Not all pirates were men. Two of the most infamous were Anne Bonny and Mary Read. Much of our information about this fascinating duo comes from “A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pyrates” by Capt. Charles Johnson (which some think was a pseudonym for Daniel Defoe). The book tells the tales of the two women.
Anne was born in Ireland. Her father got the family maid pregnant. She was dressed as a boy while growing up rather than being recognized as a bastard. People were told “he” was a relative raised by her father. The family moved to South Carolina. She had a fierce temper and may have killed a female servant. When she entered her teens, she took to drinking and seducing sailors. She was disowned by her father. She married a sailor named James Bonny. They moved to Nassau in the Bahamas. It was a well-known pirate lair. Ironically, James became a snitch, giving pirate names to the governor. Anne took the opposite approach. In August, 1720, she joined the crew of the notorious pirate John “Calico Jack” Rackam. She did not hide her identity from the crew, but she would dress as a man if action was afoot. She carried a cutless and two pistols. She earned her shipmates respect when she chopped up a dressmaker’s mannequin doused with fake blood within sight of a merchant ship, which promptly surrendered. Rackam liked wild women, so the two became lovers. The “Revenge” cruised off the Bahamas, taking fishing boats and the occasional merchant ship. One of those ships carried Mary Read.
Read had also been an illegitimate child. She was disguised as a boy for financial reasons. It was easier to bring in money if you were a boy. At age 13, she went off to sea on a warship as a powder monkey. She fought in Flanders as a soldier. In 1720, she was a sailor on a merchant ship that was taken by the “Revenge”. To the crew, she seemed to fit in as a new recruit. She swore like a drunken sailor and looked like one. Supposedly, Anne was the first to discover her true identity when she attempted to seduce her. Anne agreed to keep her gender a secret and they became besties. Later, Rackham barged in on them and was shocked to find that Anne’s new friend was a woman. He also agreed to keep the crew ignorant.
On the night of October 22, 1720, the crew of the Revenge was sleeping off a day of drunken carousing. A sloop commanded by the famed pirate hunter Jonathan Barnett snuck up on the Revenge and opened fire. Rackham and the other men took refuge below decks, but the women stayed on deck shouting defiance. Supposedly, Anne fired a pistol into the hold, killing a shipmate. The ship was taken and the pirates were hauled off to prison. In the trial on Nov. 28, 1720, all three were found guilty and sentenced to death. The star witness against Bonny and Read was a woman who had been captured by the Revenge and roughly handled by the duo. (They had urged Rackham to kill her, but he refused.) Rackham was hanged but his salty cross-dressers were spared that when it was discovered they were both pregnant! Mary died in prison, possibly connected to her giving birth. Anne disappeared, but not from history.
https://www.historyextra.com/period/stuart/anne-bonny-mary-read-female-pirates-lives-crimes/
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