The Penguin Book of Pirates by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2024-04-29T00:00:00+00:00

EDINBURGH, Printed by Robert Brown in Forrester’s-Wynd. 1721.

ANNE BONNY AND MARY READE

Port Royal, Jamaica

1720–21

Every ship had boys on board, be it a Royal Navy ship or even a pirate ship, as in the case of the unfortunate boy whose fibula was found in the wreck of the Whydah. But in these two famous instances, the boys on board “Calico” Jack Rackham’s pirate ship weren’t boys at all. Anne Bonny and Mary Reade, however improbably, both ended up disguised as men in the same pirate crew, each wending a different path toward a life of piracy. Both wound up being put on trial, and both “pleaded their bellies,” as pregnant women would not, as a rule, be taken to the place of execution until after they had been delivered.

Jack Rackham, who was Anne Bonny’s lover, came into his piratical career after succeeding Charles Vane on the Ranger. Like many of the pirates in this account he accepted the King’s Pardon, and attempted to make a life for himself in Nassau. There he met Anne Bonny, who joined him when he resumed his life as a sea robber. On that cruise Mary Reade also shipped, in disguise. Their careers were short-lived, however; Calico Jack was caught in 1720, tried in Port Royal, sentenced to death by hanging, and his body was then gibbeted (hung in chains) at the entrance to Port Royal on a small rocky island now known as Rackham’s Cay.

But enough about Calico Jack. Let’s get to the women who actually made him worth talking about.

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