Anne Bonny (March 8, 1700- possibly April 25, 1782) was an Irish American pirate who plied her trade in the Carribean.
Early life
Much of what is known about Anne Bonny is based on Captain Charles Johnson's "A General History of Pyrates" . Official records and contemporary letters dealing with her life are scarce. Most details about her life prior to her arrival in the Bahamas do not appear to be based on any primary source evidence, including the claims that she was born in 1702 in County Cork, Ireland; that she was a daughter of attorney William Cormac and his maidservant; that her mother was named Mary Brennan and her grandmother was named Peg; and that, when the affair became public, Cormac moved to Charleston, SC, where he made a fortune and bought a large plantation. Diligent efforts to source all of these claims continue in earnest by pirate historians.
Marriage and affair with a pirate
When Bonny was 13, she supposedly stabbed a servant girl in the stomach with a table knife. She married a sailor and small-time pirate named James Bonny. According to legend, James Bonny hoped to win possession of his wife's family estate, but she was disowned by her father.
There is no evidence supporting the story that Anne Bonny started a fire on the plantation in retaliation, but it is known that sometime between 1714 and 1718 she and James Bonny moved to Nassau in the Bahamas which was then a pirate hub and base for many pirate operations. It is also true that after the arrival of Governor Woodes Rogers in the summer of 1718, James Bonny became an informant for the governor
While in the Bahamas, Anne Bonny began mingling with pirates at the local drinking establishments, and met the pirate Calico Jack Rackham, with whom she had an affair. While Rackham and many other pirates were enjoying the King's pardon in the New Providence, James dragged Anne before the governor to demand she be floggedfor adultery and returned to him. There was even an offer for Rackham to buy her in a divorce-by-purchase, but Anne refused to be "bought and sold like cattle." She was sentenced to the flogging, but later Anne and Rackham escaped to live together as pirates.
Life as a pirate
Bonny did not disguise herself as a man in order to join Rackham's crew aboard the Revenge as is often claimed. In fact, she and the other favorite of mine, Mary Reed, or Read, helped Rackham steal the boat at anchor in Nassau harbour and set off to sea, putting together a crew and taking several prizes. She took part in combat alongside the men, and the accounts describing her exploits present her as competent, effective in combat, and someone who gained the respect of her fellow pirates. She and Mary Read's name and gender were, however, known to all from the start, including Gov. Rogers, who named them in a "pirates wanted" circular published in the continent's only newspaper, the Boston News-Letter.
Over the next several months, she and Rackham saw several successes as pirates, capturing many ships and bringing in an abundance of treasure.
Although Bonny is one of the best-known pirates in history, she never commanded a ship of her own. Her renown derives from the fact that she was a rarity: a female pirate.
Capture and imprisonment
In October 1720, Rackham and his crew were attacked by a sloop captained by Jonathan Barnet, who was working for the governor of Jamaica. Most of Rackham's pirates did not put up much resistance as many of them were too drunk to fight, other sources indicate it was at night and most of them were asleep. However, Read, Bonny, and an unknown man (possibly Calico Jack), fought fiercely and managed to hold off Barnet's troops for a short time. After their capture, Rackham and his crew were sentenced by the Governor of Jamaica to be hanged. According to Johnson, Bonny's last words to the imprisoned Rackham were that "she was sorry to see him there, but if he had fought like a Man, he need not have been hang'd like a Dog."
After their arrest and trial, Read and Bonny both pleaded their bellies, announcing during the sentencing phase that they were both pregnant. In accordance with the common law at the time, both women received a temporary stay of execution until they gave birth. Read died in prison, most likely from a fever, though it has been alleged that she died during childbirth.
Disappearance from the record
There is no historical record of Bonny's release or of her execution. This has fed speculation that her father ransomed her; that she might have returned to her husband, or even that she resumed a life of piracy under a new identity. However, the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography states that "Evidence provided by the descendants of Anne Bonny suggests that her father managed to secure her release from jail and bring her back to Charles Town, South Carolina, where she gave birth to Rackham's second child. On December 21, 1721 she married a local man, Joseph Burleigh, and they had eight children. She died in South Carolina, a respectable woman, at the age of eighty-two and was buried on April 25, 1782."
And the other half of the greatest female pirate duo:
Mary Read (unknown – 1721) was an English pirate She is chiefly remembered as one of only two women (her comrade, Anne Bonney, was the other) known to have been convicted of piracy during the early 18th century, at the height of the Golden Age of Piracy.
Early life
Mary Read was illegitimately born in England, in the late 17th century, to the widow of a sea captain.
Her date of birth is in dispute among historians because of a reference to the Peace of Ryswick by her contemporary biographer, Captain Charles Johnson in his "A General History of Pyrates. He very well may have made an error, intending to refer to the Treaty of Utrecht. The discrepancy would place her birth either c.1680 or c.1690. If she was born the latter, she was the very typical age of 28 at the time of her piracy. (If Read was born earlier, there is no record by Johnson nor any other contemporary author to explain what happened in the 15 year gap from the war to her piracy.)
Read's mother began to disguise illegitimately-born Mary as a boy after the death of Mary's older, legitimate brother (name unknown). This was done in order to continue to receive financial support from his paternal grandmother. The grandmother was apparently fooled, and Read and her mother lived on the inheritance into her teenage years. Still dressed as a boy, Read then found work as a footboy, and later found employment on a ship.
After learning the harsh realities of the sea life, she jumped ship and joined the British military allied with Dutch and Austrian forces (this could have been during the Nine Years War or during the War of Spanish Succession). Read, in male disguise, proved herself through battle, but she fell in love with a Flemish soldier. When they married, she dressed as a woman for the first time in her life. They used their military commission and gifts from intrigued brethren in arms as a funding source to acquire an inn named "The Three Horseshoes" near Breda Castle in The Netherlands.
Upon her husband's early death, Read resumed male dress and military service in Holland. With peace, there was no room for advancement, so she quit and boarded a ship bound for the West Indies.
Becoming a pirate
Read's ship was taken by pirates, who forced her to join them. She took the King's pardon c.1718-1719, and took a commission to privateer, until that ended with her joining the crew in mutiny. In 1720 she joined pirate John "Calico Jack" Rackham and his companion, the female pirate Anne Bonney.
Read remained dressed as a man at first. Nobody knew that Read was female until Bonny began to take a liking to Read thinking she was a handsome young fellow. That forced Read to reveal to Bonny that she was a woman. Rackham, who was Bonny's lover, became jealous of the intimacy between them and threatened to cut the throat of Bonny's new paramour. To prevent Read's death, Rackham was also let in on the secret; following, Rackham decided to break male seafaring tradition by allowing both women to remain on the crew.
Eventually, Read and Bonny would wear men's clothes while attacking merchants in Jamaica, and women's clothes at other times.
Battles
Read fell in love with one of the sea artists (carpenter or navigator) who had been forced by Rackham's crew. The sea artist was due to fight a duel with an experienced pirate he had rubbed the wrong way. Read, knowing that her beloved stood no chance against him, started a quarrel with the pirate and challenged him to a duel that would take place before the pending duel with the forced man.
Read prevailed in the death match, and her lover showed up on time for his duel.
Capture and imprisonment
In October 1720, pirate hunter Captain Johnathan Barnet took Rackham's crew by surprise while they were hosting a rum party with another crew of Englishmen off the west coast of Jamaica. After a volley of fire left the pirate vessel disabled, Rackham's crew and their "guests" fled to the hold, leaving only the women and one other to fight Barnet's boarding party. Allegedly, Read angrily shot into the hold, killing one, wounding others when the men would not come up and fight with them. Barnet's crew eventually overcame the women. Rackham surrendered, requesting "quarter."
Rackham and his crew were arrested and brought to trial in what is now known as\ Spanish Town, Jamaica, where they were sentenced to hang for acts of piracy, as were Read and Bonny. However, the women escaped the noose when they revealed they were both "quick with child" (known as 'pleading the belly"), so they received a temporary stay of execution. Read was believed to have been pregnant by the artist, whom she considered her legal husband before God. Bonny was believed to have been pregnant by Rackham (who was not her legal husband).
Read died in prison in April 1721, but there is no record of burial of her baby. Official documents state that Read died of fever associated with childbirth.
Bonny disappeared from the historical record, presumed to have lived a long life in Colonial America.
I rather suspect that there were many more female pirates than these two (look up Grace O'Malley sometime), but these are the most famous, and since my great-grandmother Mary Catherine was a Reed before marrying Grandpa Hughes, I've always been very partial to them.
So, why not enjoy "Talk Like a Pirate" Day by learning a little more about them?
Argh!!
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