Anne Bonney, Calico Jack: it was a pirate’s life for them

Like many people, I’ve always been fascinated with pirate stories. The TV series “Black Sails” has been fascinating with its mix of fact and fiction, but we no longer have the movie service that shows it.

In that show, there are several pirates of fame, even North Carolina’s own Blackbeard. But one of the main characters is Anne Bonney (sometimes spelled Bonny), a love interest of both Calico Jack Rackham and a Nassau prostitute.

In real life, Bonney is said to have been born in County Cork, Ireland around 1700 to prominent but philandering lawyer and his house maid. To protect her inheritance, he father dressed Bonney as a boy and kept the affair a secret — but it didn’t last. Her grandmother disowned her and her father departed with her for the New World, where he established a plantation near Charleston, South Carolina.

Bonney had red hair and was said to have a temper, even as a teenager, once stabbing a servant girl with a table knife .

Bonney was fascinated by ships and sailors and married a captain named James Bonney, who used to be in the British Royal Navy, but had become a pirate. However, she met Rackham in the Caribbean and soon through Bonney over.

It didn’t take long in her new pirate job for her to make advances on one of Rackham’s crewmen, a man named Mark Read. Rackham threatened to kill Read and then it was revealed that Read wasn’t actually Mark, but Mary Read, who had been disguising herself for years.

The romance fizzled, but Anne and Mary were accepted by the crew and became known as courageous pirates. When Jamaican forces caught up with Rackham’s ship, they were the only two who stood on deck to fight — the men all went and hid below deck. Both women were known all the way to Britain for their exploits.

All on board were sentenced to hang in 1720, the men first. Rackham was allowed to visit Bonney in prison where “she told him that if he had fought like a man, he would not have to be hanged like a dog.”

When the court met to set the execution date for Bonney and Read, both plead “My Lord, our bellies.” Both women claimed to be pregnant, and unborn children could not be killed under British law.

Their executions were postponed and Bonney was eventually released from prison. She returned to Charleston and faded from public record. Some historians believe she married and moved to Virginia, where she spent the rest of her life.

Sources:

H.G. Jones Scoundrels, Rogues and Heroes of the Old North State

legendsofamerica.com