BONNY & READ

Anne Bonny and Mary Read shattered the gender conventions of the Golden Age, proving that women could be as fierce and capable as any male pirate. Both disguised themselves as men to join "Calico Jack" Rackham's crew in 1720, their true identities known only to each other and their captain.

Born around 1698 in Ireland, Anne abandoned her husband James Bonny for the flamboyant pirate John "Calico Jack" Rackham in Nassau. Contemporary accounts describe her as quick-tempered and violent, once stabbing a servant girl in a fit of rage and reportedly killing a man who attempted to rape her.

Her father, William Cormac, was a prosperous lawyer who had moved the family to Charleston, South Carolina, where Anne grew up among colonial society before rejecting respectability for piracy.

Mary Read's path to piracy began with deception. Dressed as a boy from childhood to claim an inheritance, she served disguised as a man in the army during the War of Spanish Succession, then joined the navy before turning to piracy.

Her military experience made her a formidable fighter, skilled with both pistol and cutlass. She reportedly fell in love with a fellow pirate crew member, revealing her identity to him before their romance was cut short by his death in battle.

At their November 1720 trial in Jamaica, both women shocked the court by claiming pregnancy to avoid immediate execution—a legal tactic called "pleading the belly" that automatically postponed hanging until after childbirth.

The trial records, preserved in Jamaican archives, provide rare documented evidence of women's participation in Golden Age piracy, though Captain Charles Johnson's later accounts mixed fact with fiction to create the legends we know today.