Mary Read

Pero un pequeño número de mujeres se negó a aceptar aquella prohibición.

Anne Bonny y Mary Read son las más famosas, pero no fueron las únicas que se disfrazaron de hombres y se unieron a tripulaciones piratas.

Anne Bonny nació en Irlanda alrededor de 1698, hija ilegítima de un abogado y una criada.

Su padre se trasladó a Charles Town, en las colonias, para escapar del escándalo.

Bonny y Rackham se enamoraron o al menos sintieron una intensa atracción.

En 1720, Anne se disfrazó de hombre y se unió a la tripulación de Rackham.

Otra mujer, Mary Read, también se había disfrazado y se había enrolado.

Read había comenzado su vida de una manera aún menos convencional que Bonny.

Who is your favorite historical pirate that you learned about in your research process? And who would you not want to meet in a dark alley at night? Who?

Well, I mean, like Mary Read and Anne Bonny are kind of like they're the most well-known, at least recorded female pirates in the Caribbean at this time, right? So it was in the history of pirates.

And I can't remember the author, but some people have attributed it to Defoe, I think.

But like there's been other theories and stuff like that.

And I like, you know, their names escape me.

But there are they're not really great you know the fact that like there's this idea that like pirate ships are democratic which you know for the most part they were in terms of like election of like the the captain and and things like that that's cool they also when they would encounter ships that were transporting enslaved africans they would take them and sell them so like that's not good that's horrible you know what i mean and they're also like like they would inflict brutality on their some of the on on the ships that refuse to surrender so i think most of them i wouldn't want to meet and i don't even know if i'd want to meet ann bonnie and mary reed either because they were fierce fighters but they're really cool to learn about jen what do you think

Anne Bonny and Mary Read are absolutely fascinating to me.

Like, I really want to learn more about them.

She's like, "Oh, shit." The pirate was a woman just like Anne.

What are the chances of that? Her name was Mary Read, and makes Anne promise she'll keep her secret.

She's like, "Dude, I'm low-key.

Don't tell anyone, okay?" Uh-huh, uh-huh.

There were, however, two women pirates who have made themselves very well known on our coast.

The most famous of these women pirates was named Mary Read.

Her father was an English captain of a trading vessel, and her mother sailed with him.

This mother had had an elder child, a son, and she also had a mother-in-law in England from whom she expected great things for her little boy.

When this company disbanded, she went to New Providence and enlisted on a privateer, but as was very common on such vessels commissioned to perform acts of legal piracy, the crew soon determined that illegal piracy was much preferable.

So they hoisted the black flag and began to scourge the seas.

Mary Read was now a regular pirate with a cutlass, pistol, and every outward appearance of a daring sea robber, except that she wore no bristling beard.

But as her face was sunburned and seamed by the weather, she looked mannish enough to frighten the senses out of any unfortunate trader on whose deck she bounded in company with her shouting, hairy-faced companions.

It's interesting.

I mean, it makes sense as crossover, but at the time of recording, the most recent episode is about Anne Bonny and Mary Read, which I did a story on Do Go On, an episode on Do Go On maybe a couple of months ago.

And in it, you were talking about doing an episode on Prohibition and I'm like, oh, I did an episode on Prohibition.

Yeah.

And so, you know, another thing we mentioned how they come across these historical characters.

Black Flag's gimmick is that these are all famous historical pirates like Blackbeard, Steve Bonnet, Anne Bonny, Mary Read, all of these different characters that are known.

Calico Jack.

And they have database entries that are, as far as I understand, more or less aligned with their history.

We're going over a brief history of that captain, showing their flag if they had one, and then talking about the hauntings of those pirates if there were any hauntings associated with that particular pirate.

So if you go back to part one, you'll hear about Blackbeard, you'll hear about Charles Vane, Jack Rackham, Anne Bonny, Mary Read.

But I think you wanna stick to the last pirate on that one, 'cause I think Howell Davis had one of the more spooky hauntings of that episode.

So go back and check that one out again.