Pulp Fiction And The Escapades Of The Pirate Anne Bonney
The legends of pirates have been exploited for decades
. Buccaneers wielded their swords in the pulp fiction magazines of the 1930s and 1940s that entertained millions of Americans, and Errol Flynn ignited the craze on the silver screen in 1935 through his starring role in Captain Blood, based on Rafael Sabatini's 1922 novel of the same name. And today, let's not overlook one Captain Jack Sparrow (whom Johnny Depp is rumored to have based on a combination of the cartoon character Pepe Le Pew and guitarist Keith Richards).
While you may think of piracy as being strictly a "man's trade", women have also played a role in piracy in both literature and history. Take note of the 1934 tale "Queen of the Black Coast" by Robert E. Howard, wherein Conan the Barbarian encounters the pirate ship of Belit, Queen of the Black Coast herself and a ferocious and undeniably brave fighter-a woman who could easily have been inspired by the true-to-life pirate Anne Bonny.
Anne Bonny, the infamous Irish-American pirate, was born on March 8, 1700. In a time when women were generally denied adventure, danger and lives of action, Anne Bonny defied the rules.
Anne was born the illegitimate daughter of unsuccessful Irish attorney William Cormac and his wife's maid; the year of her birth is variously reported anywhere from 1697 to 1702. She was taken by her father to America, together with her mother, when his marriage failed. In the New World Cormac was more successful as a merchant, and was able to purchase a plantation, which Anne ran after her mother's death.
Always unconventional, Anne was reported to have knifed a servant when she was only 13, and when she was 14 to have so severely beaten a young man who tried to have his way with her that he was weeks recovering from his injuries. At the age of 16 she married James Bonny, a sailor and pirate, and was disowned by her father. Unrepentant, Anne and her new husband headed to New Providence Island in the Bahamas, where James eventually became an informer for newly arrived Governor Woodes Rogers.
Anne, meanwhile, had been hanging out with the other pirates in a region that up till the arrival of Rogers had been something of a pirate sanctuary. In the taverns she met John "Calico Jack" Rackham, who captained the Revenge, a pirate sloop. She abandoned her husband for Rackham and went pirating with him-resulting in something that was normally against the pirate code: having a woman on board ship. Eventually she bore him a child, which she left behind in Cuba to go back to sea, and was said to have divorced her husband to marry Rackham.
While at sea Anne met Mary Read, another woman pirate, and the two grew close. Mary was equally gutsy. She fell in love with a man on board ship and the two "plighted their troth," which Mary regarded as the equal of marriage. When her "husband" was threatened by another pirate, Mary challenged the man to a duel and ran him through with her cutlass. Both Anne and Mary were considered skilled fighters, able sailors and eager pirates, willing to do whatever was necessary in their chosen calling.
Eventually the Revenge was boarded by a "King's ship" sent by the governor of Jamaica to round up pirates. There was little fighting, variously attributed to the pirates being too drunk to challenge the boarders or being attacked in the middle of the night when sleeping. However, Anne and Mary fought determinedly, delaying the inevitable. Both were eventually captured along with the others, their identities unknown.
When both women were sentenced to hang, they "pleaded their bellies"-both women were pregnant, and according to English law were granted temporary stays until they should deliver their babies.
While Mary was said to have died in childbirth, there is no record of Anne having gone to the gallows-or, for that matter, having been released. She is variously thought to have been ransomed by her father or to have returned to her husband-but another tale says that, according to her descendants, she was indeed rescued by her father and returned to South Carolina, where she gave birth to Calico Jack's second child. After that she is said to have married a local man and lived a long and fruitful, if uneventful, life, producing ten children for her new spouse, and after death at the age of 80 she was reported interred in the York County Churchyard in Virginia.
Ann Bonny and Mary Read might have been right at home on the high seas, but that was the exception, not the rule. While often far kinder than regulations imposed by the British navy or even commercial ships, the pirate code was firm on women at sea: it was forbidden under pain of death to the man who would bring a woman aboard. Still, as with any rule, there were exceptions. In L. Ron Hubbard's tale Under the Black Ensign, Midshipman Jim manages to get along well enough-until "he" is revealed as "she" and then things get really interesting.
by: Lee Barwood
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