Forgotten Songs and Stories of the Sea by Rochford Caroline;

Author:Rochford, Caroline;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pen & Sword Books Limited
Published: 2016-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

She-Pirates of the Spanish Main

During the early part of the eighteenth century, the Spanish Main was infested with pirates. It later transpired that at least two of their number were females in disguise, though no one suspected a thing, for they were just as lawless and fearsome as their male counterparts.

One of these women was called Mary Read, who was born in England in the 1690s, the younger of two children. Mary’s mother was a sailor’s widow, who fell pregnant with her first child, a son, shortly before Mr Read set sail on a voyage from which he never returned. Mrs Read fell into another man’s bed soon after her husband was lost at sea, and Mary was the product of this illicit encounter.

To hide the shame, she kept Mary a secret from her wealthy in-laws in London; but when her infant son died, and the young widow found herself in financial difficulties, she dressed Mary in boy’s clothes and travelled to the capital city in search of support. She visited her late husband’s elderly mother and, pretending that Mary was her grandson, pleaded for assistance. The deception was successful, and Mrs Read received a weekly allowance for the rest of her mother-in-law’s life.

Mary was 13 years old when her ‘grandmother’ died, but by then she’d grown used to – and, indeed, rather fond of – donning male attire during her frequent trips to London. Finding herself in need of a new source of income, Mary pretended to be a footboy and entered the employ of a French lady, but the work was dull and tiresome for a young girl who longed for fortune and adventure, so she found work as a cabin boy on board a man-of-war. A life in the military called, and after serving in a regiment of foot as young cadet, and then later the cavalry, she set sail for a new life in the West Indies, but the ship was seized by pirates. With little chance of a promotion in her current position, Mary decided to abscond, and joined the brutal band of buccaneers. Over the years she earned herself a fearsome reputation, and was said to have slain many a man in her quest for riches and notoriety.

One day, in around 1718, Mary’s ship was apprehended by another band of pirates, headed by Captain Jack Rackham, who, as fate would have it, also had an imposter within his crew. Her name was Anne Bonny, and she was rumoured to have been the captain’s secret lover.

Like Mary, Anne was illegitimate. She’d been born in Ireland to a wealthy attorney and his housemaid, and the family later immigrated to a plantation in South Carolina, where Anne grew up. As a young woman in the early 1700s, she married a pirate named James Bonny, much to the disapproval of her father. She and her new husband eloped together, and fled to the Island of Providence, where Anne made the acquaintance of Captain Rackham. Tempted by the pirate’s way of life, Anne disguised herself as a man and joined his motley crew.

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