18th Century Women Gone Wild...female pirates you need to know

Anne Bonny and Mary Read from an illustration by Benjamin Cole
for Defoe's A General History of the Pyrates

Much is written and known of those "manly men" of the high seas, the pirates of the Golden Age of Piracy (1715 to 1725,) but what of the ladies who set sail, throwing caution and convention to the four winds? Hollywood has given us a few movies featuring these women such as Against All Flags and Cutthroat Island but, most often, women have been portrayed as hapless victims of those leering, lecherous, and otherwise no good sea-going bandits. Enter upon the historical stage or ship's deck, as the case may be, two female pirates who really lived the brigand's life: Mary Read and Anne Bonny.

Calico Jack Rackham, woodcut illustration
from Defoe's A General History of the Pyrates

In late spring of 1719, the infamous, flamboyantly dressed pirate, "Calico Jack" Rackham brought his men to Nassau, Bahamas to receive the pardons Governor Woodes Rogers was handing out to pirates who agreed to go and sin no more. Of course, a goodly number of those reformed pirates simply took the pardons as a temporary means of enjoying their plunder unmolested by the authorities and Rackham was no exception. While living the life in port, Rackham fell in love with Anne Bonny, the wife of another pardoned pirate, James Bonny. The feelings were mutual so the enamored couple asked Mr. Bonny for an annulment of his marriage to Anne so she would be free to join her new-found love, Calico Jack. Having grown accustomed to his wife's many extra-marital dalliances and with no love lost, Bonny consented as long as he was financially compensated. Rackham agreed and sought a reliable witness to the bargain. Unfortunately, that witness went straight to Governor Rogers and tattled on the trio. With much righteous indignation, Rogers proclaimed to Anne Bonny, if she went through with the annulment, she would be sent to prison and her lover forced to whip her. Oh my, my my. According to historical researcher and author of The Republic of Pirates, Colin Woodard, Anne's response was she "promised to be very good, to live with her husband and keep loose company no more." 

Anne Bonny from Defoe's A General History of the Pyrates

Right. To avoid such interference, Rackham and Anne Bonny simply took their relationship out to sea and the pirate resumed his former occupation with the help of his lady love by his side.

One of Anne Bonny's Nassau buddies was a woman by the name of Mary Read who, had for years, dressed like a man and sailed the seas with impunity. The two ladies were well known by Nassau inhabitants to curse with all the raw vehemence of any of their male counterparts. For several months, Rackham and his crew, along with his two lady pirates, plundered ships and laid waste those who would get in their way. One of their captives later testified at trial, the women would wear the usual female finery aboard ship until a potential victim was spied, then they would dress like men and fight along side the pirates. Another former captive, fisherwoman Dorothy Thomas, later told the courts she was terrorized by the women who cursed and swore they would kill her if she testified against them. Thomas said she could only tell them from the other crewmen by the manner in which they filled out their shirts!

                       

                           Mary Read from Defoe's A General History of the Pyrates

In October, 1720, Captain Jonathan Barnet (a privateer given orders to bring Rackham and his crew down) fired upon the pirate ship. Most of the crew was too drunk to fight back and fled down into the hold leaving the two women to fend for themselves. According to Defoe's A General History of the Pyrates, Anne Bonny yelled down to the cowering pirates to come back up and fight like men. When no one met her challenge, she fired into the hold, killing one man and wounding several others. The ship and its crew were taken and sent to Spanish Town jail in the Virgin Islands. On November 18, 1720, the day Calico Jack was to be hanged from the gallows, it is reported Anne Bonny was allowed to see him one last time. Her words? "I'm sorry to see you here, but if you had fought like a man you need not have hanged like a dog."

As far as the trial of the two women pirates went, on November 28, 1720, they were both found guilty and sentenced to death but both "plead their bellies" (meaning they were both pregnant at the time and by British law could not be hanged until their innocent babies delivered.) After medical examination they were, indeed, proclaimed pregnant and their sentences set aside. Neither woman was ever hanged by the neck until death, however. Mary Read and her unborn child died in prison in April, 1721 when she became ill and died amidst a violent fever. Her grave is at St Catherine's Church in Jamaica. There is no record of Anne Bonny's execution or death by other means nor of what happened to her and her child.  Colin Woodard speculates her wealthy South Carolina plantation owning father may have come to her aid and bought her freedom. Who knows? There may, to this day, be little Calico Jacks and Pirate Queen Annes running around the streets of Charleston causing all manner of mischief!      

Have a good week, dear Reader. Thanks for stopping by...Y'all come back now! 

Kate

                                                                                                                                                                                                         

The Real Robinson Crusoe...the 18th century castaway who inspired Defoe

Robinson Crusoe illustration by N.C. Wyeth

We are all familiar with the quintessential "stranded on a deserted island" story of 18th century author, Daniel Defoe: Robinson Crusoe. Many other stories and films have used it as a springboard including the 1812 novel, The Swiss Family Robinson, by Johann David Wyss (which was made into a 1960 Disney film followed by a 1970's television series version,) the 1960's science fiction spin with the television series, Lost in Space, as well as Tom Hanks' portrayal of the FedEx man stranded after a plane crash in the 2000 film, Cast Away.There are many more examples of fictional portrayals inspired by Defoe's character but who was his inspiration? I discovered the answer in a marvelous book, I have recently purchased, authored in 2007 by Colin Woodard. Woodard's book, based upon his extensive research of original documents of the early 18th century including letters, journals, court depositions, ships' logs, rosters, etc, bears a title with a sub-title long enough to make any 18th century author proud: The Republic of Pirates-- Being The True And Surprising Story Of the Caribbean Pirates And The Man Who Brought Them Down. 

Woodes Rogers Expedition from Bristol to Juan Fernandez Island from National Archives, U.K.

Now, regarding Defoe's inspiration, there really was a man rescued after having been stranded alone on a deserted island for many years. In early 1709 a two-ship privateering expedition (i.e., lawfully sanctioned piracy by British ships against Spanish and French ships,) led by Woodes Rogers, was attempting a foray around the globe when they were forced to  make an emergency stop at Juan Fernandez Island, some 400 miles off the Pacific coast of Chile. The seamen aboard the Duke and Dutchess were dropping like flies from scurvy due to the depletion of needed fruits and vegetables. Juan Fernandez was an island held by Spain but was so remote, its early colonization attempts failed and was only used sporadically by the Spaniards for their own stopovers for fresh water and produce. On the night of January 31, 1709, the island came into view of the two privateering ships. To the crews' dismay a campfire was seen flickering on the beach so, the next morning, they sailed into the harbor, guns at the ready. 

Juan Fernandez Island

Anchoring a mile offshore, no other ship was in sight and the island appeared deserted after all. As a landing boat rowed ashore, a wild-looking man clothed in goatskin, waving a white flag and yelling in excited English, came running to the shoreline. This solitary man, Alexander Selkirk, had been living alone for the previous four and half years with only the company of wild goats, rats and feral cats, the legacy left by early Spanish colonization attempts. And here was the great irony: the reason Selkirk was there at all, was because of a man sailing aboard one of the British ships at anchor. That man, William Dampier, had led a round-the-world privateering expedition back in 1704, but due to his mishandling of his ships' needs, he faced many lawsuits when he returned to England. His ships and crew were so mismanaged, a group of seamen on one of his consort ships, mutinied and sailed to the island of Juan Fernandez on their own. After they'd landed and helped themselves to the fresh water and naturally available food sources on the island, they discovered their ship's hull was riddled with holes from shipworms. Mate Selkirk, decided to take his chances for rescue and remain alone on the island rather than risk death at sea from a ship likely to sink during its voyage.

Robinson Crusoe illustration by Walter Stanley Paget

Scotsman Alexander Selkirk survived by running down and catching wild goats, eating their meat and stitching their hides for clothing and shelter. In time, he domesticated several to insure a ready supply of their life-saving properties. His enemies were the rats who nibbled at his toes at night but by befriending some of the hundreds of feral cats, he gained a measure of respite from their intrusion. He passed his time with survival activities and in reading a copy of the Bible he'd secured before watching his fellow mutineers sail away. Once, he narrowly escaped the hands of a Spanish landing party by hiding in the top of a tree under which the sailors were urinating. When Rogers first saw him, he described Selkirk as looking wilder than the animals who'd first worn the goatskins themselves and noted in his writings that the man was so unused to speaking, he spoke only in half sentences. After twelve days on the island the crew, refortified with tropical fruit, goat stew and broth and with Selkirk reassured that Dampier was not in charge of the expedition, sailed away for the next leg of their adventure.

Daniel Defoe's, Robinson Crusoe

Once back in England, Woodes Rogers published a book about his adventures at sea, A Cruising Voyage Around the World, including an account of the rescue of Alexander Selkirk. Journalist and author Daniel Defoe read this with great interest and went to Bristol to meet with Selkirk who became the inspiration for Defoe's best known work and spawner of numerous copycats, of which the full, original title including its substantial sub-title was, The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, Of York, Mariner: Who lived Eight and Twenty Years, all alone in an un-inhabited Island on the Coast of America, near the Mouth of the Great River of Oroonoque; Having been cast on Shore by Shipwreck, wherein all the Men perished but himself. With An Account how he was at last as strangely deliver'd by Pyrates. 

In 1966, the Chilean government renamed Juan Fernandez Island, Robinson Crusoe Island.

As my dear father was fond of saying, "True story!"

And, now you know!

Have a good week, dear Reader. Thanks for stopping by...Y'all come back now! 

Kate