Prevented from
marrying or keeping company together on land, Calico Jack Rackham and Anne
Bonny rounded up some ex-pirate friends, stole a ship and headed out for a life
of freedom at sea.
The most famous
member of the crew, beside Anne and Jack, was a woman who had been a soldier, a
tavern keeper, a sailor in the Royal Navy, and a pirate. She was Anne’s
particular friend, and her name was Mary Read.
Many stories tell
that the two met when Anne’s pirate ship attacked a merchant vessel and Anne
took a liking to a young sailor, luring him back to her cabin with the offer to
“show him something he would like.” When the two of them settled down in
privacy, Anne was surprised to learn that the handsome sailor had a secret of
his own. “He” was a “she,” a cross-dressing sailor named Mary. When Jack found
the two of them together he was jealous until he discovered Mary’s secret, and
then the three became a happy and long-lasting ménage-a-trois.
In fact, records
state that Anne and Mary had become friendly in New Providence, and were know
associates there. And although Mary had spent much of her life disguised as a
man, there is no indication that she was a lesbian, or that she was disguised
when she kept company with Anne. Given Anne’s emotional relationship with Jack,
it’s unlikely that she would be inclined to share him. The story is false.
Women were supposed
to be bad luck at sea, and while many women undoubtedly disguised themselves as
men and served as sailors (Mary Read was an example) Anne and Mary alone, of
all the women in the Golden Age of Piracy, lived openly as women, wearing
skirts and dresses, and changing into men’s clothes only when they attacked or plundred a ship.
They also attacked
people on shore. One of their first missions was finding Richard Turnby, the man who had prevented their lawful marriage. He was hunting turtles with a crew on one of the smaller islands. Jack and Anne
swooped down, chased him and his young son into the jungle, forced his crew to
join them, and burned his ship.
They left one
sailor with a message. If they ever caught him again, they would whip him to
death.
Then they went on a
rampage, hunting and capturing ships and amassing treasure. Survivors of their
attacks assured the authorities that Anne was in fine form, waving a cutlass,
firing pistols, cursing and urging the men to violence and murder. Their
victims were terrified by the women, and more terrified by what these amazons
implied… that the order of law, both civil and criminal, was at an end.
It’s not known how
Anne and Jack wanted their story to end, but success was their defeat. With the
fall of New Providence, the authorities had come back to the region, and many
of the pardoned pirates had become pirate hunters themselves. Partying after a
victorious attack, the entire crew, including Jack, became so drunk that they
failed to keep a lookout.
They were found and
attacked by pirate hunters. Of the
entire crew, only Anne Bonny, Mary Read, and one unknown sailor were sober
enough to fight back. The two women were especially fierce, and nearly drove
off their attackers, but when the rest of the pirate crew failed to rally and
attempted to hide below decks, they were overwhelmed. Anne’s last action was to
fire a pistol into the mob of her cowering shipmates, calling them cowards.
The pirates were
arrested and hauled off to Port Royal for trial and execution. Calico Jack
Rackham and both women were found guilty and sentenced to death, but the women
had one last card to play. Both “pleaded their bellies,” meaning that they were
pregnant and could not be executed until their innocent children had been
delivered.
Jack’s love for
Anne lasted until the end. Just before he was hanged, he persuaded his jailors
to take him past her cell, so that he could see her one last time. Remembering
his cowardly behavior in their last battle, Anne gave him little comfort. Her
final words to him were, “I am sorry to see you here, but if you had fought
like a man, you would not be hanged like a dog.”
Calico Jack Rackham
was hanged on November 18th, 1720. Mary Read died in prison of a
fever.
And Anne Bonny? No
one knows what happened to her. It’s possible that, like Mary, she died in the
filthy, disease-ridden prison, or else failed to survive delivery of her child.
But no record of this has ever been found, and her notorious reputation would
make her death an important event. It’s possible that she escaped in some
daring way, and whoever was in charge of guarding her chose to not to alert the
authorities. I like the idea of Anne winning her freedom with some combination
of sex and violence. It would be in keeping with her character.
But one other
possibility remains. Anne still had a rich, influential father, and some
sources believe that he bribed the magistrate or the jailors to free his
wayward daughter. This story goes on to say that Anne reformed sufficiently to
marry and have 17 children, dying peacefully in bed at age eighty.
Anne's story lived for years courtesy of the original pirate storybook, A General History of Pyrates. It is notable that, when sales of the book fell off, a Dutch printing company revived it with one notable change... A "tarted up' picture of Anne Bonny and Mary Read. The book immediatly regained best-seller status, and is still available in print today.
Sex, and pirates, sell.
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