Thread by @L_Historienne

Here's the 2nd part of #SwashbucklinStoryTime: Anne Bonny & Mary Read! They were equally as renowned for their ruthlessness as for their gender. Most of what we know about them comes from Capt. Charles Johnson's 1724 book General History of the...the Most Notorious Pyrates. 1/?

According to Johnson's work, Anne Bonny was born in or near Kinsale, County Cork, Ireland, circa 1698. Her father was an attorney named William Cormac. He had an affair with the family maid, which prompted his wife to leave him. 2/?

To avoid scandal, he dressed her as a boy. And he introduced her as the child of a relative entrusted to his care rather than admit to being the father. But Bonny's identity and parentage was ultimately revealed and the family moved to Charleston, South Carolina. 3/?

According to Johnson, teenaged Anne began exhibiting a “fierce and courageous temper." She allegedly killed a servant girl with a knife and beat a suitor who tried to rape her half to death. 4/?

All of this was terrible for her father's reputation and he disapproved of her rebelliousness. Especially problematic were the endless rumors about her binge-drinking in local taverns and sleeping with local fishermen and drunks. 5/?

When she decided to marry a poor sailor named James Bonny in 1718, her father disowned her. Bonny and her husband made their way to New Providence (now Nassau) in the Bahamas. Some say that Bonny's husband was a pirate. Others say he turned pirates in to Gov. Woodes Rogers. 6/?

While Bonny's husband was off doing what he did, Bonny spent most of her time drinking at local pubs and cheating on her husband with other pirates. She became infatuated with one in particular, John “Calico Jack” Rackam. 7/?

When her husband refused her a divorce, Bonny ran away with Rackam. Most of the time Anne presented herself as a woman, acting as Rackam’s lover, but during attacks on other ships she wore the men's clothing and armed herself to the teeth. 8/?

It's unclear exactly how Bonny met Mary Read. But according to Johnson, Rackam conquered Read's somewhere in the West Indies, and Read (disguised as a man named Mark) was among those taken prisoner. 9/?

According to Johnson, Bonny immediately tried to seduce Mark Read who, fearing reprisal from Rackam, bared her chest and revealed herself to be Mary Read. Bonny vowed to keep Read's secret & the two became attached at the hip, which led Rackam to become jealous & suspicious. 10/?

Some say the two became lovers, but I'll let you read @Beckalex's take on that on her blog: rebecca-simon.com/2019/06/21/ann…
11/?

Mary Read's background was very similar to Bonny's. She, too, was born an illegitimate child and was raised as a boy. This was because her mother had a son before her who died shortly after her husband had also died. 12/?

So to keep receiving money from her husband's family, she passed Mary off as her dead son. But the charade didn't last long and Read's mother was cut off. In order to provide for Read, her mother continued to raise her as a boy and often rented her out as a servant. 13/?

Read continued living as a boy in her teen years, and around the age of 13, she served as a “powder monkey” on a British man-of-war. She followed that up by joining the Army, serving in both the infantry and cavalry. 14/?

While serving in the Army, she fell in love with her bunkmate and revealed her secret to him. He suggested a secret romance, but Read decided instead to tell her entire regiment that she was a woman. She quit the Army and married the soldier. 15/?

Unfortunately her husband died shortly after their wedding. So Read resumed living as a man and sailed for the West Indies. It was on this voyage that her ship was attacked by Rackam and his pirate crew. 16/?

Rackam's jealousy increased and one day he bombarded the cabin, prepared to slit Read's throat. Read revealed her secret to him. Rackam agreed to keep Mary’s secret and continued to treat her as an equal. 17/?

Late 1720 proved especially lucrative for Rackam’s crew. Bonny and Read fought alongside each other and the rest of the crew, pitching in and doing whatever was necessary on board. In September 1720, they took 7 fishing boats and 2 sloops near Harbor Island. 18/?

A few weeks later, under command of Bonny and Read, the crew attacked a schooner, whose crew they held hostage for two days. But the good times were soon to end for Rackham and his ladies. Around midnight on October 22nd a sloop came upon them. 19/?

Bonny and Read immediately recognized it as one of the governor's and they shouted for their crewmates to prepare to fight. Rackam and several others joined Bonny and Read on deck, but many of the men were passed out from drunkenness. 20/?

The sloop’s captain, Jonathan Barnett, ordered the pirates to surrender, but the pirates refused. Rackam and his crew was unfortunately outnumbered. So he surrendered and requested quarter. But Bonny and Read refused to surrender. 21/?

According to Johnson, the two women remained on deck and faced the governor’s men alone, firing their pistols and swinging their cutlasses. When Read shouted “If there’s a man among ye, ye’ll come up and fight like the man ye are to be!" none of the crew came to join them. 22/?

Rackam was sentenced to death by hanging. He requested that he be allowed to see Bonny one last time. But she, disgusted, said “If you had fought like a man, you need not have been hang’d like a dog.” 23/?

Bonny and Read were then tried at the Admiralty Court in St. Jago de la Vega, Jamaica, where they both pleaded not guilty. Both were found guilty and sentenced to be hanged, but their executions were stayed—because they "pleaded their bellies" (meaning they were with child). 24/?

They were each granted stays of execution until their children could be born. Read died in prison the next year of a fever (likely a result of pregnancy complications), but Bonny was allegedly released, likely because of her father's influence. 25/?

And it is with that tragic ending that the terror wrought by Anne Bonny and Mary Read finally ceased. 26/26