Under the Black Flag

by David Cordingly

  The Governor of the Bahamas at this time was Captain Woodes Rogers, a tough and resolute seaman who had commanded a successful privateering voyage around the world from 1708 to 1711. He had come out to the West Indies in 1718 with a commission from the British government to rid the Bahamas of the pirate colony which was based on New Providence. He sailed into Nassau harbor with three warships and had made strenuous efforts to reestablish law and order. He had authority from King George to issue pardons to pirates who agreed to abandon their trade, and Calico Jack was one of many who did so. The new Governor was prepared to use harsh measures if the pardons failed to produce results. When some of the pardoned pirates returned to their old ways, he had them rounded up and hanged on the waterfront at Nassau beneath the ramparts of the fort.

  Woodes Rogers was equally decisive when he learned that the sloop William had been stolen from the harbor. As well as issuing the proclamation, he immediately dispatched a sloop with forty-five men to catch the pirates, and on September 2 he dispatched a second sloop armed with twelve guns and a crew of fifty-four men to join the chase.6 Calico Jack must have learned that vessels were out looking for him. After attacking seven fishing boats off Harbour Island in the Bahamas, he headed south. He intercepted two merchant sloops off the coast of Hispaniola on October 1, and two weeks later he took a schooner near Port Maria on the north coast of Jamaica. During the next three weeks the William cruised slowly westward, past the coves and sandy beaches of Ocho Rios, Falmouth, and Montego Bay, until she came to Negril Point at the extreme western tip of the island. There Calico Jack’s luck ran out.

  Sailing in the vicinity was a heavily armed privateer sloop commanded by Captain Jonathan Barnet, “a brisk fellow,” with a commission from the Governor of Jamaica to take pirates.7 Hearing a gun fired from Rackam’s anchored vessel, Barnet changed course to investigate. Alarmed by the appearance of Barnet’s powerful-looking vessel, Rackam hurriedly got under way. Barnet gave chase and caught up with the pirates at ten o’clock at night. He hailed them and received the reply “John Rackam from Cuba.” Barnet thereupon ordered him to surrender, but the pirates shouted defiance and fired a swivel gun at Barnet’s ship. In the darkness it was difficult for either side to see its opponents clearly, but Barnet immediately retaliated with a broadside and a volley of small shot. The blast carried away the pirates’ boom, effectively disabling their vessel,8 and Barnet came alongside and boarded the pirate sloop. The only resistance came from Mary Read and Anne Bonny. They were armed with pistols and cutlasses and shouted and swore at everyone in sight, but they failed to rally their shipmates, who tamely surrendered. The next morning the pirates were put ashore at Davis’s Cove, a tiny inlet halfway between Negril and Lucea. They were delivered to Major Richard James, a militia officer, who assembled a guard and escorted them across the island to Spanish Town jail.9 On November 16, Calico Jack and the ten male members of his crew were tried for piracy; a few days later, on November 28, the Admiralty Court assembled again for the trial of the two female members of the pirate crew.

  Mary Read and Anne Bonny never acquired the notoriety of Henry Morgan, Captain Kidd, or Blackbeard, but they have attracted more attention than many of the most successful and formidable pirate captains of history. This is partly due to the vivid description of their lives in Johnson’s General History of the Pirates, and partly due to the fact that they were the only women pirates of the great age of piracy that we know anything about. This has given them a mythic quality which has inspired several books, plays, and films, and has led to their inclusion in the writings of feminist historians as well as in books on transvestism and cross-dressing.

  The title page of the printed transcript of the trial of Calico Jack (Captain John Rackam) and his crew in November 1720, and the trial of Mary Read and Anne Bonny a few days later. The trials were held in Spanish Town, Jamaica, which was then known as St. Jago de la Vega.

  The problem with their story is the lack of documentation for their early lives. The printed record of their trial and brief references in the colonial documents and contemporary newspapers provide information about the last year or two of their lives, but for the rest we have to rely on Captain Johnson, who is usually accurate but rarely indicates the source of his information. And the story that he tells is almost too amazing to be true. As he himself says, their history is full of surprising turns and adventures, and “the odd incidents of their rambling lives are such, that some may be tempted to think the whole story no better than a novel or romance.”10

  According to Johnson, Mary Read was born in England, the second child of a young mother whose husband went away to sea and never returned. Following her husband’s disappearance the young woman had an affair with another man and became pregnant, but she was so ashamed at the idea of giving birth to a bastard child that she went away into the country to stay with friends. Shortly before Mary was born, the elder child, who was a boy, died. The mother soon ran out of money and decided to approach her mother-in-law for help in providing for the child. She dressed Mary up as a boy so that she could pass her off as her son, and traveled up to London. The mother-in-law duly agreed to provide a crown a week for the child’s maintenance.

  Mary Read was brought up as a boy, and at the age of thirteen her mother secured her a post not as chambermaid but as a young footman to a French lady. She soon tired of this menial life, and “growing bold and strong, and having also a roving mind, she entered herself on board a man-of-war.” She then went to Flanders and enlisted as a cadet in the army. She distinguished herself by her bravery in several military engagements, but fell in love with a Flemish soldier in her regiment. The soldier was delighted to find himself sharing a tent with a young woman, but Mary Read was not prepared to continue indefinitely as his mistress. When the campaign was over, the two lovers got married. They left the army and set up as proprietors of a public house near Breda called The Three Horse Shoes.

  Unhappily, Mary’s husband died not long after the marriage, and when the Peace of Ryswick was signed in 1697, the soldiers went elsewhere and The Three Horse Shoes lost most of its trade. Mary Read had no option but to seek her fortune elsewhere. She dressed up as a man again, and after a spell in a foot regiment, she embarked on a ship bound for the West Indies. The ship was captured by pirates, and after further adventures she found herself on the ship commanded by Rackam with Anne Bonny among the crew.

  Anne Bonny had also been brought up as a boy. She was born near Cork in Ireland, and was the illegitimate daughter of a lawyer. Her father separated from his wife following a quarrel: the wife was upset because she had discovered that her husband had been having an affair with the maid of the household; the husband was enraged when his wife accused the maid of stealing some silver spoons and had her sent to prison. The husband was so fond of the girl he had by the maid that he decided that she must come and live with him. To avoid a scandal, he dressed her up as a boy and pretended that he was training her up as a lawyer’s clerk.

  The lawyer’s wife discovered what was going on and stopped the allowance she had been giving him. The scandal affected his practice and he decided to go abroad. Taking the maid and their daughter, Anne, he sailed to Carolina, where he made enough money as a merchant to be able to purchase a plantation. Anne disappointed her father by falling for a penniless young seaman called Bonny and marrying him. Turned out of the house by her father, she and Bonny sailed to the island of Providence, where, as we have seen, she met Calico Jack, became a pirate, and after two adventurous years ended up in the courthouse in Jamaica alongside Mary Read. The printed transcript of the trial at Spanish Town provides firsthand information about some of Calico Jack’s exploits as well as descriptions of the appearance and behavior of Mary Read and Anne Bonny.11 The Admiralty Court that assembled on November 16 was presided over by Sir Nicholas Lawes, the Governor of Jamaica. There were twelve commissioners, two of whom were Royal Navy captains. The men on trial were Rackam himself, described as “John Rackam, late of the i
sland of Providence in America, mariner, late master and commander of a certain Pirate Sloop”; George Fetherston, also of Providence, “late Master of the said Sloop”; Richard Corner, the quartermaster; and John Davies, John Howell, Thomas Bourn, Noah Harwood, James Dobbins, Patrick Carty, Thomas Earl, and John Fenwick.12

  There were four charges against the prisoners:

  1. That they “did piratically, feloniously, and in an hostile manner, attack, engage and take, seven certain fishing boats” and that they assaulted the fishermen and stole their fish and fishing tackle.

  2. That they did “upon the high sea, in a certain place, distance about three leagues from the island of Hispaniola … set upon, shoot at, and take, two certain merchant sloops,” and did assault James Dobbin and other mariners.

  3. That on the high sea about five leagues from Port Maria Bay in the island of Jamaica they did shoot at and take a schooner commanded by Thomas Spenlow and put Spenlow and other mariners “in corporeal fear of their lives.”

  4. That about one league from Dry Harbour Bay, Jamaica, they did board and enter a merchant sloop called Mary, commanded by Thomas Dillon, and did steal and carry away the sloop and her tackle.

  There were two witnesses for the prosecution. Thomas Spenlow of Port Royal, Jamaica, described how his schooner was fired on by the sloop manned by the prisoners at the bar. He said they “boarded him, and took him; and took out of the said schooner, fifty rolls of tobacco, and nine bags of piemento and kept him in their custody about forty-eight hours, and then let him and his schooner depart.” The second witness was James Spatchears, mariner of Port Royal, who gave a detailed description of the action between the pirate sloop and the trading sloop commanded by Jonathan Barnet.

  The prisoners pleaded not guilty to the charges, but all were found guilty and sentenced to death. Five were hanged the next day at Gallows Point, a windswept and featureless promontory on the narrow spit of land which leads out to Port Royal; the other six were hanged the next day in Kingston. Calico Jack’s body was put into an iron cage and hung from a gibbet on Deadman’s Cay, a small island within sight of Port Royal which is today called Rackam’s Cay.

  The trial of Mary Read and Anne Bonny followed similar lines. The charges were exactly the same, but there were some additional witnesses for the prosecution, all of whom stressed that the female pirates were willing members of Rackam’s crew and took an active part in the attacks on merchant vessels. The most graphic description of their appearance was provided by Dorothy Thomas, who was in a canoe on the north coast of Jamaica when she was attacked by the pirate sloop:

  … the two women, prisoners at the bar, were then on board the said sloop, and wore mens jackets, and long trousers, and handkerchiefs tied about their heads; and that each of them had a machet and pistol in their hands, and cursed and swore at the men, to murder the deponent; and that they should kill her, to prevent her coming against them; and the deponent further said, that the reason of her knowing and believing them to be women then was by the largeness of their breasts.13

  Two Frenchmen who were present when Rackam attacked Spenlow’s schooner explained with the aid of an interpreter how the women were very active on board, and that Anne Bonny handed gunpowder to the men; also, “that when they saw any vessel, gave chase, or attacked, they wore men’s clothes; and at other times, they wore women’s clothes.”

  Thomas Dillon, master of the sloop Mary, confirmed that both women were on board Rackam’s sloop when they made their attack. He said that “Ann Bonny, one of the prisoners at the bar, had a gun in her hand, that they were both very profligate, cursing and swearing much, and very ready and willing to do any thing on board.”

  When the women were asked whether they had anything to say in their defense, they both said they had no witnesses, nor did they have any questions to ask. The prisoners and all the onlookers were ordered to withdraw from the courtroom while Sir Nicholas Lawes and the twelve commissioners considered the evidence. It was unanimously agreed that the two women were guilty of the piracies and robberies in the third and fourth charges brought against them. They were brought back to the bar and told that they had both been found guilty. They could offer no reason why sentence of death should not be passed upon them, and so Sir Nicholas, in his role as president of the court, sentenced them with the time-honored words:

  You Mary Read, and Anne Bonny, alias Bonn, are to go from hence to the place from whence you came, and from thence to the place of execution; where you shall be severally hanged by the neck till you are severally dead. And God of his infinite mercy be merciful to both your souls.

  For some reason the prisoners delayed their trump card until this moment; perhaps they did not believe they would be found guilty until they heard the president’s doom-laden words. But immediately after the judgment was pronounced, they informed the court that they were both pregnant. Unfortunately we do not know how this news was received by those present, but it must have caused something of a sensation. All we do know from the printed transcript of the trial is that the court ordered that “the said Sentence should be respited, and then an inspection should be made.”

  An examination proved that both women were indeed pregnant and they were reprieved. Unhappily, Mary Read contracted fever soon after the trial and died in prison. The Parish Register for the district of St. Catherine in Jamaica records her burial on April 28, 1721.14 It is not known for certain what happened to Anne Bonny or her child.

  A separate trial was held on January 24, 1721, for nine unfortunate Englishmen who happened to be on board Rackam’s ship when it was captured by Jonathan Barnet. A few hours earlier they had been in a canoe looking for turtles, and had been persuaded to join the pirates for a bowl of punch. On the basis that they were armed and apparently helped Rackam to row his sloop, the court convicted them of piracy. Six of them were hanged, “which everybody must allow proved somewhat unlucky to the poor fellows,” as Captain Johnson noted.

  The story of Mary Read and Anne Bonny raises a number of questions. Was it so unusual for women to go to sea, and if so, why? Were there other women pirates? Was it essential for a woman to dress as a man if she wanted to join the crew of a ship? How was it possible for a woman to pass herself off as a man in the cramped and primitive conditions on board an eighteenth-century ship?

  During recent years an increasing number of women have taken up sailing and have proved themselves able to handle large and small yachts in all weathers. Several women have sailed single-handed across the Atlantic and around the world, and all-women crews have competed successfully in ocean races. But for hundreds of years seafaring was an almost exclusively male preserve. While the fishermen heaved in their nets and lines in the icy waters off Cape Cod or the Dogger Bank, their wives and daughters remained behind to look after the young children, to make and mend the nets, and to pray that the men survived the storms. All too often there were tragedies. In 1848 a gale blew up during the night of August 18 and swept across the seas off Scotland. The fishing fleets from the various harbors around the coast had put to sea that afternoon and were caught unawares. As the wind built up into a raging southeasterly gale, the men hauled up their nets and ran for shelter. At Wick the fishermen’s families hurried down to the harbor and watched aghast as the boats battled against the foaming seas sweeping across the harbor entrance. Some boats were swamped and foundered on the harbor bar, some were smashed against the piers, and some were overwhelmed by the waves and sank offshore. Forty-one boats were lost, twenty-five men were drowned before the eyes of their relatives, and twelve were lost at sea. Seventeen widows and sixty children were left destitute. At Peterhead thirty-one men perished, and nineteen men from Stonehaven lost their lives in that summer gale.15

  Life in the navy and the merchant service was equally dangerous. Their larger ships were better able to ride out storms than the open fishing boats, but they were at the mercy of uncharted shoals, poor navigation, and death from scurvy and tropical diseases. Apart from the d
angers of life at sea, there were the long absences from home: it was not unusual for a seaman to say good-bye to his family and not see them again for months and sometimes years. When Edward Barlow sailed from England in the Cadiz Merchant in September 1678 on a routine trading voyage to the Mediterranean, it was fifteen months before he returned to London.16 In the 1770s Nicholas Pocock made several voyages to the West Indies as captain of a small merchant ship; his trips from Bristol to the island of Dominica and back home took on average nine months. A seaman in the Royal Navy whose ship was sent to patrol the seas off Boston or the west coast of Africa might not see his home port for two years.

  The dangers, the privations, and the absences from home did not discourage young men from going to sea, but in the days of sail it was unthinkable that women should be subjected to the physical demands of life on deck, and the wet, cramped, and foul-smelling conditions below. There was a widespread belief that a woman on board was likely to provoke jealousies and conflicts among the crew, and there was a tradition among seamen that a woman on a ship brought bad luck. In spite of all this, a surprising number of women did go to sea. Many traveled as passengers, of course, a few captains took their wives to sea with them,17 and there were instances when captains and officers smuggled their mistresses aboard. But there are also well-documented cases of women going to sea as sailors. Indeed, the history of the Royal Navy and the merchant service is littered with examples of women who successfully dressed as men and worked alongside them for years on end without being discovered.18 The life of Mary Anne Talbot has a number of parallels with that of Mary Read: she was illegitimate, she was dressed as a boy when she was young, and she spent part of her life as a soldier and part as a sailor. She was born on February 2, 1778, one of the sixteen bastard children of Lord William Talbot. She was seduced by her guardian, Captain Essex Bowen, who enlisted her as a young footman in his regiment. She sailed with him from Falmouth on the ship called Crown bound for Santo Domingo. She was present at the British capture of Valenciennes in July 1793, and some months later joined the crew of HMS Brunswick, where she served as cabin boy to her commander, Captain John Harvey. She was present at the Battle of the Glorious First of June in 1794, and was one of the few to survive the murderous action against the French ship Vengeur. She was, however, wounded by grapeshot and was sent to the naval hospital at Haslar. By 1800 she had left the navy and spent some time on the stage at Drury Lane before becoming a servant to a London publisher, R. S. Kirby, who wrote an account of her life which was published in 1804.19