and assembled as aforesaid, should have full Power and Authority [...] to issue Warrants for bringing any Persons accused of Piracy or Robbery before them, to be tryed, heard and adjudged, to summon Witnesses [...] and to do all Thigns necessary for the Hearing, and final Determination of any Case of Piracy, Robbery or Felony; and to give Sentence and Judgment of Death.7 Jack Rackham, George Featherston, Richard Corner, John Davies, John Howell, Patrick Carty, Thomas Earl, James Dobbin and Noah Harwood were taken to the bar and read the following articles against them: That they, the said [pirates] [...] on the high Sea in a certain Sloop of an unknown name, being; did Solemnly and Wickedly consult, and agree together, to Rob, Plunder and Take, all such Persons, as well Subjects of our said Lord the King that now is, as others in Peace and Amity with his said Majesty, which they should meet with on the high Sea, and in execution of their said Evil Designs, afterwards [...] with force

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108  Pirate Queens and Arms, &c upon the high Sea...within the Jurisdiction of this Court, did Piratically, Feloniously, and in a Hostile manner, Attack, Engage, and Take, seven certain FishingBoats [...] and then and then Piratically, and Feloniously, did make an Assault, in and upon certain Fishermen, Subjects of our said Lord the King.8 After hearing the rest of the short history of their career, the pirates were asked what they had to say. They all pleaded not guilty. It was time to bring forth the witnesses against them. The first man called to the stand was their victim, Thomas Spenlow, from Port Royal. He retold the story of how Rackham and his crew boarded his ship and took fifty rolls of tobacco and nine bags of allspice and then held Spenlow and his crew hostage for forty-eight hours. Spenlow was also able to offer evidence about how Rackham took Thomas Dillon’s sloop and fired several cannons at Dillon. ‘He saw the Prisoners at the Bar, in their own Pirate Sloop, attack Dillon’s Sloop, and fired several great Guns at her, and afterwards boarded her, and took her, and carried her with them to Sea.’ After Spenlow came Peter Cornelian and John Besnick. They were Frenchmen so one of the lawyers, James Burr, stood in as their translator. As witnesses to the attack on Spenlow’s ship, they were able to confirm all of the crimes Rackham committed. They described how they were ‘taken off the Shoar of the Island of Hispaniola in America [...] by the Prisoners at the Bar, in a Canoa, or Pettiago, and afterwards were by them put on Board a Sloop at Sea, commanded by one Rackham, the Prisoner at the Bar, and forced by him and his Crew to go with them.’ Finally, James Spatchears of Port Royal came to the stand and told the whole story about how Captains Barnet and Bondavais fired upon and ultimately captured Rackham and his crew in Negril’s Point.

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The Trial of Anne Bonny and Mary Read   109 After the witnesses offered their evidence against them, the pirates were asked if they had any defence to make or if they had any witnesses who had already been sworn and cross-examined that could speak in their favour. Unfortunately, no one had any witnesses able to speak for them as all of those who knew them in a favourable light were together on the stand. All they could do was insist that they were not guilty of any acts of piracy, ‘whereunto they all of them answered [...] That their Design was against Spaniards’ to protect English ships, but the court responded that those were ‘such-like frivolous and trifling Excuses’. The pirates were led away and the court took all of the evidence against them and their statement into consideration. After a short time: the Court had unanimously found them all Guilty of the Piracy, Robbery and Felony, charged against them: And being severally asked, Whether they, or any of them had any Thing to say or offer, Why Sentence of Death should not pass upon them, for their said Offences? And they, nor any of them offering any Thing material; His excellency the President pronounced Sentence of Death upon them in the following words: “You Jack Rackham, George Featherston, Richard Corner, John Davies, John Howell, Patrick Carty, Thomas Earl, James Dobbin, and Noah Harwood, are to go from hence to the Place from whence you came, and from thence to the Place of Execution; where you, shall severally be hanged by the Neck, ‘till you are severally Dead. And God of His infinite Mercy be merciful to every one of your souls.”9 Jamaican legal proceedings required death sentences to be carried out within twenty-eight days of sentencing. The exception to this rule was, of course, for pirates who had to be executed within ten days of their verdict.10

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110  Pirate Queens All of the pirates were devastated and terrified, especially Rackham. The court decided to hang them on 18 November, only two days after their trial. All Rackham wanted was to speak to his wife for some measure of comfort before his death. After begging the guards, he finally got his wish on the morning of his execution. Before he was taken to the scaffold, he asked to speak to Anne. She was taken out of her cell and led to his. He tearfully begged for forgiveness for his cowardice. He wanted only one comforting word from his wife before he met his end at the gallows and hanged from the gibbet. Anne looked at him and after a moment said, ‘I am sorry to see you here, but if you had fought like a man you need not hang like a dog.’11 At that, she was led back to her cell. Her scornful words would reverberate through history, cementing her position as one of the toughest pirates of all time.12 Rackham and four members of his crew met their deaths on Deadman’s Cay at Gallows Point, where they all hanged from their gibbets. Their bodies were strung up to serve as a warning to other would-be pirates and the place became so infamous that it was later renamed Rackham’s Cay.13 The whole process was humiliating and tragic. Because the law stated that all pirates must be tried and executed as if they were in England, Rackham and the crew had to undergo a public execution. These were not simply meant to carry out a death sentence. They were social events intended to punish a criminal and send a message to the audience. Hundreds of people would attend these executions to see a particular pirate in person. Many criminals were executed at the actual place of their crime, but if this was not possible they were taken to a place that symbolised the location. In Rackham’s case, Deadman’s Cay stood in for his piracy in the Caribbean Sea. He and his crew would be led to their place of execution where they would have to give a ‘last dying speech’ in which they atoned for their crimes, begged forgiveness and warned the audience against

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The Trial of Anne Bonny and Mary Read   111 going down their path. A religious official, either a minister or spiritual advisor, would give a sermon and then the noose would be placed around their neck. The hanging itself would be a horrific event, described as ‘deathtorture’: ‘the art of maintaining life by pain, but subdividing it into a “thousand deaths”.’14 The noose was shorter for pirates, which meant that their necks often would not break immediately. The victim was forced to dangle until either his neck finally broke from the pressure, or, worse, until he strangled to death. Sometimes this agony could last up to an hour. The pirate’s limbs would jerk uncontrollably during this struggle, which became known as the ‘Marshall’s Dance’ after the Admiralty marshals. If there was a crowd of friends or sympathisers they might pull on the pirate’s legs to break his neck and end his misery. One of the most terrifying prospects, however, was that pirates were denied an official burial. Their immortal soul would never have the chance for real redemption, no matter how much they repented publicly.15 Ten days later, on 28 November, Anne and Mary came to the stand and faced their own trial. From the outset, there would be no mercy for them based on their sex. If anything, their lives as pirates made the situation even worse for them because they openly defied their gender roles. Disrupting the gender hierarchy essentially turned everyone’s world upside down.16 Women who stepped out of their prescribed status, especially those who made a point of emphasising their deviance by wearing men’s clothes and fighting to the death, were seen as threatening to the traditional relationships between men and women and to the entire social order.17 There is a reason why their jury was made up entirely of men. Together, they shocked and appalled their audience as pirates but even more so as dangerous women. Not only did they dress as men, fight with weapons and swear more than the men, they bore their breasts to shock their victims into submission. This emphasised the view that women were seen as more ‘disorderly’

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112  Pirate Queens as men. There was a common view that women were ruled by the physical body rather than a rational capacity,18 and their nudity was proof that they were ruled by base, animalistic instincts. Just like with their male crewmates, the opening statement described their actions as being ‘felonious’ and ‘wicked’, and their attacks delivered through ‘evil designs’. Similar to the witch trials of old, their jurors would have likely had superstitious views about women who indulged their ‘dark passions’.19 After their crimes were read to them, they were asked if they were guilty of ‘the said piracies, robberies, and felonies, or any of them, in the said articles mention’d, which had been read unto them. Or not guilty?’ to which they both pleaded, ‘Not guilty’.20 The first witness who came forward was Dorothy Thomas, the very same woman they had warned Rackham about. Sure enough, as they foretold, she was ready to seal their fate. According to the trial transcript, Dorothy described them as: Two Women … [who] wore Mens Jackets and Long Trouserz, and Handkerchiefs tied about their Heads, and that each of them had a Machet and Pistol in their hands, and cursed and swore at the Men, to murther the Deponent; and that they should kill her, to prevent her coming against them; and the Deponent further said, That the Reason of her knowing and believing them to be Women then was, by the largeness of their Breasts. Besneck and Cornelian returned to the stand and declared that ‘they were very active on Board, and willing to do any Thing.’ Anne appeared to be one of the leaders because she gave the men gunpowder and issued instructions of where to shoot. They wore men’s clothing while fighting but women’s clothing during downtime. They swore that Anne and Mary were willing pirates and ‘that they did not seem to be kept, or detain’d by Force, but of their own Free-Will and Consent.’ Dillon’s statement confirmed the Frenchman’s observations.

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The Trial of Anne Bonny and Mary Read   113 Anne and Mary were asked if they had any witnesses and both answered no. After a quick deliberation, the court ‘unanimously agreed that Mary Read and Ann Bonny, alias Bonn, were both of them Guilty, of the Piracies, Robberies, and Felonies, charged against them in the Third and Fourth Articles, of the Articles aforesaid.’21 After the witnesses finished describing Anne and Mary’s attacks, they were asked if they had anyone who would come to the stand to defend their character, but all of their friends were in jail. Mary’s first husband was dead and she had not seen her mother for years. Anne’s first husband, unbeknownst to her, was lying at the bottom of Davy Jones’s locker at the hand of Charles Vane, and her father had disowned her. There was no one they could call who could be sworn in and cross-examined. If they did not have anybody, were they prepared to interrogate their accusers or have anyone do that for them in their stead? This was their last chance to defend themselves. To everyone’s surprise, they both said they had no witnesses and no questions of their own to ask against their accusers, thus sealing their fate. Unfortunately, at least for Anne, if she was able to be tried with her second husband, Jack Rackham, she could have been spared a death sentence because women were often acquitted for acting ‘under the direction’ of their husbands.22 They were pronounced guilty of piracy almost immediately. Did either of them have anything to say? Did they have any reason why they should not receive the death sentence? Once again, they both answered no. And so their sentence was delivered: ‘You Mary Read, and Ann Bonny, alias Bonn, are to go from hence to the Place from whence you came, and from thence to the Place of Execution; where you shall be severally hang’d by the Neck, ‘till you are severally Dead. And God of His infinite Mercy be merciful to both of your Souls.’ Despite their actions and notoriety as pirates (and therefore thieves and murderers), it was extremely unusual for women to be

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114  Pirate Queens convicted murder let alone actually receive the death sentence. In general, women were much more likely than men to be acquitted by the trial jury. About half of accused men were acquitted while women were let off about seventy-five per cent of the time. That said, it is important to note that the same proportion of women as men were put on trial, but only twenty per cent of those were actually executed for murder despite a guilty conviction.23 The fact that Anne and Mary were both given the death sentence stems from the fact that they committed crimes against the State, which automatically resulted in a public hanging regardless of gender. As pirates, they were guilty of treason, murder, and robbery, so even though they were both married and could be considered to be under the influence of their husbands and therefore not in their right minds, they were held completely responsible for their actions.24 Then came a twist no one saw coming. Anne and Mary had their own trick up their sleeves to rescue the situation. After their judgement was declared and asked if they had anything to stay, they both stood up and announced that they were both pregnant and ‘prayed that Execution of the Sentence might be stayed’.25 What is most interesting is they both had the opportunity to announce this before they received their official sentence, but instead, by waiting until after their sentences had been delivered, they put themselves into a position of mercy. Who would execute a pregnant woman? Announcing this before their final sentencing would force them to plead for mercy. By waiting until after the final pronouncement was read aloud, they were able to request a stay of execution. It worked, which was only to be expected. In general, a judge was likely to give a woman a stay of execution should they prove to be pregnant after an examination. If so, their hanging would be put off until after the birth of their child, though in reality the execution did not actually happen very often.26 ‘Pleading their

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The Trial of Anne Bonny and Mary Read   115 bellies’ was a popular tactic for women to escape death penalties (only if they were actually pregnant, of course). The majority of women in this case would be subject to an examination by a jury of matrons. If she were found to be ‘quick with child’, her execution would be delayed until after the birth. Often the woman’s sentences would be reduced to transportation instead. In some cases, women attempted to get pregnant in prison to escape an execution by offering themselves to a jailer or male visitors.27 The ‘largeness of their breasts’ and the ‘quickening’, or when they first felt their child move in their bellies, means that they were at least four months pregnant at the time of their trial and fought as pirates during their first trimesters. This suggests that both Anne and Mary became pregnant before they ever set sail, further proving that Mary did not come on board disguised as a man. Anne and Mary women were escorted back to their cells without a date for execution. Little did they know that this would be the last time they would ever see each other. In April 1721 Mary fell ill. She developed a high fever and received no medical care, which led to what was known as ‘prison fever’, more commonly called typhus today. Typhus is a disease that causes the body to waste away unless the sick person is able to ingest a large amount of protein. Her diet was crucial to survival, especially since she was pregnant, but in prison she would not receive a balanced nutritional intake and so her condition worsened.28 This, combined with the poor conditions of her jail cell and the complications of pregnancy ultimately caused her death in prison before her child could be born.29 Parish registers in the Jamaican district of St Catherine have it on record that Mary was buried on 28 April 1721.30 There is no record of Anne’s execution, which suggests that she never paid for her guilty sentence. Her fate continues to be a mystery to this day and several theories have emerged over the

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116  Pirate Queens years. Firstly, she may have been granted a reprieve, released from jail and sent to Cuba to give birth to Rackham’s son. However, as was shown earlier, there are no records of Anne having gone to Cuba for childbirth either before or after adventures with him. This theory was likely invented by Captain Charles Johnson when he wrote her biography in A General History of the Pyrates. Laura Sooke Duncombe references a less popular but creative theory that the most successful pirate of the Golden Age, Captain Bartholomew Roberts, sneaked into the Spanish Town jail and broke her out of prison. Even though they never met, he asks her to join his crew, having heard the stories of her bravery. Then Roberts reveals that he is a woman in disguise and says, ‘We women have to stick together, don’t we? Come on!’ Anne chooses to follow him and they sail together until Roberts’s death in 1722.31 The most accepted theory is that her father decided to forgive her and persuaded the Jamaican authorities to release her from jail. William Cormac took her back home to the Carolina colonies. With her father’s help she was able either retrieve her son from Cuba, or give birth to him at home, and she named him John after his father. Sometime after, she was married for a third time to a man named Joseph Burley with whom she had eight more children before dying in 1782 at the age of eighty-four.32 The newest theory about the rest of Anne’s life came to light in January 2021, put forward by a YouTuber named Tyler ‘Bioshock’ Rodgriguez who claimed to find new archival evidence pointing to her survival. He decided to make a video about a pirate mystery and Anne Bonny’s story caught his eye. After reading several articles, including one called ‘Arrgh! The True and False Stories of Anne Bonny’ by the Post and Courier, which highlighted how historians distorted Bonny’s tale over the years, he became more determined than ever to discover the truth.33 He found a reference in the Parish Registry of Burials of St Catherine, which led him to a genealogy database called FamilySearch. The search pulled

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The Trial of Anne Bonny and Mary Read   117 up burial records from St Catherine’s Parish, Jamaica, and found Mary’s death record dated 28 April 1721. Then Rodriguez found the name ‘Ann Bonny’ on another list of deaths from St Catherine’s Parish register: ‘Anne Bonny buried 29 December 1733’.34 This suggests the possibility that Anne’s execution sentence was erased and she chose to live out the rest of her life in Jamaica. No matter the reality, Anne defied the written and social laws against her reclaimed her life after her prison sentence.

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Chapter 8

Women’s Attraction to Piracy

T

he story of Anne Bonny and Mary’s Read exploded into infamy soon after their lives ended. One might think that women would find the violence and debauchery of their pirate careers abhorrent, but women were particularly attracted to stories about female figures who were able to transcend societal boundaries. Literature became the best way for women to vicariously live through Anne and Mary’s lives. Reading had always been somewhat controversial for women and people often passed judgments onto those who enjoyed engaging with literature. During the sixteenth century women were often confined to the bedroom to read so they would not be seen by others, or, in some cases, so they could read against their husbands’ or fathers’ wishes.1 For the majority of women, permitted literature was limited to the Bible or other forms of theological writings. There was no reason for a woman to read unless it was a form of theological work to teach morals that she could then pass onto her children.2 Even these types of writings, however, became restricted when King Henry VIII banned women from reading aloud in his 1543 Act for the Advancement of True Religion. His son, Edward VI, repealed the act under his reign and by the late eighteenth century women were gathering together in their homes to discuss readings as much as men did so in taverns.3 By the turn of the eighteenth century reading privileges widened for women thanks to the burgeoning printing industry.4 The printed word was the key to discovering new worlds and the people in them, but also for dictating what was socially acceptable

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Women’s Attraction to Piracy  119 in society.5 Women learned about piracy during a time in which English society was obsessed with manners and ritualised forms of behaviour.6 Politeness and decorum was especially expected of women and interests in piracy would defy these expectations. As a result, reading about subjects such as piracy aroused suspicion, despite them being considered ‘informative’. It was more socially acceptable for women to be less ignorant about the news and the wider world. The risk of becoming too informed could put them at risk of being negatively influenced by figures such as pirates.7 Women absorbed information about how pirates defied moral behaviour and were cast as the undisputed villains of their time. Even though pirates were criminals who posed a threat to communities everywhere, they also represented something that women could only dream of attaining: social mobility. Women were locked into specific gender roles that kept them confined to their homes. Pirates, however, were able to defy all social expectations and achieve a level of independence that was unheard of. They cast off all authority and allegiance to superiors and their home country and managed to climb out of poverty. Most notably, they were able to become their own individuals with agency over their lives.8 Anne Bonny and Mary Read, although they did not intend it, were female revolutionaries during a time when social advancement for women was barely achievable outside of folk tales. Women were desperate to hear more about women like them. Female figures such as these would inspire a controversial genre of literature known as ‘warrior women’ ballads in the nineteenth century. These were initially rejected as lewd songs that went against new ideas of womanhood in bourgeois society. Instead, they were extremely popular amongst the semi-literate working classes who told stories through songs. Women in these ballads were described as comical, grotesque and absurd because they did not display female characteristics of delicacy, restraint and frailty. And yet they were not seen as sexually transgressive because

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120  Pirate Queens women in these stories were not engaged in lesbian relationships. It is also interesting to note that women in warrior ballads were not necessarily seen as abnormal – comical, yes, but not abnormal – because their genders were portrayed more as costumes to tell the story.9 In short, they were completely untamed and would threaten female society.10 Many women, however, enjoyed these types of ballads. They transcended social classes and were easily accessible because they could be sung to simple tunes. Ballads were appealing because they appealed to peoples’ emotions in simple but colourful and strong language. Chaunters put the ballads into music and sang them as they sold the printed versions throughout the streets of London.11 Seafaring tales were of particular interest because a life on the ocean was the best way for most people to start anew. Pirate songs in particular, portrayed a world in which a person’s choices could affect their own and their families’ fate. Those who bought ballad sheets were given an opportunity to show support or even empathy to individual pirates,12 and there was a large population of women who appreciated these songs for those very reasons. They gave their female audience direct access to seafarers’ adventures, and the inspiration that women could cast off their societal shackles and enter into a man’s world. Depicting women as sailors, soldiers and outlaws may have been seen as outrageous, but women saw these characters as bold, brave, unusual and, in Anne and Mary’s cases, happy to marry.13 Anne and Mary did not consider themselves to be suffragette liberators. They did not change social discussions of gender and they did not see their actions as a call for rights and equality for women. However, their lives, and their popularity as a subject, represented new commentaries on gender relations in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The disdain for ‘warrior women’ balladry did not stop the growth of this literary genre. In fact, they became even more prevalent, and Anne and Mary’s

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Women’s Attraction to Piracy  121 story was reprinted over and over in romantic literature of the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Their piratical adventures would ultimately capture the imaginations of girls and young women imprisoned by social bourgeois ideas of femininity and domesticity.14 Women were not attracted to piracy or pirate stories just because of how they presented a way of defying their social constraints; they painted pictures of heroics that sparked a desire for adventure. This idea was present in sea poetry, in which women expressed their dreams to enter into an environment that only men could participate in. These ideas were written as far back as the eleventh century when an anonymous woman wrote:

I sing of myself, a sorrowful woman […] First my friend went far from home over the waves; I was awake at dawn, I wondered where we were, day and night.15

Emily Dickenson used sea imagery to express sexual awakening, a subject considered to be taboo for women:

I started Early – Took my Dog – And visited the Sea – The Mermaids in the Basement Came out to look at me.

This opening immediately brings forth mermaids, mythological figures meant to represent sex and seduction toward sailors. In this sense, her sexual awakening has opened as soon as she reaches the sea. The poem continues:

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But no Man moved Me – till the Tide Went past my simple Shoe – And past my Apron – and my Belt And past my Bodice – too –

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He made as He would eat me up – As wholly as a Dew Upon a Danelion’s Sleeve – And then – I started – too16

With her meeting of the sea, it rises up and becomes her lover and appears to bring her to orgasm. For women, the sea was a place to find both social and sexual freedom, two areas of autonomy that Anne and Mary achieved. Male cartoonists in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries sometimes portrayed women’s relationship with the sea as a comical image from the male gaze. One such cartoon by Thomas Rowlandson created a hand-coloured etching published by Thomas Tegg on 1 September 1813 entitled, ‘Summer Amusement at Margate, or a Peep at the Mermaids’. It shows a group of four elderly sailors watching a group of women bathing and playing naked in the sea. The men watch through spy glasses with looks of amusement and laughter as they gaze upon the women’s private moment enjoying the sea. An elderly woman pulls on one of the men’s coats, presumably his wife. Her face is red and distorted in anger as she brandishes an item that could be either a pan or some sort of fan over his head, ready to strike him. It is up to the audience to interpret her intention: she could be defending the women or, most likely, simply expressing anger at her husband’s brazen behaviour. Regardless, this image shows the idea that women’s enjoyment of the sea is merely comical rather than a private pastime. Morbid curiosity also attracted women to pirate stories, both fact and fiction. Newspapers, court records and popular entertainment made frequent reference to acts of brutality from drunken brawls, maimings and public executions all related to piracy. The ‘official’ reason for the widespread publication of sordid details was to offer a moral lesson to readers, but in reality, the entertainment value

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Women’s Attraction to Piracy  123 often trumped any ideas of virtue.17 They also gave pirates a rare occasion to provide their own accounts on their terms to build their reputations as terrifying criminals. One article from the American Weekly Mercury reported how ‘the Pyrates gave us an account of several of their violence depredations, including the slaughter of their crews [and] burning of ships.’18 Newspaper articles frequently went into gruesome detail about pirate attacks, which helped sales immensely. A British newspaper, The London Journal, published an article about a pirate named George Lowther, who had gained a reputation for sadism on a par with the likes of Charles Vane. This case involved one of the most horrifying acts any person, let alone a pirate, could commit: cannibalism. Lowther and his men plundered four New England ships in the West Indies and reportedly forced one of the ships’ captains to eat his own ears after the pirates cut them off.19 The idea of cannibalism had the potential to cause a community of readers to feel united in their disgust and outrage, but also their morbid intrigue.20 Lowther would show up in the papers again a year later claiming that he and his crew ‘murdered 45 Spaniards in cold Blood,’ and ‘cut off the said Master’s Lips and broiled them before his Face and afterwards murder’d him with the whole Crew being 32 persons.’ After this attack, Lowther committed suicide ‘on the Island Blanko’ with a gunshot to his head.21 Sometimes newspapers deliberately left out specific information to further entice their readers, acting somewhat as a precursor to the literary cliffhanger that would emerge in the nineteenth century. Just three weeks after the above-mentioned article, the same newspaper published a report about a pirate attack with some horrible details about the above-mentioned pirate George Lowther who was known to burn his victims until they relented and gave up their goods. He once plundered a Virginia-bound ship of all its ‘fresh Provisions, Arms and Powder’. The report claimed that Lowther threatened the captain by ‘flourishing his

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124  Pirate Queens Sword several times over his head.’ The article then concluded with, ‘Many other stories are told of this Desperado too shocking to appear in print.’22 That story may have been printed to protect its readers, but also to entice them to find out more information about Lowther and his actions, or to scour the papers for bloodier tales. The novelist Daniel Defoe created one of the most interesting heroines in eighteenth-century literature: Moll Flanders. The fictional Moll shared many characteristics and even life stories with Anne and Mary. Like the two pirates, Flanders was illegitimate, and similar to Anne, the titular character was born to a mother who had been imprisoned. Her life was often on the wrong side of the law and she even faced the death sentence at one point for crimes against property. Similar to Anne and Mary, Flanders had to disguise herself as a man for a period of time on a ship and even had a brush with pirates. Moll Flanders was unique for the time because it told the story of a woman who lived unashamedly as a vagabond, seducer of men, and someone who would not adapt to society.23 The popularity of this story shows the fascination about a woman who, despite her struggles, made a seemingly adventurous life of her own. The abundance of literature published about Anne Bonny and Mary Read in Britain and America, along with other writings about fearsome pirates and female sailors, further brought piracy to the attention of female readers everywhere, and it is clear that the story of our pirate heroines had huge appeal. As discussed, it is likely that stories like theirs helped women vicariously escape the constraints of their social roles. They were so popular that pamphlets were published about any daring woman who could be discussed. These stories were highly romanticised and sometimes even contained sexual suggestions that appealed to women’s ‘forbidden’ desires.24 Pamphlets were often more accessible for women because they were encouraged to go for ‘light’ reading rather than more

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Women’s Attraction to Piracy  125 academic texts, and their lower price allowed for people of all classes to be able to access them.25 No one would pay women any mind if they were seen reading pamphlets at home or amongst their friends. Another reason why pamphlets such as these were so popular is that they were intended to warn virtuous women about the potential dangers if they stepped out of their traditional roles. Pamphlets intended to restore stability and convince the population about the importance of maintaining gender roles. Terrible consequences would befall any woman who chose a piratical way of life. An example of these warnings came with the nineteenthcentury publication of a ‘penny dreadful’ by a man named Edward Lloyd. It is about an Englishwoman named Charlotte de Berry and is the only source we have of her. Was this story true or not? We cannot say for certain but it is a prime example of warning to women about abandoning their social roles. Charlotte was born in England in approximately 1636 and dreamed of a life at sea. Living in a coastal area, she would steal out of her home and hang around the docks while dressed as a man so as not to arouse any suspicion of her intentions. Similar to Mary Read, Charlotte managed to fall in love and marry a sailor despite her male dress. She followed him to Port Royal, Jamaica, disguised as his brother. The tale goes that she was soon discovered by a fellow naval officer who demanded she be with him instead, but Charlotte refused. The naval officer then turned against her husband to punish her and had him flogged over and over until he died of his injuries. Here the tale gets murky, but she winds up back in Wapping, London, and works as a barmaid until she is kidnapped by a sea captain who forces her to marry him. He brings her on board his ship and abuses and rapes her until finally she convinces the crew to rise up and mutiny against their captain. They succeed and begin a career as pirates. Charlotte’s life as a pirate is short-lived,

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126  Pirate Queens however. She is soon captured and instead of being sent to prison, she dies by suicide by throwing herself overboard. This book was written and published by a male author and it was written in order to sell widely, which it did. Charlotte’s story inspired sympathy in its readers, but it was also intended to serve as a warning about what would happen if a woman entered a life of piracy and completely overthrew her prescribed gender role. Charlotte’s decision could only lead to her death.26 In addition to A General History of the Pyrates, Moll Flanders and the story of Charlotte de Berry, the most famous pirate publication came out in 1883, Treasure Island, over 150 years after the deaths of Anne Bonny and Mary Read. The novel was meant to appeal to boys, but surprisingly it found a very large female audience. Women and younger girls were attracted to the heroics and adventure in this story about a treasure hunt, told through the eyes of young Jim Hawkins who finds out his friend, Long John Silver, is actually a pirate planning a mutiny and who runs off with the treasure. The popular women’s publication, The Ladies Home Journal, suggested that its popularity largely rested on the idea of the ‘hero’. the world loves a hero, because there is a heroic strain in all normal […] women. Every such […] woman would like to be a hero, but many are shut off from heroism in any form dramatic enough to make it real for them, even while they are leading lives which are quite heroic in quiet self-denial and hidden effacement. To such […] women the description of the heroic life is a satisfaction and an inspiration; they hunger and thirst for it in spirit just as the body hungers and thirsts, and their desire for it is as wholesome as any other desire.27 With the rise of the novel in the nineteenth century, the books directed at girls or women were usually seen by critics as ‘goodygoody’ and ‘anything but amusing’. Therefore, novels were

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Women’s Attraction to Piracy  127 considered to be appropriate for women as both they and their female readers were considered to be of low intelligence and frivolous.28 However, others believed that girls needed books to be equally as exciting as those directed towards boys. Novels such as Little Women by Louisa May Alcott and Black Beauty by Anna Sewell attracted girls not because of female or animal protagonists, but because they explored themes of absent fathers, war, poverty, illness, estrangement, death, identity crises, struggle, violence, hope and despair. For books to be attractive to girls, they had to have as much ‘go’ as Treasure Island.29 Interestingly enough, the themes presented in Little Women and Black Beauty are also present in Treasure Island. Jim is fatherless and his father figure in Long John Silver betrays him, leaving Jim in a desperate position of loyalty as battle breaks out between the crew and mutineers. Treasure Island continued to hold the attention of young women well after the deaths of Anne Bonny and Mary Read, keeping the two female pirates’ memory alive for centuries to come.

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Chapter 9

Conclusion The Legacy of Anne Bonny and Mary Read: Writings and Media The Eighteenth to Twenty-First Centuries

A

nne Bonny and Mary Read were the two most exceptional pirates to come out of the Golden Age of Piracy. Their exploits were spread far and wide throughout the Atlantic World and people, especially women, followed their story with rapturous wonder. It is nothing less than amazing that a twoto-three month pirate career cemented their place in historical memory for 300 years. Their stories lived beyond their lives and became legendary in pirate lore, in books, plays, television and even nineteenth-century cigarette advertisements. They did not wish to become infamous and did not intend to be symbols of female agency in a world dominated by men, but that is what they have become. Their memories were preserved almost as soon as they exited the court in St Jago de la Vega to await their sentences. Publications of their trial and A General History of the Pyrates spread their story far and wide until eventually they evolved into legend – one that has carried on into the twenty-first century. Printing networks were expanded far and wide in Britain and the American colonies by the time Anne and Mary went on trial. Their story spread thanks to an exploding book trade and the desire to read pirate trials, which were printed for popular consumption. Many publishers in Britain and North America

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Conclusion 129 sought to widen their readership and increase their sales by publishing gruesome stories about pirates from secondary and other sources. This trend started before Anne and Mary’s time with Alexander Exquemelin’s The History of the Buccaneers of America, first published in Amsterdam in 1678. Early modern print media was particularly attracted to piracy because these stories were not only exciting but also represented pirates as the perfect examples of manliness and adventure. The History of the Buccaneers book offered readers an intimate view of dramatic attacks, torture of victims, and freewheeling pirate antics, and sales certainly reflected this interest. The first edition sold so widely that it was soon translated into German, Spanish and French. The book was reprinted in 1740 – twenty years after Anne and Mary’s pirate lives and about ten years after the end of the Golden Age of Piracy, which helped to keep interest alive in the genre. Over time pirate books like this, which were advertised as thrilling reads, inflamed peoples’ fascination with those who subverted society,1 and the idea of women as two of the most violent pirates of the eighteenth century became, no doubt, a great subject for discussion. Exquemelin did not shy away from the sexual crimes of seventeenth-century pirates. He actually used these accounts as a message of morality, which is surprising in a book meant to entertain. He described ‘insolent actions of Rape and Adultery’ of ‘very honest women’ to portray the horrors of Caribbean piracy. The historian Carolyn Eastman argues that Exquemelin toed the line of pornographic writing because he frequently went into detail about the erotic nature of flogging and ‘the brutal ravishing of women, among other perversions’, 2 akin to a harlequin romance. People were hungry for more. Trial reports were the best way for people to learn about piratical goings-on. Once publishers realised how popular – and how lucrative – they would be, they were transformed from moralised third-person narratives into objective transcriptions

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130  Pirate Queens complete with dialogue from the courtroom. Indeed, reports of Rackham’s exploits continued to be printed in newspapers, such as the Daily Courant and British Journal, throughout the Americas and England: ‘We have an Account from Jamaica, by the Fleet newly arrived, of the Execution at Kingston of nine more Pirates: also of the Tryal and Condemnation of eleven others, two of which were Women, named Mary Read, and [Anne] Bonny; the Evidence against whom, deposed. That they were both in Men’s Habit, and fought desperately, and that they narrowly escap’d being Murder’d by them.’3 Details about female pirates were more shocking than most other pirate accounts. The Trial of Jack Rackham and Other Pirates, (including Anne Bonny and Mary Read, of course) was published in 1721 and proved to be extremely popular. It was reprinted several times in England and North America for the cheap price of between one and three pence to make it even more accessible for readers.4 Just a few years later, Anne and Mary’s infamy grew thanks to A General History of the Pyrates. Rather than a straight history, like Exquemelin’s book, as stated earlier, this one was a collection of biographies of the most notorious pirates of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, published in two volumes for mass consumption. Most of the biographies contain factual information thanks to published trial transcripts and newspaper articles, but any gaps were filled in with dramatised fiction. It is true that Anne and Mary’s childhood upbringings were largely fictionalised but this source is the only one to give us an idea of their early lives. In fact, this part of their story was the book’s main selling point. The American Weekly Mercury advertised the book as follows: THE GENERAL HISTORY OF THE PYRATES, from their first Rise and Settlement in the Island of Providence to the present Time. With the remarkable Actions and Adventures of the two Female Pyrates Mary Read and Anne Bonny. To

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Conclusion 131 which is added, A Short Abstract of the Statute and Civil Law in Relation to Pyracy. By Capt. CHA. JOHNSON.5 The book gives us not only a detailed account of their early lives, adventures as pirates, trial and sentence, but it included ‘Twenty beautiful Cuts, being the Representation of each Pirate,’ which immortalised the two women’s likeness forever.6 A General History of the Pyrates was initially published in London but it soon proved to be a huge hit in the American colonies where local printers were keen to keep up with the latest best-sellers in London. This collection of pirate biographies told the tales of pirates such as Captain Kidd, Blackbeard, Charles Vane, Jack Rackham and, of course, Anne Bonny and Mary Read. The book became an immediate sensation. Pirates were as fascinating as ever thanks to such a recent (and contemporary) spate of piratical activity. And now here was a larger intrigue: two women who had joined forces with these notorious miscreants. The other pirates in the book had longer careers that lasted at least a year while Anne and Mary were only active pirates for a grand total of two months. During an age in which women did not feature much in print, it is surprising that the lives of Anne and Mary could be given such credence. The author addresses this: ‘As to the Lives of our two female Pyrates, we must confess they may appear a little extravagant, yet they are never the less true for seeming so, but as they were publickly try’d for their Pyracies, there are living Witnesses enough to justify what we have laid down concerning them.’7 As Johnson suggests, if they had not been put on trial their story would have been lost to history. But though there were gaps in their story that had to be filled, he recognised a real opportunity to gain a wider audience for his book if he included the lives of these female pirates. This was the main motivation for telling the story of their brief adventures. He scoured the land for their

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132  Pirate Queens history and turned it into a riveting tale to attract readers. Johnson describes that task: … we have produced some Particulars which were not so publickly known, the Reason is, we were more inquisitive into the Circumstances of their past Lives, than other People, who had no other Design, than that of gratifying their own private Curiosity: If there are some Incidents and Turns in their Stories, which may give them a little Air of a Novel, they are not invented or contrived for that Purpose, it is a Kind of Reading this Author is but little acquainted with, but as he himself was exceedingly diverted with them, when they were related to him, he thought they might have the same Effect upon the Reader.8 It worked. The first volume of the book, which includes their biographies, became such an instant best-seller that he wrote a second volume just a year later in 1725. The book was published with a much different feel than A History of the Buccaneers of America. Instead of immediately going into a swashbuckling tale, Johnson lends a tone of stern disapproval of the pirates who disrupted British trade so badly. This moral tone was not a judgement, however; it was meant to entice readers. Not only that, it would appeal more explicitly to its intended audience’s attraction to traditional masculinity and the male gaze. A General History of the Pyrates follows a unique convention for a book of criminal biographies. Unlike male criminals, female criminals are painted as forms of gender transgression. Their stories are told in writings such as recorded last dying speeches, trial transcriptions, short pamphlet biographies, ballads and broadsides. They do more than tell a story; they invite readers to eroticise the female subjects, which was certainly the case for Anne and Mary.9 Their published trials and A General History of the Pyrates both emphasise their bared breasts in battle. Not

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Conclusion 133 only that, Johnson writes that Mary used her breasts to seduce her first husband while Anne does the same thing in an attempt to seduce Mary. In this case, their breasts take a role of their own: the femaleness that ultimately betrays them as women and proves that forever passing as female is impossible.10 Mary successfully lived as a boy thanks to her mother’s dishonesty and she herself survived as a man because of her own ingenuity. However, she became a victim of her own femaleness when she fell in love with her Flemish soldier and lost her disguise. She was once again thwarted when Anne tried to seduce her. Mary had no choice but to reveal herself to avoid becoming the source of infidelity and jealousy on a ship. No matter the situation, Mary’s breasts would always give away her true identity. A General History of the Pyrates had a sexual tone throughout. Once again, Eastman points out that the detailed descriptions of pirates’ swords, and with images of these weapons, were intended to demonstrate the virility of male sexuality. There was a large emphasis on Edward Teach’s relationships and supposed fourteen marriages, and explicit descriptions about the pirate Edward England’s actions of forcing women in ‘a barbarous manner to their lusts’ to submit to him and his crew.11 Johnson’s descriptions of Anne Bonny and Mary Read were so explicit and dramatised that they have influenced modern perceptions of these women. Yet they were specifically written to appeal to the male gaze. Mary’s male dress in the military was intended to be a ‘pleasurable titillation’ to highlight gender confusion and sexual behaviour. This was further emphasised by her seduction of her eventual husband. No scene is more famous, of course, than when Anne attempts to seduce Mary when she believes her comrade to be a man. Her disappointment at Mary’s revealed female sex is intended to increase male readers’ enjoyment of this sexual display. The transgenderism and disdain for gender norms enhanced themes of pirates’ rejection of sexual decorum.

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134  Pirate Queens As a result, A General History of the Pyrates invited men to see Anne and Mary as pleasurable female objects rather than heroic women who took their agency into their own hands, much to the book’s success.12 It remained a bestseller for decades and may have even inspired A History of the Buccaneers of America’s reprint in 1740. To this day the book is still widely available in print and is currently used both as a historical and literary source amongst historians of piracy, including those who examine the subject of pirates’ sexuality. Anne and Mary had a profound impact on popular culture throughout the eighteenth century. Their story influenced plays such as John Gay’s Polly, a sequel to the highly successful The Beggar’s Opera, in which the main character, Polly, an Englishwoman, heads to the West Indies to find the love of her life, the highwayman named Macheath, who had been transported there as punishment for his crimes. Macheath turned pirate to escape while Polly was robbed at sea and forced to sell herself into indentured servitude. She is bought by a woman named Mrs Trape and forced into prostitution and then sold to a sugar planter. Polly escapes disguising herself as a man, for personal protection, and goes to sea as a pirate to search for Macheath. While at sea she meets a female pirate named Jenny Diver, married to a fellow pirate. Jenny believes Polly’s male disguises and falls in love with her.13 The plot of this play highly suggests that Gay knew Anne and Mary’s story and used them as inspiration. Polly, as a woman disguised as a man on a pirate ship, is clearly meant to be Mary while Jenny represents Anne. In 1978 Steve Gooch published his play, The Women Pirates Ann Bonney and Mary Read, which was first performed at the Aldwych Theaters by the Royal Shakespeare Company in July of that year. This gave a somewhat unique perspective of their life, suggesting that Anne became a pirate out of boredom and learned how to fight from a Native American. Initially, the play

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Conclusion 135 was poorly received as ‘atrocious rubbish’ and earned the Royal Shakespeare Company’s ‘loudest boos ever’. In 1984, however, a new cast and stage production revived the play and ‘created a buzz of appreciation from the audience and attracted capacity houses.’ The initial run was poorly staged and acted, while its performance six years later had an impressive set and an energetic cast to bring the characters to life.14 Although the play would not become a sensation, it kept Anne and Mary in the public consciousness. As time passed, a curious trend of Anne and Mary’s trajectory in popular culture is the overall neglect of Mary Read in the historical and pop culture narrative. Over time Anne Bonny has taken center stage in the female pirate narrative, most notably on television. Two popular television shows of the twenty-first century feature Anne Bonny as a main character: Black Sails (2014–2017) and the Netflix docu-drama, The Lost Pirate Kingdom (2021). Black Sails attempts to retell the history of piracy in the Caribbean by blending fact and faction. The show serves as a prequel to Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island by making Captain Flint and John Silver (Long John Silver in the novel) the principal characters. Many of the main characters in the show are based on real historical figures such as Charles Vane, Jack Rackham, and, of course, Anne Bonny. The show interprets Anne Bonny as a hardened woman, a survivor of numerous traumas that leave her with a vulnerability she disguises with a blood-thirsty drive to murder any pirate or other sailor who threatens her or her husband. She is also depicted as a fiery, fierce, and independent woman who does not actually need Rackham to make something of herself. The show complicates her life by inventing a tragic backstory that includes rape, horrific abuse, and being a victim of sex trafficking at the age of thirteen by Charles Vane’s crew. (Of course, she never sailed with Vane and did not arrive in Nassau until she was at least twenty-one years old.) Her relationship with Jack is based on

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136  Pirate Queens him being her saviour from this horrific life. Her terrible past is largely the reason she becomes such a murderous character who keeps her emotions hidden and refuses to let her guard down to anyone.15 This is a much more intriguing backstory for the context of the show, which intends to show the brutal drama and trauma that may have existed in pirate communities. The truth about her choice to enter into piracy in her teens is stripped away, along with her deep friendship with Mary Read, which would have diluted the drama. Instead, another main character in the show, Max, a prostitute in Nassau, becomes Mary Read’s stand-in to help develop Anne’s character throughout the show’s four-season run. Mary’s absence meant the non-existence of their deep friendship and alleged queer relationship. This void is filled by Max with whom Anne finds a confidant to share her traumatic past. Max also has her own troubled history of sexual abuse and violence. Over the course of the show, Max offers Anne a safe haven and a chance for her to start exploring her sexuality. This is not a typical coming-out story, but rather it is through the realisation that she could trust Max as a person who would always be on her side while offering no judgement and understanding her pain.16 While, of course, this is a story purely invented for the narrative of the historical drama, it serves as a reminder that women of the time suffered particular cruelty and injustices but that some were able to reclaim their agency. This also depicts a case of pure female friendship that blossoms into something more; a story that has long been attributed to Anne and Mary. Mary Read would finally make her appearance the final episode of the show, but otherwise there was no place for her. The Netflix six-episode docu-drama, The Lost Pirate Kingdom, on the other hand portrays Anne Bonny in an opposite way. Throughout the show, Anne is portrayed as an influential figure in Nassau who is so respected that no other pirate could be

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Conclusion 137 considered legitimate without her approval. The show focuses on Benjamin Hornigold’s reign as a pirate king during the Golden Age of Piracy and Anne plays the role as his lover and source of comfort in a time of violence. She also offers the same relationship to Blackbeard when he arrives in Nassau. Rather than using her sexuality as a token portrayal of a woman’s character defined by sex appeal, the docu-drama demonstrates how she uses her body to hold her own agency over these pirate leaders to show that she ultimately has control of the island. The sixth episode, ‘Dead or Alive’, goes into detail about Anne’s own life as a pirate and how she would deliberately show her breasts in battle to intimidate her victims. She is not doing this to be sexual – either in history or on the show – rather, she is using her body to reclaim the power and agency in her femininity and prove to the world that a woman is just as fearsome and powerful, if not more so, than any man.17 As in Black Sails, Mary Read is notably absent from this series because it is likely that her presence would simply not fit into the narrative. While technically a documentary, the creators wanted to tell a very specific story about the competition between major pirate captains and the woman who supported them. As a result, they placed her in Nassau as early as 1715, five years before she actually arrived in the Bahamas, which totally distorts her real history. However, they do her justice by portraying her as a skilled fighter with no fear of other violent men. Rather, she is able to have them succumb to her will. A major difference between Anne and Mary is the fact that Anne supposedly never disguised herself as a man for the sake of her career, unlike Mary who lived as ‘Mark’ in the British army and at sea until Anne discovered her. Anne was described as having long red hair and a fiery temper. Her hair becomes the symbol of her feminine sexuality while her attitude makes her an intriguing character overall. Unlike Anne, Mary is not given any physical descriptions or analyses as to her character. It is possible

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138  Pirate Queens that, unlike Anne, Mary deliberately hid her feminine beauty. Serving as a ship captain’s wife was still socially accepted as a woman. Serving in the army, however, was not. Cross-dressing women and female characters who disguised themselves as men to serve in the army was a popular subject in songs and ballads, but usually portrayed for comedic purposes.18 But above all, according to Juliet Dunsinberre, a Shakespearean scholar, ‘A woman in man’s clothes seemed to be […] not simply eccentric in dress, but really in part a man, and thus monstrous and unnatural – halfman and half-woman.’19 Unlike Mary, Anne only wore men’s clothes for practicality. Mary wore them to live specifically as a man. Perhaps this is why we unconsciously choose to ignore her; she is not female enough nor is she sexy enough. * * * Anne Bonny and Mary Read have remained in the pirate lexicon as legends thanks to the notoriety of their published trial, dramatised biographies, plays, and television programmes. They inspired empowered female characters in both factual interpretations and fictional narratives, and this has kept them from falling into obscurity. These two women did not intend to make themselves famous, but their lives proved to be such a source of morbid fascination that they became romanticised as much as, if not more than, their male contemporary pirates. If anything, they have become more significant in the public eye than any other pirate of their age. Did they both start their lives as illegitimate children disguised as boys? Were they brought up in port cities or have military experience before becoming pirates? Did they simply choose to walk away from their prescribed gender roles and escape to the Caribbean, as in the case of Anne? Or were they already established in the West Indies and chose to branch out and take

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Conclusion 139 control of their own lives? We will never know the truth, but that is what makes their history so unique and important. Their lives, both fictional and real, provide us with a direct lens into the lives and realities of working-class girls and young women, gender roles in male-dominated arenas and women’s agency in the eighteenth century. Their legacies have been cemented in contemporary publications and have grown into pop culture sensations as time passed. Anne Bonny and Mary Read were cruel, terrifying and murderous pirates, yet they are easily romanticised for the symbolism they created about the concept of gender, piracy and about the eighteenth century overall. Their story, regardless of the truth and violence, serves as an inspiration and source of wonderment for women of all ages. Their memory is alive and well and will remain so for years to come.

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Appendix I

An Act for Suppressing Pirates in West Indies (1717) 1717 September 5 BY THE KING A PROCLAMATION For Suppressing of Pirates. George R. Whereas We have received Information, That several Persons, Subjects of Great Britain, have since the Twenty fourth Day of June, in the Year of our Lord One thousand seven hundred and fifteen, committed divers Piracies and Robberies upon the High Seas in the West-Indies, or adjoyning to Our Plantations, which hath, and may Occasion great Damage to the Merchants of Great Britain, and others, Trading into those Parts; And though We have appointed such a Force as We Judge efficient for Suppressing the said Piracies: Yet the more effectually to put an End to the same, We have thought fit, by and with the Advice of our PrivyCouncil, to Issue this Our Royal Proclamation: And We do hereby Promise and Declare, That in case any of the said Pirates shall, on or before the Fifth Day of September, in the Year of our Lord One thousand seven hundred and eighteen, Surrender him or themselves to One of our Principal Secretaries of State in Great Britain or Ireland, or to any Governor or Deputy-Governor of any of Our Plantations or Dominions beyond the Seas, every such Pirate and Pirates, so Surrendring him or themselves, as aforesaid, shall have Our Gracious Pardon of and for such his or their Piracy or Piracies, by him or them Committed before the Fifth Day of

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Appendix I  141 January next ensuing. And We do hereby strictly Charge and Command all Our Admirals, Captains, and other Officers at Sea, and all Our Governors and Commanders of any Forts, Castles, or other Places in Our Plantations, and all other Our Officers Civil and Military, to Seize and Take such of the Pirates who shall refuse or neglect to Surrender themselves accordingly. And We do hereby further Declare, That in case any Person or Persons, on or after the Sixth Day of September, One thousand seven hundred and eighteen, shall Discover or Seize, or cause or procure to be Discovered or Seized, any One or more of the said Pirates, so neglecting or refusing to Surrender themselves, as aforesaid, so as they may be brought to Justice, and Convicted of the said Offence, such Person or Persons, so making such Discovery or Seizure, or causing or procuring such Discovery or Seizure to be made, shall have and receive a Reward for the same, viz. For every Commander of any Pirate-Ship or Vessel the Sum of One hundred Pounds; for every Lieutenant, Master, Boatswain, Carpenter, and Gunner, the Sum of Forty Pounds; For every Inferior Officer the Sum of Thirty Pounds; And for every Private Man the Sum of Twenty Pounds. And if any Person or Persons, belonging to, and being Part of the Crew of any such Pirate-Ship or Vessel, shall, on or after the said Sixth Day of September, One thousand seven hundred and eighteen, Seize and Deliver, or cause to be Seized and Delivered, any Commander or Commanders of such Pirate-Ship or Vessel, so as that he or they be brought to Justice, and convicted of the said Offence, such Person or Persons, as a Reward for the same, shall receive for every such Commander the Sum of Two hundred Pounds; which said Sums the Lord Treasurer, or the Commissioners of Our Treasury for the time being, are hereby required or directed to Pay accordingly. Given at Our Court at Hampton-Court, the Fifth Day of September, 1717. In the Fourth Year of Our Reign. God save the King. London Gazette, 17 September, 1717.

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Appendix II

By His Excellency Woodes Rogers, Governour of New-Providence, a Proclamation, 1720 Whereas John Rackum, George Featherstone, John Davis, Andrew Gibson, John Howell, Noah Patrick &c and two Women, by Name Ann Fulford alias Bonny, & Mary Read, did on the 22d of August last combine together to enter on board; take, steal and run-away with out of this Road of Providence, a Certain Sloop call’d the William, Burthen about 12 Tons, mounted with 4 great Guns and 2 Swivel ones, also Ammunition, Sails, Rigging, Anchor, Cables, and a Canoe, owned by and belonging to Capt. John Ham, and with the said Sloop did proceed to commit Robery and Piracy upon the Boat and Effects of James Gohier Esq; on the South side of this Island, also upon Capt. Issac’s Master of a Sloop riding at Berry-Islands in his Way from South-Carolina to this Port: Wherefore these are to Publish and make Known to all Persons Whatsoever, that the said John Rackum and his said Company are hereby proclaimed Pirates and Enemies of the Crown of Great-Brittain, and are to be treated and Deem’d by all his Majesty’s Subjects. Given at Nassau, this 5th of September, 1720. Sign’d WOODES ROGERS.

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Appendix III

Calendar of State Papers, Colonial Series, Vol. 33 (1720–1721) Nov. 13. Jamaica. 288. Governor Sir N. Lawes to the Council of Trade and Plantations. [Excerpt] About a fortnight ago a trading sloop belonging to the Island [Jamaica] being well mannered and commanded by a brisk fellow one Jonathan Barnet did us a very good piece of service he was met by a pirate vessel at the Leward part of this Island commanded by one Rackum in which were 18 pirates more whom he took and are now in goal, this week I intent to have them tryed by a Commission which was sent me some time agoe grounded on the Statute of the 11th and 12th of King William which by an Act of Parliament passed the last Sessions I find is made perpetuall. Signed, Nicholas Lawes. Endorsed, Recd. Jan. 17th, Read March 21st, 1721. Dec, 28. Jamaica. 340. Same to the Council of Trade and Plantations. [Excerpt] There has little thing of moment occur’d since my last only the Commission I mentioned in my former for the trying of pirates has since been published and Rackum the Pirate and ten more have been tryed and executed which I hope will have a good effect tho’ we are dayly robb’d and plundered by vessells fitted out from Trinidado on Cuba.

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Appendix IV

The Boston Gazette Boston Gazette, October 10–17, 1720. Whereas John Rackum, George Featherstone, John Davis, Andrew Gibson, John Howell, Noah Patrick &c, and two Women, by name Ann Fulford alias Bonny, & Mary Read, did on the 22nd of August last combine together to enter on board, take, steal, and run away with out of this Road of Providence, a Certain Sloop call’d the William, Burthen about 12 tons, mounted with 4 great Guns and 2 swivel ones, also Ammunition, Sails, Rigging, Anchor, Cables, and a Canoe owned and belonging to Capt. John Ham, and with the said Sloop did proceed to commit Robbery and Piracy…the said John Rackum and his said Company are hereby proclaimed Pirates and Enemies to the Crown of Great Britain and are to be so treated and Deem’d by all his Majesty’s Subjects. Boston Gazette, February 6–13, 1721. New-York, January, 31. On the 19th Instant arrived the Ship John Capt. Samuel Lancelot Commander from Jamaica, which Island be left the 19th December, and brings News that Capt. Rackum a Pirate and ten of his Men were Executed there for Piracy and hung up in Chains, two Women who were taken with them were Condemned but pleaded their Bellies, and nine Men who joined Rackum just before he was taken, were to by Tryed also for Piracy.

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Appendix V

The Trial of Anne Bonny and Mary Read The Trials of Jack Rackham and Other Pirates (London, 1721)

Monday, November the 28th, 1720. Court met according to Adjournment. Court called, by making Proclamation Three several Times. PRESENT His Excellency Sir Nicholas Lawes Knight, PRESIDENT. Thomas Bernard, Esq. James Archbould, Esq. John Sadler, Esq. Ezekiel Gommersall, Esq. Samuel Moor, Esq. William Nedham, Esq.

Captain Vernon, Esq. Captain Davers, Esq. Richard Mill, Esq. Robert Bailie, Esq. Giles Diston, Esq. Edward Pennant, Esquire,

One of the Commissioners named in His Majesty’s said Commission, took the Oath directed to be taken in the aforesaid Act of Parliament of the Eleventh and Twelfth of King William the Third. Then the Prisoners, Mary Read, Ann Bonny, alias Bonn, were brought to the Bar; and were told by the Register to hearken their Charge.

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146  Pirate Queens Then the Register exhibited Articles against them; which he read to them in the following Words, viz. Jamaica, ss. ARTICLES Exhibited at an High Court of Admiralty, held at the Town of St. Jago de la Vega in the said Island, the Twenty eighth Day of November, in the Seventh Year of the Reign of Our Sovereign Lord George, by the Grace of God, of Great Britain, France and Ireland, King, and of Jamaica Lord, Defender of the Faith, &c. By Virtue of a Commission from His said Majesty King George, under the Great Seal of Great Brittain, bearing Date, the Third Day of April, in the Fourth Year of His said Majesty’s Reign, issued pursuant to an Act of Parliament, made in Great Brittain in the Eleventh Year of the Reign of our late Sovereign Lord King William III. (since made perpetual) Entituled, [An Act for the More Effectual Suppression of Piracy] for the trying, hearing, and determining, and adjudging, of all Piracies, Felonies, and Robberies, committed in or upon the Sea, or in any Haven, River, Creek, or Place, where the Admiral or Admirals, have Power, Authority, or Jurisdiction, before His Excellency Sir Nicholas Lawes, Kt. Capt. General and Governor in Chief, of Our said Lord King George, in and over this His Majesty’s Island of Jamaica, and the Territories thereon depending in America, Chancellor and Vice-Admiral of the same, &c. And others, Commissioners appointed, in and by the said Commission, by William Norris, Esq; Register of the said Court, duly appointed and sworn against Mary Read, and Ann Bonny, alias Bonn, late of the Island of Providence Spinsters, for Piracies, Felonies, and Robberies committed by them, on the High Sea, and within Jurisdiction of this Court, viz.

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Appendix V  147 I. That they, the said Mary Read, and Ann Bonny, alias Bonn, and each of the, on the first Day of September, in the Seventh Year of the Reign of Our said Lord the King, that now is, upon the high Sea, in a certain Sloop of an unknown Name, being; did feloniously and wickedly, consult, and agree together, and to and with, John Rackam, George Fetherston, Richard Corner, John Davies, John Howell, Patrick Carty, Thomas Earl, and Noah Harwood, to rob, plunder, and take, all such Persons, as well Subjects of Our said Lord the King, that now is, as others, in Peace and Amity with His said Majesty, which they should meet with on the high Sea; and in Execution of their said Evil Designs, afterwards (to wit) on the Third Day of September, in the Year last mentioned, with Force and Arms, &c upon the high Sea, in a certain Place, distant about Two Leagues from Harbour-Island in America, and within the Jurisdiction of this Court, did piratically, feloniously, and in a hostile manner attack, engage, and take, Seven certain Fishing-Boats, then being, Boats of certain Persons, Subjects of our said now Lord the King, (to the Register aforesaid unknown) in the same FishingBoats, in the peace of God, and of our said now Lord the King, then and there being, and then and there, Piratically, and Feloniously, did put the aforesaid Fishermen, in the said Fishing-Boats then being, in Corporal Fear of their Lives; and then and there, piratically and feloniously, did steal, take, and carry away, the Fish, and Fishing-Tackle, of the value of Ten pounds of Current Money of Jamaica, the Goods and Chattels of the aforesaid Fishermen, and then there upon the high Sea aforesaid, and within Jurisdiction aforesaid, being found, in the said Fishing-Boats, in the Custody and Possession of the said Fishermen, from the said Fishermen, and from their Custody and Possession, then and there, upon the high Sea aforesaid, in the place aforesaid, distant about

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148  Pirate Queens two Leagues from Harbour Island aforesaid, and within the Jurisdiction aforesaid. II. That afterwards, to wit, the first day of October, in the Year last mentioned, they; the said Mary Read, and Ann Bonny, alias Bonn, and each of them in the said Pirate Sloop being, by Force and Arms, &c. Upon the high Sea, in a certain place, distant about three Leagues from the Island of Hispaniola in America; and within the Jurisdiction of this Court, did Piratically, and Feloniously, set upon, Shoot at, and take, two certain Merchant Sloops, then being, Sloops of certain Persons, Subjects of our said Lord the King (to the aforesaid Register unknown) and then and there, Piratically, and Feloniously, did make an Assault, in and upon, one James Dobbin, and certain other Mariners (whose Names to the Register aforesaid aforesaid are unknown) in the same Merchant Sloops, in the peace of God, and of our said now Sovereign Lord the King, then and there being, and then, and there, Piratically, and Feloniously, did put the aforesaid Mariners, of the same two Merchant Sloops, in the aforesaid two Merchant Sloops then being, in Corporal fear of their Lives, and then and there afterwards to wit, The said first Day of October, in the Year last mentioned, upon the high Sea, in the place aforesaid, distant about three Leagues from Hispaniola aforesaid, in America aforesaid, and within the Jurisdiction aforesaid, Piratically and Feloniously, did steal, take, and carry away, the said two Merchant Sloops, and the Apparrel and Tackle of the same Sloops, of the Value of One Thousand Pounds of Current Money of Jamaica. III. That they, the said Mary Read, and Ann Bonny, alias Bonn, and each of them, in the said Pirate Sloop being, afterwards (to wit) the Nineteenth Day of October, in the Year last mentioned, with Force and Arms, &c. Upon the high Sea, at a certain place, distant about Five Leagues from Porto-

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Appendix V  149 Maria-Bay, in the Island of Jamaica aforesaid, and within the Jurisdiction of this Court, did Piratically, Feloniously, and in an Hostile manner, Shoot at, set upon, and take, a certain Schooner, of an unknown Name, whereof one Thomas Spenlow was Master, then being, a Scooner of certain Persons, Subjects of our said Lord the King (to the Register aforesaid unknown) and then and there, Piratically, Feloniously, and in an Hostile manner, did make an Assault, in and upon the said Thomas Spenlow, and certain other Mariners (whose Names to the Reigster aforesaid are unknown) in the same Scooner, in the Peace of God, and of our said now Lord the King, then and there being, and then and there Piratically and Feloniously did put the aforesaid Thomas Spenlowm, and other Mariners of the same Scooner, in the Scooner aforesaid, then being, in Corporal Fear of their Lives; and then and there Piratically and Feloniously, did steal, take, and carry away, the said Scooner, and the Apparel and Tackle of the same Scooner, of the value of Twenty Pounds of Current Money of Jamaica. IV. That they, the said Mary Read, and Ann Bonny, alias Bonn, and each of the them, in the aforesaid Pirate Sloop being, afterwards (to wit) the 20th Day of Octob in the Year last mention’d, with Force and Arms, &c upon the high Sea, at a certain Place, distant, about one League from Dry-HarbourBay, in the Island of Jamaica, aforesaid, and within the Jurisdiction of this Court, did Piratically, Feloniously, and in an Hostile manner, set upon, board, and enter, a certain Merchant Sloop, called the Mary, then being a Sloop of certain Persons (to the Register aforesaid unknown) whereof Thomas Dillon Mariner was Master; and then and there, did make an Assault, in and upon the said Thomas Dillon, and certain other Mariners (whose Names to the Register aforesaid are unknown) in the same Sloop, called the Mary,

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150  Pirate Queens in the Peace of God, and of our said now Lord our King, then and there being, and then and there, Piratically, and Feloniously, did put the aforesaid Thomas Dillon, and other the Mariners of the same Merchant Sloop, called the Mary, in the said Sloop called the Mary then being, in Corporal Fear of their Lives; and then and there Piratically, and Feloniously, did steal, take, and carry away, the said Sloop Mary, and the Apparel and Tackle of the same Sloop, of the Value of Three hundred Pounds of Current Money of Jamaica. WILLIAM NORRIS, REG’. After the Articles were read, the Prisoners were severally asked by the Register, What they had to say? Whether they were Guilty of the Piracies, Robberies and Felonies, or any of them, in the said Articles mention’d, which had then been read unto them? Or not Guilty? Whereto they both of them pleaded, Not Guilty. Then to the Register did call and produce Witnesses, to prove the said Articles, and Charge against the Prisoners; Who, being duly sworn, were examined by His Excellency the President, and the Court, in the presence and hearing of the Prisoners; And they deposed as follows, viz. Dorothy Thomas deposed, That she, being in a Canoa at Sea, with some Stock and Provisions, at the North-side of Jamaica, was taken by a Sloop, commanded by one Captain Rackam (as she afterwards heard;) who took our of the Canoa, most of the Things that were in her; And further said, That the Two Women, Prisoners at the Bar, were then on Board the said Sloop, and wore Mens Jackets, and long Trouzers, and Handkerchiefs tied about their Heads; and that each of them had a Machet and Pistol in their Hands, and cursed and swore at the Men, to murther the Deponent; and that they should kill her, to prevent her coming

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Appendix V  151 against them; and the Deponent further said, That the Reason of her knowing and believing them to be Women then was, by the largeness of their Breasts. Thomas Spenlow, being sworn, deposed, That when he was taken by Rackam, the two Women, Prisoners at the Bar, were then on Board Rackam’s Sloop. John Besneck, and Peter Cornelian, two Frenchmen, were produced as Witnesses, against the Prisoners at the Bar, and were sworn. Mr. Simon Clarke was sworn Interpreter; Then the said Two Witnesses declared, That the Two Women, Prisoners at the Bar, were on Board Rackam’s Sloop, at the Time that Spenlow’s Scooner, and Dillon’s Sloop, were taken by Rackam; That they were very active on Board, and willing to do any Thing; That Ann Bonny, one of the Prisoners at the Bar, handed Gun-powder to the Men, That when they say any Vessel, gave Chase, or Attacked, they wore Men’s Cloaths; and, at other Times, they wore Women’s Cloaths; That they did not seem to be kept, or detain’d by Force, but of their own Free-Will and Consent. Thomas Dillon, being sworn, declared, That on or about the Twentieth Day of October last, he was lying at Anchor, with the Sloop Mary and Sarah, whereof he was Master, in Dry-Harbour, in Jamaica; and that a strange Sloop came into the said Harbour, which fired a Gun at the Deponent’s Sloop; whereupon the Deponent and his Men went ashoar, in order to defend themselves, and Sloop; And that after several Shot had been fired at them, by the said Sloop, the Deponent hailed them, and one Fetherston (as the Deponent believ’d) answer’d, That they were English Pirates, and that they need not be afraid, and desired the Deponent to come on Board; whereupon the Deponent went on Board, and found that the said Sloop was commanded by one John Rackam; afterwards the said Rackam, and his Crew, took the Deponent’s

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152  Pirate Queens Sloop, and her Lading, and carried her with them to Sea; and further said, That the two Women, Prisoners at the Bar were then on Board Rackam’s Sloop, and that Ann Bonny, one of the Prisoners at the Bar, had a Gun in her Hand, That they were both very profligate, cursing and swearing much, and were ready and willing to do any Thing on Board. After the aforesaid Witnesses had severally been examined, His Excellency the President, asked both the Prisoners at the Bar, if they, or either of them, had any Defence to make, or any Witnesses to be sworn on their behalf; or if they would have any of the Witnesses, who had already been sworn, cross examined; that if they would, they should propose and declare to the Court what Questions they, or either of them, would have asked? And if they had any, the Court, or himself, would interrogate them? Whereto they both of them answer’d, That they had no Witnesses, or any Questions to ask. Then the Prisoners were taken away from the Bar, and put into safe Custody, and all the Standers by withdrew from the Court, except the Register. Afterwards His Excellency the President, and Commissioners; then sitting, took the Evidence which had been given against the Prisoners into Consideration; and having maturely, and deliberately, considered thereof, and of the Circumstances of the Prisoners Case, all the Commissioners then sitting, and his Excellency the President, unanimously agreed, That Mary Read, and Ann Bonny, alias Bonn, were both of them Guilty, of the Piracies, Robberies, and Felonies, charged against them in the Third and Fourth Articles, of the Articles aforesaid. Then the Prisoners before-named were brought back to the Bar, and His Excellency the President, acquainted them, That the Court had unanimously found them both Guilty of the Piracies, Robberies, and Felonies, charged against them in the Third and Fourth Articles, of the Articles which had been Exhibited against them.

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Appendix V  153 And being severally asked, Whether they, or either of them, had any Thing to say, or offer, Why Sentence of Death should not pass upon them, for their said Offences? And they, nor either of them, offering any Thing material, His Excellency the President, pronounced Sentence of Death upon them in the Words following, viz. YOU Mary Read, and Ann Bonny, alias Bonn, are to go from hence to the Place from whence you came, and from thence to the Place of Execution; where you, shall be severally hang’d by the Neck, ‘till you are severally dead. And GOD of His infinite Mercy be merciful to both of your Souls. After Judgement was pronounced, as aforesaid, both the Prisoners inform’d the Court, that they were both quick with Child, and prayed that their Execution of the Sentence might be stayed. Whereupon the Court ordered, that Execution of the said Sentence should be respited, and that an Inspection should be made. Then the Court adjourn’d ‘till Monday the Nineteenth of December next.

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Acknowledgments This book was written during the 2020–2021 Covid-19 pandemic, which brought many challenges but also enormous support from others in the same position. I would first like to thank my editor, Alan Murphy, for his enthusiasm about this subject and trusting me to tell Anne Bonny and Mary Read’s story while providing me with patience, flexibility, and a meticulous eye, which helped me bring this story to life. Second, I must thank Matthew Pearl and Greg Nichols for giving me the opportunity to first write about Anne Bonny and Mary Read for their magazine, Truly*Adventurous, and thus jump starting my journey into these women’s lives. Next I need to thank all of the historians who collated shared Google Spreadsheets that listed open-access databases and archives made available for the pandemic. Sharing resources and advice is instrumental to historians everywhere. Zoom has been a great way to connect and create work groups to support people’s projects. Thank you to Ariel Lambe for creating a historians Zoom group where we could gather together, work in silence and then catch up and discuss our work. It was a true motivator! And those you to all of those who came to the group and helped support each other. Scarlett Ingstad was extremely helpful with both her undying excitement for this project and her assistance and advice about various sources. Thank you and I hope I’ve done you proud!

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Acknowledgments   155 Online presentations have been a great way to connect historians and audiences around the world and created whole new opportunities to present new research during the global pandemic. Thank you to Jibunnessa Abdullah for your enthusiasm and inviting me to present my research about female pirates for the Digital Museum. Additional thanks goes to Peter Schmidt for having me present my research about Anne Bonny and Mary Read to Profs and Pints. I would also like to thank those who participated in the Problem of Piracy II: An Interdisciplinary Conference on Plunder by Sea Across the World from the Ancient to the Modern conference for their enthusiasm and essential feedback. More shout-outs need to go to Dr Philip Abraham and Keli Kittinger. Philip gave me great advice to help me break through some writer’s block about how to structure this book, which proved to be instrumental to my work and completion. Keli graciously offered her time to read through the draft with a very short turnaround time to offer helpful comments and suggestions. Thank you both, friends! Finally, I need to thank my family for the undying love and support as I dedicated the last year to this book and they let me vent and bounce numerous ideas off of them. I love you all!

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Notes Prologue   1. Laura Sook Duncombe, Pirate Women: The Princesses, Prostitutes, and Privateers Who Ruled the Seven Seas (Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 2019), 4–12.   2. Ulrike Klausmann et. al, Women Pirates and the Politics of the Jolly Roger (Montreal: Black Rose Books, 1997), 89–93; Duncome, 16–18.  3.  Ibid, 31–36.  4. Calendar of State Papers, Ireland 1588–1592 Elizabeth I: Volume 151, April 1590. Athelone. 81. ‘Sir R. Bingha, to [Sir F. Walsynham]’, 21 April 1590. See also David Cordingly, Under the Black Flag: The Romance and Reality of Life Among the Pirates (New York: Random House, 1995), 72–74.  5.  Calendar of State Papers, Ireland 1588–1592 Elizabeth I: Volume 170, July 1593, 66. ‘Eighteen Articles of interrogatory to be answered by Grany Ne Malley’, July; Calendar of State Papers, Ireland 1588–1592 Elizabeth I: Volume 171, August 1593. Athlone. 12. ‘Sir R. Bingham to Burghley’, 13 August 1593. See also Duncombe, Pirate Women, 70–85. Introduction   1. Maya Oppenheim, ‘Female Pirate Lovers Whose Story Was Ignored by Male Historians Immortalised With Statue’, Independent, 19 November 2020, https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/homenews/women-pirates-anne-bonny-mary-read-lgbt-statue-b1725018. html Accessed 27 April 2021. Additional note: As of March 2021 the statues were set to be moved to Burgh Island in South Devon to represent the role of women and the sea in this historic maritime community. The idea was initially welcomed to ‘enhance the area’ and celebrate the region’s pirate history. However, as of April 2021 this idea has been abandoned due to concerns about glorifying pirates ‘who were ruthless criminals and villains’. Other opponents suggested that a statue of a fisherman’s wife (or wives) would be more appropriate.

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Notes 157 As I write this in April 2021, there are no updates about the fate of the statues. See Jonathan Morris, ‘Burgh Island Statue “Should Be Pilchards Not Pirates’”, BBC News Online, 16 February 2021, https:// www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-devon-56016080. Accessed 27 April 2021; ‘Burgh Island Female Pirates Statue Plans Withdrawn’, BBC News, 30 March 2021. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-devon56580458 Accessed 27 April 2021.  2. Jo Stanley, Bold in Her Breeches: Women Pirates Across the Ages (London: HarperCollins Publishers, 1995), 6.  3. Ibid, 7.   4. See Marcus Rediker, Villains of All Nations: Atlantic Pirates in the Golden Age (Boston: Beacon Press, 2004), 8; Colin Woodard, The Republic of Pirates: Being the True and Surprising Story of the Caribbean Pirates and the Man Who Brought Them Down (Boston: Mariner Books, 2008), 1.  5. Marcus Rediker, Outlaws of the Atlantic: Sailors, Pirates, and Motley Crews in the Age of Sail (Boston: Beacon Press, 2014), 64.  6. Rediker, Villains of All Nations, 101, 132–33.  7. Benerson Little, The Sea Rover’s Practice: Tactics and Techniques, 1630– 1730 (Lincoln: Potomac Books, 2007), 29.  8.  Mark Hanna, Pirate Nests and the Rise of the British Empire, 1570–1740 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2015), 398. For a more detailed analysis about the uses of A General History of the Pyrates, see 402–08.  9. Neil Rennie, Treasure Neverland: Real and Imaginary Pirates (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 78. 10. Ibid, 79. 11. Hanna, 398. Chapter 1  1. Tamara J. Eastman and Constance Bond, The Pirate Trial of Anne Bonny (California: Fern Canyon PR, 2000), 16.  2. A General History of the Pyrates does not refer to Anne Bonny’s mother by name. Secondary sources refer to her as either Peg Brennan or Mary Brennan. To avoid confusion, I chose to use the name Peg throughout the book when referring to Anne’s birth mother.  3. ‘William Cormac’, My Heritage. https://www.myheritage.com/names/ william_cormac Accessed 5 April 2021.  4. 5 Eliz c 4, An Act containing divers Orders for Artificers, Labourers, Servants of Husbandry, and Apprentices.  5.  Ibid.

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158  Pirate Queens  6.  Ibid.  7. Laura Gowing, Gender Relations in Early Modern England (Harlow: Pearson Education Limited, 2012), 18, 35.   8. Captain Charles Johnson, A General History of the Pyrates [hereafter GHP], edited by Manuel Schonhorn (Mineola: Dover, 1999), 159.  9. Michael Dalton, The Countrey Justice, Containing the Practice of the Justices of the Peace out of their Sessions, (1635), 281. ‘May 1650: An Act for suppressing the detestable sins of Incest, 10.  Adultery, and Fornication’, in Acts and Ordinances of the Interregnum, 1642–1660, ed. C.H. Firth and R.S. Rait (London, 1911), 387–89. British History Online, https://www.british-history.ac.uk/no-series/ acts-ordinances-interregnum/pp387-389 accessed 24 March 2020. 11. Gowing, 48. 12. Ibid, 31. 13. GHP, 161. 14. Ibid, 162–63. 15. Gowing, 63. 16. GHP, 163. 17. Dalton, 37–39. 18. Gowing, 18, 48. 19. Peter Linebaugh, The London Hanged: Crime and Civil Society in the Eighteenth Century (London: Penguin Books, 1991), 59. London Metropolitan Archives, DL/C 218, 50–52, sourced from 20.  Gowing, Gender Relations in Early Modern England. 21. Gowing, 36. 22. GHP, 164. 23. Gowing, 37. 24. GHP, 164. 25. Worcestershire Record Office, QS 98/37, as sourced from Gowing, Gender Relations in Early Modern England. 26. Joan Druett, Sea Captains: Heroines and Hellions of the Sea (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000), 94. 27. ‘William Cormac’, My Heritage. https://www.myheritage.com/names/ william_cormac Accessed 5 April 2021. Chapter 2  1. Dale Taylor, The Writer’s Guide to Everyday Life in Colonial America from 1607–1763 (Cincinnati: Writers Digest Books, 1997), 68–69.  2. Ibid, 126.   3. David Freeman Hawke, Everyday Life in Early America (New York: Harper & Row, 1988), 14.

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Notes 159  4. Taylor, 69.  5. GHP, 164.  6. Taylor, 138.  7. GHP, 164.  8.  Marcus Rediker, Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea: Merchant Seamen, Pirates and the Anglo-American Maritime World, 1700–1750 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 53–55.  9. Hawke, 155. 10. Douglass R. Burgess, The Politics of Piracy: Crime and Civil Disobedience in Colonial America (Lebanon: ForeEdge, 2014), 27–28. Calendar of State Papers: Colonial Series [hereafter CSPC] 18, Item 11.  15, ‘Governor Sir William Beeston to the Council of Trade and Plantations’, 5 January 1700. 12. Lauren Benton, A Search for Sovereignty: Law and Geography in European Empires, 1400–1900 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 147. 13. K ris E. Lane, Pillaging the Empire: Piracy in the Americas, 1500–1750 (Armonk: ME Sharpe, 1998), 168. 14. Burgess, 27–28. 15. William E. Nelson, The Common Law in Colonial America Vol. II: The Middle Colonies and the Carolinas, 1660–1730 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 74–75. CSPC 18, Item 300, ‘Col Quarry to Mr Secretary Vernon’, 6 March 16.  1700. 17. Peter Linebaugh, The London Hanged: Crime and Civil Society in the Eighteenth Century (London: Penguin Books, 1991), 133–34; David Cordingly, Under the Black Flag: The Romance and Reality of Life Among the Pirates (New York: Random House, 1995), 225. 18. Hawke, 7. 19. Mary C. Kelly, ‘“The Need of their Genius”: A Woman’s Revolution in Early America’, in Women in Early America, ed. Thomas A. Foster (New York: New York University Press, 2015), 248. 20. Taylor, 108; Hawke, 111. 21. Hawke, 63. 22. GHP, 164. 23. Ibid; Sally O’Driscoll, ‘The Pirate’s Breasts: Criminal Women and the Meanings of the Body’, The Eighteenth Century, Essays in Memory of Hans Turley Vol 53, No 3 (Autumn, 2012), 361. 24. Betty Wood, ‘Servant Women and Sex in the Seventeenth-Century Chesapeake’, in Women in Early America, ed. Thomas A. Foster (New York: New York University Press, 2015), 104–06.

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160  Pirate Queens 25. Karen Abbot, ‘The There’s a Man Among Ye: The Tale of Pirate Queens Anne Bonny and Mary Read’, Smithsonian Magazine (9 August 2011). https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/if-theres-aman-among-ye-the-tale-of-pirate-queens-anne-bonny-and-maryread-45576461/ Accessed 5 April 2021. 26. Taylor, 121. 27. Ibid, 122, 127. 28. Peter Lehr, Pirates: A New History, From Vikings to Somali Raiders (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2019), 68. See GHP; Merry E. Wiesner-Hanks, Women and Gender in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 298. 29. Duncombe, 123. 30. GHP, 623–4. Boston Gazette, 10–17 October 1720. 31.  Chapter 3   1. Linebaugh, 429, 127–28.  2. Margarette Lincoln, British Pirates and Society, 1670–1730 (Farnham: Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2014), 185.   3. GHP does not actually give her son a name at all. I have used the name ‘Mark’ because historians have generally accepted that Mary used his name as her male identity.  4. Gowing, 31.  5. Daniel Vickers, Young Men and the Sea: Yankee Seafarers in the Age of Sail (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005), 149–50.   6. Dian Leonard and Judy Lown, Open University Chronological Court: the changing experience of women (Milton Keynes: Open University, 1983).  7. Vickers, 153.  8.  Henry Swinburne, A Treatise of Testaments and Last Wills, (1590), 105–6.  9. Gowing, 45. 10. Vickers, 151. 11. Gowing, 31. 12. Vickers, 155. 13. ‘The Seamen’s Wives’ Vindication,’ in C.H. Firth, ed. Naval Songs and Ballads, Publications of the Navy Records Society, Vol xxxiii (1908), 145. 14. GHP, 153. 15. The origin of the name ‘Mark’ can never be fully determined, but it has been largely accepted as Mary’s male identity. It stands to reason that if Mary was passed off as her deceased brother and grew up as a boy named ‘Mark’, his name was Mark as well.

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Notes 161 16. Gowing, 12. 17. GHP, 153–54. 18. Ibid, 154 19. Ibid. Chapter 4  1. Abbot.  2.  Marcus Rediker and Peter Linebaugh, The Many-Headed Hydra: Sailors, Slaves, Commoners and the Hidden History of the Revolutionary Atlantic (London: Penguin Books, 2012), 146.  3. Rediker, Villains of All Nations, 17. See also, Rediker and Linebaugh, 160.  4. Lane, 171–72.  5. Ibid.  6. Rudolf M. Dekker and Lotte C. Van de Pol, The Tradition of Female Transvestism in Early Modern Europe (London: MacMillan Press, 1989), 10–15.  7. Duncombe, 105.  8. ‘The Heroic Deborah Samson’, in Letters, Journals & Diaries of ye Colonial America, ed. Dan Corbly (2009), 455–6.  9. Ibid, 457. 10. GHP, 154. 11. Ibid, 155. 12. Ibid. 13. John A. Lynn II, Women, Armies, and Warfare in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 86. 14. Ibid, 59, 81; Frank Tallett, War and Society in Early Modern Europe, 1495–1715 (New York: Routledge, 1997), 133. 15. Sir Thomas More, Utopia, Book II, Ch 7 (New York: Penguin Books, 2003).   16. As quoted in Geoffrey Pimm, The Violent Abuse of Women in 17th and 18th Century Britain (Barnsley, Pen and Sword History, 2019), 131.   17. Lynn II, 82. 18. Ibid, 85. 19. Druett, 96. 20. Wiesner-Hanks, 44. 21. Gowing, 43. 22. Wiesner-Hanks, 43. 23. Ibid, 94. 24. GHP, 155.

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162  Pirate Queens 25.  Jack P. Greene, ‘Colonial South Carolina and the Caribbean Connection’, The South Carolina Historical Magazine, Vol 88, No 4 (Oct. 1987), 195. 26. By 1735, there were 531 coffee houses in London. Robert Shoemaker, The London Mob: Violence and Disorder in Eighteenth-Century England (New York: Hambledon and London, 2004), 7. 27. Rebecca Simon, Why We Love Pirates: The Hunt for Captain Kidd and How He Changed Piracy Forever (Coral Gables: Mango Publishing Group, 2020), 127–29. 28. Ibid, 134. 29. Little, 25. 30. Dekker and Van de Pol, 9. 31. David Cordingly, Seafaring Women: Adventures of Pirate Queens, Female Stowaways, and Sailors’ Wives (New York: Random House, 2001), 62. 32. Ibid, 63 33. Stanley, 44. 34. Cordingly, Under the Black Flag, 69. 35. Cordingly, Seafaring Women, 64. 36. Ibid, 64. 37.  GHP, 156–57. 38. Ibid, 155. 39. TNA, HCA 1/98, f. 92, ‘Ann Canterell to Adam Baldridge’. See also E.T. Fox, Pirates in Their Own Words (Self-published: Fox Historical, 2014) 40. Simon, Why We Love Pirates, 115. 41. British Library [hereafter BL] Add MS 61620 ff 155–156, Petition of Pirate Wives’, 1701. Chapter 5  1. A lexander Exquemelin, The History of the Buccaneers of America (London, 1771 edition), 3–4.  2. Peter Earle, The Pirate Wars: Pirates vs. the Legitimate Navies of the World (London: Thomas Dunne Books, 2004), 135.   3. National Library of Jamaica, MS 60, ‘At a Council Held at St Jago de la Vega’, Jamaica Council Minutes, Vol. III, 14 March 1674.  4. CSPC 29, Item 331, ‘Council of Trade and Plantations to Mr Secretary Methuen’, 13 September 1716.  5. Colin Woodard, The Republic of Pirates: Being the True and Surprising Story of the Caribbean Pirates and the Man Who Brought Them Down, (San Diego: Harcourt, 2007), 86.

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Notes 163  6. Lane, 185.   7. Eric Jay Dolan, Black Flags, Blue Waters: The Epic History of America’s Most Notorious Pirates (New York: Liveright Publishing Corporation, 2018), 180.   8. Hanna, 358; Dolan, 267.  9. Hanna, 358. 10. Lincoln, 143. 11. Peter T. Leeson, The Invisible Hook: The Hidden Economics of Pirates (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009), 9. 12. Lincoln, 144. 13. Ibid, 96. 14. Rediker and Linebaugh, 172. 15. Woodard, 139. 16. Simon, Why We Love Pirates, 148. 17. Rediker, Villains of All Nations, 110. 18. Simon, Why We Love Pirates, 148–49. 19. Ibid, 140. 20. BL, Add MSS 39946, fo 28, ‘Deposition against Benjamin Hornigold’. CSPC, Vol. 7, No. 944, 1–10 June, 1699. 21.  22. Jamie L.H. Goodall, ‘Tippling Houses, Rum Shops and Taverns: How Alcohol Fueled Informal Commercial Networks and Knowledge Exchange in the West Indies’, Journal of Maritime Research Vol 18, No 2 (2016), 100. 23. Ibid, 98. 24. Ibid, 99. 25. Rediker, Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea, 81. 26. Ibid, 257–60. 27. Woodard, 237. 28. GHP, 149. 29. Lehr, 68. 30. Alison Games, Migrations and Origins of the English Atlantic World (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2001), 46–47. 31. Peter T. Leeson; Peter J. Boettke and Jayme S. Lemke, ‘Wife Sales’, Review of Behavioral Economics, Vol 1 (2014), 352. 32. Rediker, Villains of All Nations, 117. 33. GHP, 164. 34. Ibid. 35. Little, 33. 36. Rediker, Villains of All Nations, 107. 37. ‘By His Excellent Woodes Rogers, Esq Governour of New Providence, &c A Proclamation’, Boston Gazette, 10 October 1720.

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164  Pirate Queens Chapter 6  1. Rediker, Villains of All Nations, 8.  2.  Ibid, 111.  3. Simon, Why We Love Pirates, 39–40.  4. Stanley, 9.  5. Ibid, 14.   6. Ibid, 19, 36.  7. Gowing, 20.  8.  Stanley, 40.   9. Dekker and Van de Pol, 59. 10. Stanley, 40–41. 11. Gowing, Gender Relations in Early Modern England (Harlow: Pearson Educated Limited, 2012), 20. 12. Ibid. 13. U lrike Klausmann, Marion Meinzerin and Gabriel Kuhn, Women Pirates and the Politics of the Jolly Roger (Montreal: Black Rose Books, 1997), 212–15 14. Stanley, 40. The History and Lives Of all the most Notorious Pirates and their Crews 15.  (London: Edward Midwinter, 1725), 72. 16. Rictor Norton, ‘Lesbian Pirates: Anne Bonny and Mary Read’, Lesbian History, updated 14 June 2008, http://rictornorton.co.uk/pirates/htm. Accessed 6 April 2021. 17. As cited in Klausmann, Meinzerin and Kuhn, 212. 18. Stanley, 155. David Cordingly also accepts that Anne and Mary had a lesbian relationship. Cordingly, Seafaring Women, 82. 19. GHP, 157–58. 20. Rennie, 78–79. 21. Rediker, Villains of All, 112–13. 22. GHP, 158–59. 23. Stanley, 38. 24. Suzanne Stark, Female Tars: Women Aboard Ship in the Age of Sail (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1996), 14. 25.  Jack P Greene, Settler Jamaica in the 1750s: A Social Portrait (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2016), 15. 26. Currency Converter: 1270–2017, The National Archives, Kew. https:// www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/currency-converter/#currency-result 27. Little, 41, 43, 45. 28. GHP, 140. 29. Stanley, 7. 30. Ibid, 8.

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Notes 165 31. Lincoln, 188. 32. GHP, 150. 33. Ibid. 34. Geoffrey Pimm, The Violent Abuse of Women in 17th and 18th-Century Britain (Barnsley: Pen and Sword History, 2019), 93. 35. Rebecca Simon, ‘The Revenge of Anne and Mary’, Truly*Adventurous (8 October 2019) https://medium.com/truly-adventurous/the-revenge-ofanne-and-mary-477143d7bf4d Accessed 13 April 2021. 36. Little, 77. 37. The National Archives [hereafter TNA CO 134/14, The Trials of Captain John Rackham and Other Pirates (London, 1721), 9. 38. Stanley, 48. 39. TNA CO 134/14, The Trials of Captain Jack Rackham and Other Pirates (London, 1721), 27–28. 40. Ibid, 10. 41. Ibid. 42. Rediker, 109. 43. Little, 66–68. 44. Ibid, 69. 45. TNA CO 137/14, The Trials of Jack Rackham and Other Pirates (London, 1721), 18. 46. Weisner-Hanks, 83. 47. Sarah Jinner, An Almanack and Prognostication for the year of our Lord 1659; Sarah Jinner, An Almanack and Prognostication for the year of our Lord 1664 in Almanacs, The Early Modern Englishwoman: A Facsimile Library of Essential Works, ed. Alan S. Weber (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2002). 48. Gowing, 22. 49. Weisner-Hanks, 65. 50. Sally O’Driscoll, ‘The Pirate’s Breasts: Criminal Women and the Meanings of the Body’, The Eighteenth Century, Vol. 53, 3, Essays in Memory of Hans Turley (Autumn, 2012), 368. 51. Little, 26. 52. Woodard, 318–19. 53. Druett, 92. 54. Cordingly, Seafaring Women, 84–85. 55. Little, 25–26. 56. Ibid, 38–39. 57. As quoted in Druett, 91. 58. Woodard, 319.

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166  Pirate Queens 59. GHP. 60. Druett, 92. 61. Little, 33. 62. Druett, 92. Chapter 7  1. Jonathan Dalby, Crime and Punishment in Jamaica: A Quantitative Analysis of the Assize Court Records, 1756–1856 (Kingston: University of the West Indies, 2001), 12.   2. TNA, CO 139/8/12, Jamaica Acts, 1681–1737.   3. TNA CO 139/8/12, Jamaica Acts, 1681–1737.  4. CSPC 10, item 601, ‘Order of the King in council’, 15 Feb 1678.  5. Stanley, 155.  6. Diana Paton, No Bond but the Law: Punishment, Race and Gender in Jamaican State Formation, 1780–1870 (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004), 22–23.  7. T NA CO 137/14, The Tryals of Jack Rackham and Other Pirates (London, 1721), 4–5.  8.  Ibid, 8.  9. Ibid, 8–12. 10. Rebecca Simon, ‘The Problem and Potential of Piracy: Legal Changes and Emerging Ideas of Colonial Autonomy in the Early Modern British-Atlantic, 1670 – 1730’, Journal for Maritime Research, Vol 18, No 2 (2016), 131. 11. GHP, 165. 12. Lincoln, 188. 13. John C. Appleby, Women and English Piracy, 1540–1720: Victims and Partners of Crime (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2013), 215; Lincoln, 38–39. 14. Michel Foucault Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, trans. Alan Sheridan (New York: Vintage Books, 1996), 33–4; J.A. Sharpe, ‘”Last Dying Speeches”: Religion, Ideology and Public Executions in Seventeenth-Century England’, Past & Present Vol 107 (1985), 161. 15. Lincoln, 37–39. 16. Wiesner-Hanks, 298. 17. Ibid, 295–96. 18. Ibid, 296. 19. Stanley, 156. 20. TNA CO 137/14, The Trials of Captain John Rackham and other Pirates (London, 1721), 18.

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Notes 167 21. Ibid. 22. JM Beattie, Crime and the Courts in England, 1660–1800 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2002), 414. 23. Ibid, 97. 24. Ibid, 414. 25. TNA CO 137/14, The Trials of Captain John Rackham and other Pirates (London, 1721), 19. 26. Beattie, 431. 27. Pimm, 84–85. 28. Beattie, 301. 29. GHP, 159. 30. Cordingly, Seafaring Women, 86. 31. Duncombe, 128–29. 32. Cordingly, Seafaring Women, 87. 33. Tony Bartelme, ‘Arrgh! The Truth and False Stories of Anne Bonny, Pirate Woman of the Caribbean’, The Post and Courier, 17 November 2020. https://www.postandcourier.com/news/the-true-and-false-stories-ofanne-bonny-pirate-woman-of-the-caribbean/article_e7fc1e2c-101d11e8-90b7-9fdf20ba62f8.html Accessed 23 April 2021. 34. Tony Bartelme, ‘A 22-Year-Old YouTuber May Have Solved Anne Bonny Pirate Mystery 300 Years After Trial’, The Post and Courier, 19 January 2021. https://www.postandcourier.com/news/a-22-year-oldyoutuber-may-have-solved-anne-bonny-pirate-mystery-300-yearsafter/article_78fc0a2e-2914-11eb-a5f5-03b65f4d281a.html Accessed 23 April 2021. This is brand new evidence at the time of this writing. It has not been confirmed if this is the same Anne Bonny or not. Chapter 8  1.  Julie Crawford, ‘Reconsidering Early Modern Women’s Reading, or, How Margaret Hoby Read Her de Mornay’, Huntington Library Quarterly, Vol 73, No 2 (June 2010), 203.  2. Sasha Roberts, ‘Reading in Early Modern England: Contexts and Problems’, Critical Survey, Vol 12, No 2 (2000), 2–3.   3. Heidi Brayman Hackel, Reading Material in Early Modern England: Print, Gender, and Literacy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 195; Martyn Lyons, ‘New Readers in the Nineteenth Century: Women, Children, Workers’ in A History of Reading in the West, ed. Guglielmo Cavallo and Roger Chartier, trans. Lydia G. Cochrane (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1999), 320.  4. Brian Cowan, The Social Life of Coffee: The Emergence of the British Coffeehouse (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005), 191.

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168  Pirate Queens   5. John Walter, ‘Gesturing at Authority: Deciphering the Gestural Code of Early Modern England,’ Past & Present, Vol 203, No 4 (2009), 102.  6. Helen Berry: ‘Rethinking Politeness in 18C England: Moll King’s Coffee House and the Significance of “Flash Talk”: The Alexander Prize Lecture,’ Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, Vol 11 (2001), 66.  7. Jacqueline Pearson, Women’s Reading in Britain, 1750 – 1835: A Dangerous Recreation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 49.   8. Rennie, 22. 9. O’Driscoll, 371. 10. Rediker, Villains of All Nations, 118. 11. Martyn Lyons, ‘New Readers in the Nineteenth Century: Women, Children, Workers’ in A History of Reading in the West, ed. Guglielmo Cavallo and Roger Chartier, trans. Lydia G. Cochrane (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1999), 343. 12. Lincoln, 12–13. 13. Stanley, 42. 14. Rediker, Villains of All Nations, 118. 15. Carol Cosman, Joan Keefe and Kathleen Weaver, eds., The Penguin Book of Women Poets (New York: Penguin, 1981), 21. 16. Emily Dickinson, ‘I started Early – Took my Dog’, Poetry Foundation, https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/50976/i-started-earlytook-my-dog-656 Accessed 19 April 2021. 17. Melanie Perrault, ‘To Fear and To Love Us: Intercultural Violence in the English Atlantic World’, Journal of World History, Vol 17, 1 (March, 2006), 71–72. 18. As quoted from Peter T. Leeson, The Invisible Hook: Hidden Economies of Pirates (Princeton University Press, Princeton, 2009), 117. London Journal, 3 August 1723. 19.  20. Merrall Llewelyn Price, Consuming Passions: The Uses of Cannibalism in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe (New York: Taylor & Francis, 2003), 7. 21. ‘London’, London Journal, 20 June 1724. 22. ‘We have this farther Account of Insolence...’ London Journal, 24 August 1723. 23. Rediker, Villains of All Nations, 119. 24. Lincoln, 138. 25. Sasha Roberts, ‘Reading in Early Modern England: Context and Problems’, Critical Survey, Vol 12, No 2 (2000), 2–3, 6. 26. Duncombe, 107–09.

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Notes 169 27. Hamilton W. Mabie, ‘Should the Young Read Novels?’ Ladies Home Journal, Vol. XXIV, No 10 (Sept. 1907), 28. 28. Lyons, 319. 29. ‘The Books Girls Read,’ Dallas Morning News, Vol II, Iss 46 (15 Nov 1886), 3. Chapter 9   1. Carolyn Eastman, ‘”Blood and Lust”: Masculinity and Sexuality in Illustrated Print Portrayals of Early Pirates of the Caribbean’, in The Golden Age of Piracy: The Rise, Fall and Enduring Popularity of Pirates, ed. David Head (Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 2018), 185–86.  2. Ibid, 187–88.  3.  Daily Courant, 20 July 1722; British Journal, 6 October 1722.  4. The Trial of Jack Rackham and Other Pirates (London, 1721). Other trial transcripts such as those of Captain Kidd, Thomas Green and John Gow were all sold between 1 and 3 pence. Over the first quarter of the eighteenth century, the titles of these publications became more detailed. See, for example, A Person of Quality, A Full Account of the Proceedings in Relation to Capt. Kidd in Two Letters (London, 1701); Remarks upon the Tryal of Capt. Thomas Green and his Crew (London, 1705); A Full and Exact Account of the Tryal of all the Pyrates, Lately taken by Captain Ogle, on Board the Swallow Man of War, on the Coast of Guinea (London, 1723); An Account of the Conduct and Proceedings of the late John Gow, alias Smith, Captain of the late Pirates, Executed for Murther and Piracy Committed on Board the George Galley, afterwards call’d the Revenge, with A Relation of all the horrid Muthers they committed in Cold Blood (London, 1725).  5. ‘The Second Edition with Additions, of The General History of the Pyrates’, American Weekly Mercury, 22–29 December 1724; 29 December 1724–25 January 1725; 5–12 January 1725.   6. ‘London, April 3’, American Weekly Mercury, 1–8 July 1725.  7. GHP, 6.  8.  Ibid, 6.  9. O’Driscoll, 372. 10. Ibid, 368–69. 11. Eastman, 194–95. 12. Ibid, 197–98.

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170  Pirate Queens 13. Summary from John Gay, Polly: An Opera being the Second Part of the Beggar’s Opera in John Gay: Dramatic Works, ed. John Fuller (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983). 14. John Thaxter, ‘The Women Pirates (Review)’, YAT Past Productions, 1984, https://www.yat.org.uk/productions/index.php?sid=66 (Accessed 10 May 2021). 15. Kylie, ‘Anne Bonny is Tragic Backstory Done Right’, The Fandomentals (2017). https://thefandomentals.com/anne-bonny-black-sails/ Accessed 18 March 2021. 16. Ibid. The Lost Pirate Kingdom, Netflix (2021). This information is from the 17.  author’s participation in and viewing of the series. 18. Lynn II, 180. 19. Juliet Dusinberre, Shakespeare and the Nature of Women (London: Macmillan, 1975), 239.

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172  Pirate Queens Primary Sources: Printed 5 Eliz. c 4, ‘An Act containing divers Orders for Artificers, Labourers, Servants of Husbandry and Apprentices’. 28 Henry 8, c 15, ‘Offences of the Sea Act, 1536, Statutes of the Realm, III. An Act for the More Effectual Suppression of Piracy’. 11 Will 3 C 7, 1698, ‘Statues of the Realm: Volume 7, 1695–1701’ (1820). An Account of the Conduct and Proceedings of the late John Gow, alias Smith, Captain of the late Pirates, Executed for Murther and Piracy Committed on Board the George Galley, afterwards call’d the Revenge, with A Relation of all the horrid Muthers they committed in Cold Blood (London, 1725). ‘An Act for Suppressing Pirates in the West Indies, 1718’, British Royal Proclamations Relating to America 1603–1783, (1911). Calendar of State Papers: Colonial Series Calendar of State Papers: Ireland Remarks upon the Tryal of Capt. Thomas Green and his Crew (London, 1705); A Full and Exact Account of the Tryal of all the Pyrates, Lately taken by Captain Ogle, on Board the Swallow Man of War, on the Coast of Guinea (London, 1723). The History and Lives Of all the most Notorious Pirates and their Crews (Edward Midwinter, London, 1725). The Trials of Captain Jack Rackham and Other Pirates (London, 1721). A Person of Quality, A Full Account of the Proceedings in Relation to Capt. Kidd in Two Letters (London, 1701). Corbly, D., Letters, Journals & Diaries of ye Colonial America (Lulu, 2019). Dalton, M., The Countrey Justice, Containing the Practices of Justices of the Peace out of their Sessions (1635). Johnson, C., A General History of the Pyrates, Edited by M Schoenhorn (Dover Publication, Mineola, 1999). Exquemelin, A., The History of the Buccaneers of America (London, 1771). Firth, C.H., Naval Songs and Ballads, Publications of the Navy Records Society, Vol. xxxiii (1908). Jinner, S., An Almanack and Prognostication for the year of our Lord, 1659. An Almanack and Prognostication for the year of our Lord, 1664. McLaine, M., Piracy Papers: Primary Source Documents from the Golden Age of Piracy (Self-published, 2020). More, T., Utopia (Penguin Books, New York, 2003). Swinburne, H., A Treatise of Testaments and Last Wills (1590).

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Bibliography 175 Lincoln, M., British Pirates and Society, 1680–1730 (Ashgate, Surrey, 2015). Linebaugh, P., The London Hanged: Crime and Civil Society in the Eighteenth Century (Penguin Books, London, 1991). Little, B., The Sea Rover’s Practice: Pirate Tactics and Techniques, 1630– 1730 (Potomac Books, Lincoln, 2007). Lynn II, J.A., Women, Armies and Warfare in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2008). Nelson, W.E., The Common Law in Colonial America Vol. II: The Middle Colonies and the Carolinas, 1660–1730 (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2013). Paton, D., No Bond but the Law: Punishment, Race and Gender in Jamaican State Formation, 1780–1870 (Duke University Press, Durham, 2004). Pearson, J., Women’s Reading in Britain, 1750–1835: A Dangerous Recreation (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1999). Pimm, G., The Violent Abuse of Women in 17th and 18th Century Britain (Pen & Sword Books, Barnsley, 2019). Price, M.L., Consuming Passions: The Uses of Cannibalism in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe (Taylor & Francis, New York, 2003). Rediker, M., Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea: Merchants, Seamen, Pirates and the Anglo-American World (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1987). —— Outlaws of the Atlantic: Sailors, Pirates, and Motley Crews in the Age of Sail (Beacon Press, Boston, 2014) —— Villains of All Nations: Atlantic Pirates in the Golden Age (Beacon Press, Boston, 2004). Rediker, M. and Linebaugh, P., The Many-Headed Hydra: Sailors, Slaves, Commoners and the Hidden History of the Revolutionary Atlantic (Penguin Books, London, 2012) Rennie, N., Treasure Neverland: Real and Imaginary Pirates (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2013). Ritchie, R.C., Captain Kidd and the War Against the Pirates (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1986). Shoemaker, R., The London Mob: Violence and Disorder in EighteenthCentury England (Hambledon and London, New York, 2004). Simon, R., Why We Love Pirates: The Hunt for Captain Kidd and How He Changed Piracy Forever (Mango Publishing Group, Coral Gables, 2020). Stanley, J., Bold in Her Breeches: Women Pirates Across the Ages (HarperCollins Publishers, London, 1995).

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176  Pirate Queens Stark, S., Female Tars: Women Aboard Ship in the Age of Sail (Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, 1996), Tallett, F., War and Society in Early Modern Europe, 1495–1715 (Routledge, New York, 1997). Taylor, D., The Writer’s Guide to Everyday Life in Colonial America from 1607–1783 (Writers Digest Books, Cincinnati, 1997). Vickers, D., Young Men and the Sea: Yankee Seafarers in the Age of Sail (Yale University Press, New Haven, 2005). Weber, A.S., The Early Modern Englishwoman: A Facsimile Library of Essential Works (Ashgate, Aldershot, 2002). Wiesner-Hanks, M.E., Women and Gender in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2008). Woodard, C., The Republic of Pirates: Being the True and Surprising Story of the Caribbean Pirates and the Man Who Brought Them Down (Harcourt, San Diego, 2007). Chapters and Periodicals Berry, H., ‘Rethinking Politeness in 18C England: Moll King’s Coffee House and the Significance of ‘Flash Talk’: The Alexander Prize Lecture,’ Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, Vol 11 (2001), 65–81. Crawford, J., ‘Reconsidering Early Modern Women’s Reading, or, How Margaret Hoby Read Her de Mornay’, Huntington Library Quarterly, Vol 73, No 2 (June 2010), 193–223. Eastman, C., ‘“Blood and Lust”: Masculinity and Sexuality in Illustrated Print Portrayals of Early Pirates of the Caribbean’, The Golden Age of Piracy: The Rise, Fall and Enduring Popularity of Pirates, Edited by D Head (The University of Georgia Press, Athens, 2018). Goodall, J.L.H., ‘Tipping Houses, Rum Shops and Taverns: How Alcohol Fueled Informal Commercial Networks and Knowledge Exchange in the West Indies’, Journal of Maritime Research, Vol 18, No 2 (2016), 97–121. Green, J.P., ‘South Carolina and the Caribbean Connection’, South Carolina Historical Magazine, Vol 88, No 4 (1987), 192–210. Hunt, M., ‘Women and the Fiscal Imperial State in the Late Seventeenth and Early Eighteenth Centuries’, A New Imperial History: Culture, Identity and Modernity in Britain and the Empire, 1660–1800, Ed. K Wilson (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 2004). Kelly, M.C., ‘“The Need of Their Genius”: A Women’s Revolution in Early America’, Women in Early America, Ed. TA Foster (New York University Press, New York, 2015).

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Bibliography 177 Leeson, P., Boettke, P.J., Lemke, J.S., ‘Wife Sales’, Review of Behavioral Economics, Vol 1 (2014), 349–79. Lyons, M., ‘New Readers in the Nineteenth Century: Women, Children, Workers’, A History of Reading in the West, edited by. C Guglielmo and R Chartier, translated by LG Cochrane (University of Massachusetts Press, Amherst, 1999). Muir, A.J., ‘Courtship, Sex and Poverty: Illegitimacy in EighteenthCentury Wales’, Social History, Vol 43, No 1 (2018), 56–80. O’Driscoll, S., ‘The Pirate’s Breasts: Criminal Women and the Meanings of the Body’, The Eighteenth Century: Essays in Memory of Hans Turley, Vol 53, No 3 (2012), 357–79. Perrault, M., ‘To Fear and To Love Us: Intercultural Violence in the English Atlantic World’, Journal of World History, Vol 17, No 1 (2006). Roberts, S., ‘Reading in Early Modern England: Contexts and Problems’, Critical Survey, Vol 12, No 2 (2000). Sharpe, J.A., ‘Last Dying Speeches: Religion, Ideology and Public Executions in Seventeenth-Century England’, Past & Present, Vol 107 (1985), 144–167. Simon, R., ‘The Problem and Potential of Piracy: Legal Changes and Emerging Ideas of Colonial Autonomy in the Early Modern BritishAtlantic, 1670–1730’, Journal for Maritime Research, Vol 18 No 2 (2016), 123–37. Walter, J., ‘Gesturing at Authority: Deciphering the Gestural Code of Early Modern England’, Past & Present, Vol 203, No 4 (2009), 96–127. Wood, B., ‘Servant Women and Sex in the Seventeenth-Century Chesapeake’, in Women in Early America, edited by TA Foster (New York University Press, New York, 2015). Web Sources ‘May 1650: An Act for the suppressing the detestable sins of Incest, Adultery and Fornication’, Acts and Ordinances of the Interregnum, 1642–1660. Edited by CH Firth and RS Rait (London, 1911), 387– 89, British History Online, https://www.british-history.ac.uk/noseries/actsordinances-interregnum/pp387-389. Currency Converter: 1270 - 2017, The National Archives, Kew. https:// www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/currency-converter/#currency-result ‘Burgh Island Female Pirates Statue Plans Withdrawn’, BBC News (30 March 2021). https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-devon56580458 Accessed 27 April 2021.

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178  Pirate Queens Abbott, K., ‘If There’s a Man Among Ye: The Tale of Pirate Queens Anne Bonny and Mary Read’, Smithsonian Magazine (2011). https:// www.smithsonianmag.com/history/if-theres-a-manamong-ye-thetale-of-pirate-queens-anne-bonny-and-mary-read-45576461/ Bartelme, T., ‘Arrgh! The True and False Stories of Anne Bonny, Pirate Woman of the Caribbean’, The Post and Courier (2020). https:// www.postandcourier.com/news/the-true-and-false-stories-of-annebonny-pirate-woman-of-the-caribbean/article_e7fc1e2c-101d-11e890b7-9fdf20ba62f8.html ‘A 22-Year-Old YouTuber May Have Solved Anne Bonny Pirate Mystery 300 Years After Trial’, The Post and Courier (2021). https://www. postandcourier.com/news/a-22-year-old-youtuber-may-have-solvedanne-bonny-pirate-mystery-300-years-after/article_78fc0a2e-291411eb-a5f5-03b65f4d281a.html Dickinson, E., ‘I Started Early – Took my Dog’ Poetry Foundation. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/69411/emily-dickinsoni-started-early-took-my-dogKylie, ‘Anne Bonny is a Tragic Backstory Done Right’, The Fandomentals (2017). https://thefandomentals.com/anne-bonny-black-sails/ Morris, J., ‘Burgh Island Statue “Should Be Pilchards Not Pirates’”, BBC News Online (16 February 2021). https://www.bbc.com/news/ uk-england-devon-56016080 Norton, R., ‘Lesbian Pirates: Anne Bonny and Mary Read’, Lesbian History (2008). http://rictornorton.co.uk/pirates.htm Oppenheim, M., ‘Female Pirate Lovers Whose Story Was Ignored by Male Historians Immortalised With Statue’, Independent (19 November 2020). https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/homenews/women-pirates-anne-bonny-mary-read-lgbt-statue-b1725018. html Accessed 27 April 2021 Simon, R., ‘The Revenge of Anne and Mary’, Truly*Adventurous (2019). https://medium.com/truly-adventurous/the-revenge-of-anne-andmary-477143d7bf4d Thaxter, J., ‘The Women Pirates (Review)’, YAT Past Productions (1984). https://www.yat.org.uk/productions/index.php?sid=66 ‘William Cormac’, My Heritage. https://www.myheritage.com/names/ william_cormac Film and Television Netflix, The Lost Pirate Kingdom (2021).

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Index Al Hurra, Sayyida, xi Awilda, x–xi Bahamas, 31–3, 60–1, 64–71, 77, 86–7, 91, 137 Nassau, xxi, 33, 63–5, 67, 70–4, 77, 81, 83, 98, 100, 135–7 pirate kingdom, 45, 61, 64–5, 67 Barnet, Jonathan, 97–103, 105 Bondavais, Jean, 97, 99, 108 Bonny, Anne, xi, xiii–xxii, 1–2, 20, 22, 86–8, 138–9 as a boy, 19, 21 as a domestic servant, 27–30 as an illegitimate child, 17–8, 34 as a pirate, 77–8, 89–103 capture, 99–103 death, 115–7 death sentence, 113–4 dress, 95–7 feminism, 119–120, 122 in film/television, 135–7 in Cuba, 76–7 in Nassau, 64, 69–73 in published works, 124, 126, 128–134 in South Carolina, 23, 25, 27 pregnancy, 96–7, 113–6 prison, 105, 115 proclamation issued against, xx, 78 relationship with James Bonny, 31–3, 69–71 relationship with Jack Rackham, 73–7, 110 relationship with Mary Read, 81–5 trial, 111–3 Bonny, James, xix, xxi, 31, 64, 70–1, 74–5, 77, 91 Brennan, Peg, xxi, 1–24, 33–4

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Charleston, South Carolina, 22–7, 30 Cormac, William, 1–9, 12–3, 15–22, 23–4, 27–8, 30–4, 116 wife, 2, 4, 8–20 Cotton, Amanda, xiv Cross-dressing, 82–3, 85, 89, 92, 138 Dillon, Thomas, 94–5, 99, 108, 112 Domestic servants, xiv, xix, xxi, 2–3, 5, 11, 21, 42 Domesticity, xvii, 28, 92, 121 Drunkenness, 72, 73, 100–2, 122 England, xii, 21–2, 24, 26–7, 34, 36, 42, 44–5, 60, 68, 75, 85, 101, 105–7, 110, 125, 130 Bristol, 62 conflicts with Spain, 43, 65 London, xix, 21, 24–5, 36–7, 39–41, 120 Wapping, xiv, 125 Executions, xx, 27, 105, 107, 109–10, 114–15, 117, 122, 130, 136 hanging, 16–17, 27, 60, 62, 86, 104, 109, 110–1, 113–4 stays of, 17, 114 Femininity, xiv, xvii, 80, 82, 89–90, 92, 121, 137 Gender, xvii, xxi, 40, 58, 82, 87, 90, 111, 114, 119–120, 125–6, 132–3, 139 Imprisonment, xii, xx, 5, 15, 17, 35, 77, 86, 95, 103–4, 106, 124 illness, 115 pregnancy, 115 Ireland, xi, 1–2, 20–1, 23, 25, 27, 60 Cork, 1–2, 25

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180  Pirate Queens Jamaica Gallow’s Point, 95, 110 Negril’s Bay, 99, 108 Port Royal, 65–6, 72, 88, 98–9, 103, 105, 108, 125 St Jago de la Vega, xix, 104–6, 128 Johnson, Captain Charles xiii, xviii– xix, 1–2, 19, 29, 30–1, 34, 37, 48, 50, 60–2, 76–7, 81–2, 84–5, 90, 116, 131–3 A General History of the Pyrates, xiii, xviii–xxi, 1, 4, 19, 21, 24, 32, 34, 83, 116, 128, 130–4 Masculinity, 82, 132, Media ballads, 35, 119–20, 132, 138 books, 25, 126–9 Broadsides, 25, 76, 132 literature, 83, 118–9, 121, 124 newspapers, xiii, xix–xx, 25, 76, 122–3, 130 pamphlets, 124–5 plays, 128, 134–5, 137 television, 128, 135–8 theatre, 134 Menstruation, 49, 59 Mythology, 80 mermaids, 80, 89, 121, 122 sirens, 80, 89, 92 superstitions, 80 O’Malley, Grace, xi–xii Piracy xvii–xviii, xxii, 22, 27, 32, 45, 60–2, 68–9, 74, 76, 86–7, 100, 103, 109–10, 113 ancient, viii attraction to, xvii, 34, 83, 119–22, 124, 126 Golden Age, xiv–xv, 44, 128–9, 137 in Jamaica, 65–6 in Nassau, 91 in print, 129, 134 in popular culture, 135–7 laws against, 74, 106–7 Pirates agents of social mobility, xvii, 119 articles, 56

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attraction to, xvii, 34, 83, 119–22, 124, 126 battles, 88–9, 91, 93–5, 101–3 duels, 84 executions, 27, 110–1 families, 62 female, viii–xv, 78–81, 89, 92 gender, xvii hunters, 97–100 in Jamaica, 65, 87 in Nassau, 64, 66–8, 70 in print, xviii–xx, 34, 128–31, 134 in the West Indies, 65 lifespan, xvi on land, 70–3 pardons, 45, 60 proclamations against, 78 recruitment, 76 relationship with colonists, 25–7 sexualization of, 132–4 trials, 105–9, 113–5 war on pirates, 68 Privateers, xvi, 28, 45, 60, 63, 66–8, 97–8 Punishments death sentence, xvi, xix, 57, 83, 104, 106–7, 109–10, 113–4, 120, 124 hanging see executions transportation, 16–7, 62, 66, 115, 134 whipping, 23, 52, 76–7 workhouse, 52 Queen Artemisia I, viii–ix Rackham, Jack, 45, 85 as a pirate captain 79, 87–8, 90–7 capture, 99–103 career with Charles Vane, 73–4 death, 110 in film/television, 135 in published works, xiii, 130–1 proclamation issued against, xx, 78 relationship with Anne Bonny, 73–7, 110 takes a pardon, 74 trial, 106–9 Read, Mary, xi, xiii–xxii, 33, 138–9 as a boy, 39–41

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Index 181 as a domestic servant, 42 as an illegitimate child, 34–5 as a pirate, 60, 78, 86–103 as a sailor, 55–9 as a soldier, 44, 48–55 capture, 99–103 death, 115, 117 death sentence, 113 –4 feminism, 119–120, 122 gender identity and presentation, 42, 44, 48–50, 57–9, 77–8, 95–7, 138 husbands, 50–3, 83–5 in film/television, 135–7 in published works, 124–6, 128–34 in the Royal Navy, 43–4 other, 35–41 pregnancy, 96–7, 114–5 prison 105, 115 proclamation issued against, xx, 78 relationship with Anne Bonny, 81–5 theories about early life, 61–3 trial, 111–3 widowhood, 53–5 Rogers, Woodes, 60, 67–9, 71–2, 75–8, 86–7, 91, 97–8, 100 Royal Navy, xvi, xxi, 42–5, 48, 55–6, 61–2, 64, 66, 72–3, 87, 105 Sex, xv, 5–6, 14, 16, 18, 20, 30, 37–8, 51, 54, 56, 71, 73, 84, 96, 121–2, 124 assault, 14, 94, 129, 135–6 bisexuality, 83 homosexuality, 72, 81–2 lesbian, 82 rape, 5, 16, 30, 57, 125, 129, 135

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sexuality, 83, 119, 133–4, 136–7 sexually transmitted infections, 59 Spenlow, Thomas, 93–6, 99–100, 108 Taverns, 25, 28, 30, 53, 54, 71–4, 76, 98, 118 Teuta of Illyria, ix–x The Netherlands, 44, 53 Breda, 53 Flanders, 44, 46 The Three Horseshoes, 53 Thomas, Dorothy, 94, 96, 99–100, 112 Trials, 16, 84, 95–6, 105–6, 110–2, 114–5, 151 as a source, xiii, xviii–xix, 129 in Jamaica, 105 of Jack Rackham, 106–9 of Anne Bonny and Mary Read, 111–3 processes of, xx, 105, 114 publication of, xx, 33, 128–32, 138 Vane, Charles, xv, 45, 68, 73–4, 90–1, 113, 123, 131, 135 War of Spanish Succession, 44–5, 48, 54, 61, 63, 66, 69 Widowhood, 24, 35, 37, 40 Widows, 20, 24, 36–8, 40, 53–4, 61–3 Wives xiv, 1, 4, 6, 18–21, 23, 35–7, 52, 105, 110, 122 in the army, 51–3 marital Relations, 13 –4 of pirates, xx, 62–4, 69, 79, 87 on Plantations, 27–8 on Ships, 69, 81, 138 wife selling, 75

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