Pirate Women by Laura Sook Duncombe

Author:Laura Sook Duncombe
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Chicago Review Press
Published: 2016-09-05T04:00:00+00:00

As the Golden Age was winding down, two fierce pirate women—one famous, one less so—were making names for themselves. Their exploits ensured that the Golden Age went out with a bang instead of a whimper. Although their methods and locations of piracy were very different, these women shared an adventurous spirit and a knack for the nastier bits of pirating. In the Caribbean, there was Anne Bonny, and off the North American coast, there was Maria Cobham.

Anne, like Mary Read, is one of the few pirates whose existence has been verified. She was a main attraction in Captain Johnson’s A General History of the Pyrates, originally published in 1724, just a few years after her trial took place. Her name also appears in the trial documents of the crew of the William, and she is mentioned in a pamphlet and letter written during this time. The main source of information that exists about her life, however, is Johnson’s account. As discussed in the last chapter, Johnson’s accounts cannot be taken entirely at face value, particularly where the women pirates are concerned. Johnson himself says the section on Bonny and Read strains credulity. In a few key places in Anne’s story, it is necessary to push back against Johnson’s assertions to see what the famous pirate biographer might have purposely left out.

Anne was born in Ireland, the illegitimate daughter of an attorney thought to be named William Cormac and his maid Peggy. After his affair was discovered, the scandal cost him many of his clients. He was forced to appeal to his wife for an allowance to live on, the wife having been left all of William’s mother’s money upon her death, due to her son’s infidelity. Knowing that his wife would never pay for the upbringing of his bastard daughter, Cormac dressed Anne as a boy and told everyone she was a relative’s child whom he was training to be his clerk. When Cormac’s wife figured out her husband’s ward was not a nephew but in fact his illegitimate daughter, she cut them all off. So William, his maid, and his young daughter set off for America in search of a new start.

William found better luck as a merchant in the Carolina colony, in the area of present-day South Carolina, than he had back home as a lawyer. He became the wealthy owner of a large plantation that Anne became the mistress of at just twelve years old, after her mother’s death. She ruled the plantation with her famous fiery temper. Stories abound regarding her punishment of servants, including one brought up at her trial about stabbing a servant with a knife, although Johnson claims this tale is “groundless.” The only daughter of a rich merchant, she had many suitors, yet she rejected them all. She so severely beat a would-be suitor who was too forward with her that he was laid up for weeks. Despite her father’s desire to marry her off to one of Charles Town’s eligible bachelors, she set her sights on ne’er-do-well sailor James Bonny.

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