I love a good Anne Bonny and Mary Read post (my graduate thesis was a full length play dramatizing their lives with Jack Rackham’s crew prior to their capture in November 1720, and re-imagining them as lovers). But there are a few things I would like to add:
There is nothing in historical records that prove, for certain, they were wlw. Likewise there is nothing in the historical records that prove, for certain, they were straight. There’s nothing about their sexuality in their trial records. It’s nice to imagine them as wlw (and I have personally put that into fiction), but to claim they were lesbians for certain… Well, we will never know.
The vast majority of details about their lives comes from a 1724 document called A General History of the Pyrates, written by an anonymous person publishing under the name Captain Charles Johnson. The book accounted the lives and deeds of famous pirates during the Golden Age of Piracy (1715-1725) and is highly, highly fabricated. Most of the lavish details he pays to Anne and Mary are likely made-up (such as Anne falling for Mary and Mary dissuading her by revealing her gender), though it’s impossible to fact check what is true and what isn’t. It’s thought that Johnson fabricated backstories for all the pirates in his book to play to the interests of European audiences who were really into stories about highwaymen, thieves and rogues in the early 18th century.
The illustrations that accompanied A General History of the Pyrates originally depicted Anne and Mary without their shirts undone. The Dutch translation was the first time they were depicted with their breasts exposed. It’s thought this change came about because in the original illustration, readers couldn’t tell if they were men or women and the publishers wanted to make that distinction really obvious. Sally O’Driscoll covers this in her excellent article about the portrayal of criminal women in this time period called The Pirate’s Breasts: Criminal Women and the Meanings of the Body (The Eighteenth Century, Vol. 53, Number 3, Fall 2012.).
This is the original illustration BTW:
The idea of women exposing their breasts to distract men in combat is a myth. Maybe a woman here or there did it, but it really is the fabrication of fiction.
What is known for certain about them comes from their trial records:
They sailed with John Rackham (Calico Jack Rackham) and his crew during in 1720.
They did not conceal their gender while among the crew. Eyewitness accounts from victims the crew attacked state that they wore both men’s clothes and women’s clothes, depending on what they were doing on the ship.
They were competent members of the crew, wielding cutlasses and pistols and handling gunpowder with proficiency, and wore bright colours, indicating they could possibly hold a high rank on the ship.
They were involved in the theft of a sloop called the William from the Nassau harbour on August 22, 1720, and a number of pirate attacks throughout the Bahamas and Jamaica in the following months.
The majority of Rackham’s crew was drunk when Jonathan Barnet (pirate hunter) captured them off the coast of Negril Bay, Jamaica, in early November.
For unknown reasons, they were kept separate from the men of their crew. Rackham and company were executed by hanging.
Anne and Mary were tried together on November 28, 1720, before the Admiralty Court of Spanish Town, Jamaica. They “pled their bellies”, claiming pregnancy, and escaped execution. They were returned to prison.
Mary died in prison in April 1721, and was buried in the parish of St Catherine, Jamaica, on April 28, 1721.
It is unknown what happened to Anne, she disappears off the records after that.
Appleby, John C. Women and English Piracy, 1540-1720. Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell Press, 2013.
Cordingly, David. Under the Black Flag: The Romance and the Reality of Life Among the Pirates. New York: Random House, 1996.
Cordingly, David. Women Sailors and Sailors’ Women: An Untold Maritime History. New York: Random House, 2001.
O’Driscoll, Sally. “The Pirate’s Breasts: Criminal Women and the Meanings of the Body.” The Eighteenth Century 53.3 (Fall 2012): 357-379.
Rediker, Marcus. Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea: Merchant Seamen, Pirates, and the Anglo-Maritime World 1700-1750. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987.
Rediker, Marcus. Villains of All Nations: Atlantic Pirates in the Golden Age. Boston: Beacon Press, 2004.
Stanley, Jo. Bold in Her Breeches: Women Pirates Across the Ages. Ed. Jo Stanley. London: Pandora, 1995.
“The Tryals of Captain John Rackam.” British Piracy in the Golden Age: History and Interpretation, 1660-1730, vol. 3. Ed. Joel H. Baer. London: Pickering and Chatto, 2007. 1-66.
Wheelwright, Julie. Amazons and Military Maids: Women Who Dressed as Men in Pursuit of Life, Liberty and Happiness. London: Pandora, 1989.
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