At this time, the British government sought to reestablish its power and
jurisdiction upon Jamaica. Captain Woodes Rogers offered the King's Pardon
to all pirates who would turn themselves in and offer to reform. Anne refused,
knowing that she could not be pardoned for the attempted murder of her father.
She, with Calico Jack, Pierre, and a group of unrepentant buccaneers, broke
through a blockade that Rogers had positioned in the harbor. As they sailed
past the blockade, Anne stood on deck, stripped to the waist like an Amazon,
and dressed in black velvet trousers designed by Pierre. With one hand resting
on the hilt of her sword, and the other waving a long silk scarf at the astonished
governor, she sailed past "as daintily as any fine lady being seen off on a long
ocean voyage."
Anne quickly established her position aboard this ship by shooting a sailor who
tried to force himself on her sexually. Though officially she was second in
command, within a few days she had thrown Calico Jack out of the Captain's
quarters and resided there alone.Anne grew up a tomboy. She was described
as “a strapping boisterous girl of a fierce and courageous temper” with rowdy
habits and short red hair. As a teenager she got into an argument with her
English servant-maid and attacked her with a knife. Anne had to be restrained
by her father. Other than her violent temper, Anne was considered a good and
dutiful daughter. Until she reached age sixteen.
Anne began hanging out along the waterfront of Charles Town, each night
hooking up with a different sailor or buccaneer. She became a familiar figure in
the taverns along Bay Street and in the bawdy houses on Elliott Street. She was
known for drinking, cursing and fighting as well as a man. One of her suitors
ended up in the hospital when she beat him with a chair. She eventually
married Jack Bonny, a sailor and sometime pirate.
Jack had more designs on Anne’s money than Anne herself. As soon as her
father learned of the marriage, he disinherited her. Furious, Anne attacked her
father with an ax handle and burned down the family plantation. She and her
husband then fled to the British- controlled port of New Providence (at modern
day Nassau in the Bahamas).
Upon her arrival at New Providence, Anne immediately established her
reputation. As she disembarked, a one-eared drunken sailor blocked her way
and asked how much she would charge for an hour in bed. Anne responded by
whipping out a pistol and shooting off his other ear. Within a week she was
sharing the bed with the pirate Captain Jennings and his mistress, Meg. Anne
also became the mistress of Chidley Bayard, the wealthiest man on the island.
She was often seen in the company of Calico Jack Rackham, a pirate famous
for his colorful manner of dress.
Another of Anne's friends was the homosexual Pierre Bouspeut (sometimes
"Pierre the Pansy Pirate"). Pierre was a designer of fine velvet and silk
clothing. He also ran a coffee house and dress-making shop. Anne and Pierre
learned that a French vessel was scheduled to arrive in port. The vessel was
richly laden with costly fabrics. Together Anne and Pierre organized their first
"privateering" raid.
With the aid of some of their pirate friends, including Calico Jack, they stole a
boat from the abandoned wrecks in the harbor. They covered the topsail and
deck with animal blood, and then coated themselves. In the bow they placed
one of Pierre's dress- maker's dummies, dressed in women's clothing and
splashed with blood. Anne stood on deck, hovering over this nightmare figure
with a blood-soaked axe, and under a full moon they sailed out to the French
vessel. When the French crew caught sight of this demonic ship, covered in a
sickly sheen illuminated by the light of the moon, they were so horrified by the
impending mayhem that they turned over the cargo without a fight.
They dropped off their pirate crew at the next port, and hired a new crew. Even
though the crew was hired under the guise that Jack was in charge, they
learned quickly the “captain’s wench” was no typical woman. Anne was in
charge. Calico Jack was on board as Anne’s second in command, and her
sometime partner in the captain’s bed. Anne immersed herself in the pirate
culture, as savage as any of the male crew. She and Calico Jack prowled the
shipping lanes around Jamaica, plundering ships and taking as prisoners those
they didn’t kill.
One such prisoner was a handsome man named Mark Read, who was captured
on a Dutch sloop. Mark caught Anne’s eye. Soon, Mark Read was spending his
nights in the captain’s cabin. This intimacy aroused the jealousy of Calico Jack.
He once threatened to slit Mark’s throat, but Anne responded, “If you do, you’ll
answer to me.” Calico knew better than to battle Anne one-on-one, so he
backed down.
However, one night, as Jack listened to the sounds of sex emanating from
behind the captain’s door, he could no longer control his jealousy. He burst
through the cabin door with knife in his hand and murder in his heart. He
discovered two naked woman stretched out on the bed together. Mark Read
was actually a woman, named Mary Read!
Mary Read was much older than Anne. She was born in the mid 1670s in
London to a prosperous family. The Read family practiced the paternal system
of primogeniture – only first-born male children may inherit the family name and
wealth. Soon afterMary’s birth, her father and brother died and her mother
began to raise Mary as a boy, changing her daughter’s name to Mark.
The ruse worked for a time. The grandparents continued to supply the family
with money until Mark became a teenager. It became more difficult to pass
Mary off as a male, particularly when Mary seduced a young man in their social
circle. Mary and her mother were banished from the family.
Mary ran away, and continued to play the role of a male. She became a soldier
in the English army, where she fell in love with an infantryman. They left the
army and opened a tavern called The Three Horseshoes in 1697, right about
the time her future lover and comrade-in-arms, Anne Bonny, was born in
Ireland. They ran the tavern for sixteen years until Mary’s husband died, leaving
her, once again, alone. In order to survive, Mary took up her old habit. She
slipped into her Mark Read role, and became a shipmate on a Dutch sloop
bound for the West Indies. However, before they arrived in Jamaica, the sloop
was captured by pirates. Mark Read was given a choice: join the sweet trade or
die. Mark Read became part of the pirate crew of Anne Bonny and Calico Jack.
After the discovery of “Mark’s” true gender, Anne and Mary (as she now called
herself) both alternately donned male and female clothing, as the situation
warranted. They built their pirate fleet up to three ships, and soon abandoned
all caution, ruthlessly plundering ships.
They raided a ship called the Royal Queen, owned by Anne’s former lover,
Chidley Bayard, the wealthiest man in Jamica. They took the Royal Queen not
by force, but by subterfuge and sex. Anne seduced Captain Hudson into
bringing her aboard the Royal Queen. She drugged his wine, and then took him
to bed. After he was unconscious, Anne secretly doused the firing pins of the
ship’s cannons with water. She left the captain asleep the next morning, but
returned that night with her three ships. The Royal Queen’s gunmen were
unable to open fire and they were easily captured. The only death was Captain
Hudson, whose throat was slashed by Mary Read.
Soon, a British Men-of-War was sent to capture “those infamous women”. In
October 1720, the pirates were taken by surprise. In a panic, Calico Jack and all
twelve of the men in the crew ran below decks to hide in the cargo hold. Only
Anne and Mary remained topside to defend the ship. They were quickly
overwhelmed. Mary, so angry at her shipmates’ cowardice, shouted into the
hold for them to “come up and fight like a man”. But no one came. Mary fired
her pistols into the hold several times, killing one pirate and wounding several
others.
The women surrendered. The pirate crew was taken to St Jaga de la Vega,
Jamaica, and separate trials were scheduled for the men and women. On
November 17, 1720, Calico Jack and the rest of the men were convicted of
piracy. The governor of Jamaica sentenced them to be hanged.
Anne and Mary were allowed to visit Calico Jack on the night before his
execution. Anne told him, “Had fought like a man, you wouldn’t have to be
hanged like a dog.”
The trial of the women took place on November 28. They were accused of piracy
and attacking seven ships. They both pleaded “not guilty”. However, they were
convicted and sentenced to death by hanging. When the governor asked the
condemned if they had anything to say, Anne and Mary promptly said: "Sir, we
plead our bellies" – meaning they were pregnant. This was a common plea for
women sentenced to death,the point being that no court would hang an
innocent, albeit unborn, life.
After an examination they were both found to be pregnant, (by whom no one
ever determined, though Calico Jack seems to be the best candidate) and they
escaped the death penalty. Mary contracted a violent fever in prison and died.
She was buried on April 28, 1721 in Jamaica.
Most records indicate that Anne Bonny was paroled by her father. She returned
to Charles Town, where she married a local business man named James
Burleigh, and gave birth to eight children with him. Anne died in Charleston in
1782 at the age of eighty-four.
Note: It is estimated that there were more than 3000 pirates operating in the
Caribbean and eastern Atlantic coast around 1720. Anne Bonny and Mary Read
are the only women documented to have entered this ultra male world
disguised as men. The fact that they both ended up on the same ship has to
rank as among the odder facts of history.
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Ann Bonny
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Jack Rackham
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Calico Jack's Jolly Roger
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