It wouldn’t matter for long, though, because in her boredom, she had exchanged intimate whispers with Rackham and was convinced to leave Mr. Bonny for a life of constant running, excitement, and money with her new pirate lover under the alias “Bonn.”¹⁴  She was “threatened with flogging” as punishment in a trial before Rackham had paid her ransom to convince James Bonny for the woman’s freedom to elope.¹⁵

She was in love with her Captain. Naturally, such intimate moments on a ship for several days at a time, being a young woman with impulsive desires, caused a pregnancy to emerge between her and her pirate lover. And hearing this, Rackham sent her away to Cuba to “Friends of his”—trustworthy, one would hope—and she delivered the babe there on the island. Debates on whether the babe lived, died, or was given to another mother to raise are muddy, but nonetheless, the babe was delivered.¹⁶

August 1720

Her health was restored. As soon as Rackham heard of her recovery, he came for her. During this time, the proclamation of the Governor of Jamaica was announced and she went with Rackham during his compliance to the surrender, benefitted slightly by her father’s fame, but her decision to drop her original husband was looked down upon. The peace of landlubber life would once again wear off from Anne’s perspective.¹⁷

But when she returned to piracy aboard the Revenge, she and the crew captured a Dutch trading vessel, adding more people to the crew count, including a handsome young stranger. One way or another, “for reasons best known to herself,” she had pushed her desires to know this young fellow: in return, the man confessed to her that he could not be intimate and revealed himself as a woman in the disguise of men’s clothes.¹⁸

This disguised woman would reveal herself by the name of Mary Read.

Mary Read was an Englishwoman born in London of a young woman who became poverty-stricken, according to Johnson. It’s estimated she was born in about 1695.¹⁹ Her affection for the sea may have been from her mother as she married a “Man who used the Sea,” who was the father of her elder brother. Though he died at sea, the young girl caught the bug since her mandatory coming up as her older, deceased half-brother shortly after she was born.²⁰ She was deemed a bastard, as well.So Mary’s experience of being dressed up in men’s clothing was second nature, and chasing after money was less of a desire and more of a necessity, especially at thirteen years old, when she became part of a ship (a Man O’War vessel) as a servant child. After she quit, she went into the army, allegedly, and met with a fellow officer which she fell for. Quickly, the pair became a well-known, inseparable duo and she was infatuated with her best friend. She gained a reputation for being reckless in the midst of trouble, solely to be near her muse, risking all safety. These close interactions, after her revealing the truth, became one of respect and they married.²¹But that intimacy was cut in half by unknown circumstances as her husband died, and she was forced to wear male fashion again, joining a crew with the deep desire to gain enough money to survive. This ship was plundered by Englishmen, and she survived because she “was the only English Person on Board, they kept her amongst them.”²² During this shift, the Governor of the Island of Providence in the Bahamas, Captain Woodes Rogers, allowed sailors a type of pirate pardon as long as they served as privateers, plundering and capturing pirate ships. As long as they paid money, Mary Read was on board with the situation. Despite this, many sailors would go back to piracy anyway, like Rackham.²³And such action was taken by women—dressing as a man—to survive past their conditions and these commonly found situations were a practice across the world.²⁴ But two in the same place was quite a rarity, especially on male-dominated ships where precautions were taken to avoid corruption and abuse such as the rule derived by Captain Bartholomew Roberts with his set of rules, number six being:

“No Boy or Woman to be allowed among them.”²⁵

Unlike Mary, though, Anne didn’t disguise herself, but their friendship was firmly developed.²⁶ So one would imagine what conversations would spark from an interaction such as this with the subject being so familiar to them both. It became evident of their bonding and deep connection to the point where Rackham became so intoxicated with jealousy, he threatened to get rid of Read rather violently. This would only subside from Mary revealing to him her secret of being a woman. His rather hasty behavior was tamed soon after.²⁷

 Fierce Stories

Anne Bonny was considered “of a fierce and couragious Temper” and a possibly apocryphal set of stories explains just how passionate she was. One of which involved intense violence and a knife against her father’s house servant. The other involved an attempted rape in which “she beat him so, that he lay ill of it a considerable Time.”²⁸

She was noted by Charles Johnson that “[i]n all these Expeditions, Anne Bonny bore [Rackham] Company, and when any Business was to be done in their Way, no Body was more forward or couragious than she…” ²⁹

Johnson suggests a story, which may or may not be accurate, but nonetheless provides consistency for Mary’s character, as she provided evidence many a time where her infatuations for a military fellow overthrew her focus. She was of “Cunning and Reserve,” and, “Love found her out in this Disguise, and hinder’d her from forgetting her Sex.”³⁰

When the crew of the Revenge captured a ship, one young man stood out to her, fueling her passion to be near him, and again, another friendship ended with a revealing of her true identity. Long story short, their interactions led to an exposal of information revolving this young man and a duel which was supposed to take place offshore—as in pirate tradition—and she took the responsibility of the duel to ensure his safety and to protect his refusal to the challenge not to be recognized as a coward.³¹

Out of noble romance, she “fear’d more for his Life than she did for her own…”³² Having said that, she met the man who challenged her lover, Tom Deane, and “she appointed the Time two Hours sooner than that when he was to meet her Lover, where she fought him at Sword and Pistol, and killed him upon the Spot.”³³ This would be the source of the modern belief of women pirates showing their breasts before their victims to further embarrass their loss.³⁴

The two women were noted by future testimonies of their appearance off the ship in which they commented that the women often adorned themselves in masculine fashion and handkerchiefs (or bandanas) on their heads: not without any weapons, of course.³⁵ They also said:

“[They w]ere both very profligate, cursing, and swearing much, and very ready and willing to do any Thing on board.”³⁶ 

“[They] did not seem to be kept, or detain’d by Force…of their own Free-Will and Consent.”³⁷ 

September 1720

They had captured a woman by the name of Dorothy Thomas in a canoe. She was held as a prisoner on the Revenge, being irrationally pinned in a corner by Bonny and Read, and for many moments, the two pirates harassed with the crew violent language into taking precautionary measures, threatening to get rid of her. No one did.³⁸ 

October 1720³⁹ 

There was an order commissioned against the pirates. Captain Johnathan Barnett gave chase in the distance aboard his vessel, the Tygre. Anne Bonny and her companions were on a time limit.⁴⁰ Like the beast it was named after, the vessel lurked near port cities where Pirate activity was most notable.

November 1720⁴¹ 

The crew had captured a few more ships, usually smaller vessels like fishing boats.⁴² They were in the humid, damp, and disease-infested waters of the Caribbean, where storms remain violent and cruel to the wooden trims of ships, snapping the beams of the sails with a delicate touch, and such violence only occurs outside of gunfire. The seas know no peace.

Rackham was already wary about the new naval order, and one could imagine his leading ladies were also rather vigilant about the situation. Upon reasons of celebration for the prior catches, Rackham had drank with the crew and then the terror came in the form of gunfire and a sloop. In cowardice, they ran below the deck to hide.⁴³

Charles Johnson says:

“[P]articularly at the Time they were attack’d and taken, when they came to close Quarters, none kept the Deck except Mary Read and Anne Bonny, and one more.”⁴⁴

Then again:

“[Anne Bonny] and Mary Read, with one more, were all the Persons that durst keep the Deck, as has been before hinted.”⁴⁵

Appalled, Mary called to the crew and demanded their compliance to defending the ship, and when they refused from cowardice, she impulsively came down with a pistol, and well, what happened was much more than intimidation. Several were wounded and one was lost.⁴⁶ From there, the three defended as best they could until Barnett had captured the crew.

November 16, 1720⁴⁷ 

Rackham, after begging, had the opportunity to meet with his lover one more time before his execution.⁴⁸ Oh, how exciting! A moment of reconciliation and utter emotion in an exchange between two people! What would his lover say on his final day? ‘I love you’? ‘I can’t live without you?’

She said, “[I’m] sorry to see [you here], but if [you] had fought like a Man, [you] need not have been hang’d like a Dog.”⁴⁹

Wait, what? He was dragged away to be shown on the gallows of the port as a warning to sailors from then on.⁵⁰

November 28, 1720⁵¹ 

In the women’s trials, they were met with a familiar face: a washerwoman. ⁵²

Dorothy Thomas was called to the stand, and she, predictably, explained how she was threatened to be killed by two belligerent women. She knew they were women by the “largeness of their Breasts.”⁵³

The court referred several times back to Mary’s outbursts of passion, especially due to the witness account. And no matter how the question was asked to her about her outburst before the capture, she denied and denied again such violence.⁵⁴

Despite how much evidence gathered against them, Mary Read of the two was also recorded to be strongly against piracy, only turning to it due to circumstance and necessity.⁵⁵

Mary Read was of such noble character, she confessed her lover was “her Husband, as she call’d him,” never exposing his identity and was deemed a subject of great sympathy, though, the charges were largely against her.⁵⁶ She also stated, when asked about her beliefs (largely incited by a curious Rackham beforehand):

“[…T]hat as to hanging, [I] thought it no great Hardship, for, were it not for that, every cowardly Fellow would turn Pyrate, and so infest the Seas, that Men of Courage must starve:— That if it was put to the Choice of the Pyrates, they would not have the punishment less than Death, the Fear of which, kept some dastardly Rogues honest; that many of those who are now cheating the Widows and Orphans, and oppressing their poor Neighbours, who have no Money to obtain Justice, would then rob at Sea, and the Ocean would be crowded with Rogues, like the Land, and no Merchant would venture out; so that the Trade, in a little Time, would not be worth following.“⁵⁷

The jury ultimately decided: guilty.⁵⁸

Wait, wait, wait!

They pleaded their bellies to the court, and a doctor was appointed to check if these things were true. Two women, already shocking to the court, were spared by the ideal timing of their wombs. ⁵⁹ 

Mary Read had died of a fever during labor in the prison, but Anne Bonny disappeared from the scene. On April 28, 1721, Mary and her child were put to rest underground in Jamaica. ⁶⁰

Anne Bonny, on the other hand, was claimed to be pardoned time and time again, and many suggest theories that she was taken in by men of her past.⁶¹ Oxford records suggest that she had more children after being delivered from prison as evidenced through descendants, possibly dying on April 25, 1782.⁶² 

But Johnson ends his commentary simply:

“[O]nly this we know, that [Anne Bonny] was not executed.“⁶³