01x07 - The Tale of Anne Bonny and Mary Read

[bunniefuu]

[Narrator] This is the story

of two of the boldest pirates

ever to sail the high seas,

Anne Bonny and Mary Read.

[Expert 1] The legend is

these are the two most famous

female pirates in history.

[Narrator]

A fearsome duo who sailed

with Calico Jack Rackham,

one of the most flamboyant

figures in the Caribbean.

[Expert 2] So, we know

that people were fascinated

with their story.

[Expert 3] They'd just gone

completely off the rails.

They were young,

and they wanted fun.

[Narrator] Despite being

formidable fighters

and wily strategists,

their careers at sea

are short-lived.

And their capture leads Bonny,

Read, and their captain

to face one of Jamaica's

most sensational pirate trials.

♪

Once used as a base

for English privateers

in their wars

against the Spanish,

Nassau had grown

to become a bustling port

and a sanctuary for pirates.

[Richard Blakemore] Nassau is

the main town in the Bahamas,

and it's quite a small

colonial settlement.

The Bahamas

are scattered islands,

they're hard to navigate,

so they're often

a haunt of pirates.

They're a place

that pirates escape to

and hide in between

their voyages.

And it's very difficult

for the colonial authorities

to control this region

because of the complex

geography of these islands.

[Hannah Cusworth] Governance

wasn't as well established

as it was on some of

the other Caribbean islands.

[Blakemore] Colonists are

complaining and even fleeing

from the island because of

the concentration of pirates.

[Mark Hanna] It was not a place

that people wanted to settle

and buy land

and live permanently.

[Margarette Lincoln] It was a

place where pirates stopped off,

caroused, as they said,

had parties, drank a lot,

and then went back

to their ship.

[Rebecca Simon]

Anywhere you went in Nassau,

you could find a tavern,

you could find prostit*tes,

you could find

all kinds of lawlessness.

[g*nf*re]

[Narrator] 1717.

News of the chaotic

pirate haven reaches England.

King George I is furious,

signing a proclamation

for suppressing pirates.

He appoints Nassau's

first official governor

in over 14 years,

Woodes Rogers.

His role--to oversee the

Bahamas on behalf of the Crown

and crush the pirates.

[Simon] Woodes Rogers

made it his mission

to get rid of all the pirates

in Nassau in the Caribbean.

So he comes in,

establishes a proclamation

saying to all of the pirates,

you know, if you turn yourself

in by September of 1718,

I'll give you a pardon

and you will all be forgiven

for all your crimes.

[Blakemore] He turns some former

pirates into pirate hunters

when they decide to join him.

He issues pardons to others,

although some pirates refused

to join him and sail away.

[Narrator]

Those who fled to sea

were hunted down

by their former comrades,

men who had taken

the king's pardon,

pirates turned pirate hunters.

[Lincoln] It meant that

it was much more difficult

for the pirates

operating in that area.

Woodes Rogers was putting down

piracy on Providence,

and people were feeling perhaps

that the pendulum

was going the other way.

[Narrator] King George's

second strategy

for restoring order in Nassau

was to encourage

families to emigrate

to establish a colony

of law-abiding citizens

for the British Crown.

[Cusworth] There were

a number of Caribbean islands

that were really interested

in having women come over

to grow the White population,

and they needed women to kind of

establish families there.

And so women were kind of

encouraged or sent for

or they were women

who were prisoners,

and they were brought over kind

of as part of their sentence.

♪

♪

[Narrator] One of the women

who seizes this opportunity

is Anne Bonny.

[Blakemore] So, Anne Bonny

was born in Ireland

and then moved to

the Carolinas with her father,

who was a lawyer

and then a merchant.

[Simon] By the time Anne Bonny

has arrived in Nassau

with her husband, James Bonny,

their marriage is

really on the rocks.

This was especially so

when James Bonny began working

as a pirate hunter

for Woodes Rogers.

♪

In the meantime, Anne Bonny

was known to hang out

in a lot of taverns

and befriend a lot of pirates,

sometimes have affairs

with pirates.

♪

All of this is going to change

when she meets Jack Rackham.

[muffled voices]

[Narrator] The man Bonny

falls for, Jack Rackham,

has recently

retired from piracy,

choosing to accept a pardon

from Woodes Rogers.

But for years prior

to their meeting,

Calico Jack, as he was

best known, was notorious

for both his adventures at sea

and in the taverns of Nassau.

[Simon] Jack Rackham already

had kind of his own reputation.

He was known

as Calico Jack Rackham

because he liked

to dress very nicely.

[Blakemore] The nickname

Calico Jack comes from calico,

which is a material originally

made in Calicut in India.

Pirates who were plundering

some of these trade routes

are the first people

who are not elite

who get access

to these commodities.

So it seems to be

a part of the way

in which pirates

can flaunt their position

and enjoy some

of these commodities

that aren't necessarily

accessible to everybody

at this time.

[Narrator] One historical

account claims Rackham

has command of his own ship,

having staged a mutiny

against the previous captain.

[Simon] This is very common

on pirate ships.

The crew had equal say

in terms of what the laws

would be on their ship,

and if they felt that a captain

was not doing his job,

which usually meant that they

were not capturing enough ships,

they were not making

enough money,

that they could vote him out.

[Lincoln] Pirates were able to,

if you like, fire their captain.

I mean, this was the big thing

for being on a pirate ship,

if you didn't like your captain

and enough people

thought he was useless,

you got yourself another one.

[Narrator] As captain,

Rackham targets

merchant and passenger

transport vessels,

gaining control

of several large ships.

[Simon] They actually

were quite successful

under Rackham's captainship.

[Narrator] But it all

pales in comparison

to one particular prize

he spots just beyond

Port Royal, Jamaica,

probably the most impressive

boat Rackham has ever seen

grace the Caribbean.

[Simon] In 1719, Jack Rackham's

most successful capture

is a ship called the Kingston.

[Narrator] The Kingston is

huge, promising a rich cargo,

a major score

for Rackham and his men.

The pirates pull up

to their target,

and the pirate captain signals

for his crew to attack,

effortlessly defeating

the unsuspecting sailors

of the Kingston.

The pirates seize

the vessel for themselves,

Rackham's most valuable

prize to date.

♪

But the attack has been

witnessed from the harbor.

♪

Port Royal is no longer

a safe haven for pirates,

but a reformed settlement

where the criminals

who plague the sea

are publicly ex*cuted.

Furious merchants set

bounty hunters after Rackham.

Their mission--

to capture or k*ll him.

February 1719.

The bounty hunters

catch up with Rackham

on a small island

off the coast of Cuba.

Caught unprepared

and nursing vicious hangovers,

the pirates

abandon the Kingston

and flee into the woods.

♪

Reflecting on this close call,

Rackham decides

to give up piracy for good

and take the king's pardon.

He steals a Spanish sloop and

makes his way back to Nassau.

Upon landing, Rackham goes

straight to Woodes Rogers,

seeking peace.

[Simon] Jack Rackham

goes in and says,

"I've seen the error of my ways,

and I'm done with piracy."

And so he gets his pardon,

and this allows Jack Rackham

to lay low in Nassau.

[Narrator] Retiring to pursue

more restful pursuits

in Nassau,

Rackham spends his days

stumbling between

taverns and brothels

until one night,

whilst sat within

a favorite watering hole,

he sets his gaze on a woman

unlike any other

a woman who would alter

the course of his life.

[Narrator] Jack Rackham

and Anne Bonny

soon begin an affair.

[Simon] It's pretty much

love at first sight.

She wants to marry Jack Rackham.

Jack wants to marry her.

The problem? She's still

married to James Bonny,

and a divorce is very,

very difficult to obtain.

♪

James Bonny denies a divorce,

and so Jack Rackham

offers to buy Anne Bonny.

[Narrator] In the Caribbean

of the 18th century,

women could be sold

to their new husband

as a means of divorce,

a practice known

as wife selling.

[Simon] There was a very uneven

ratio between men and women,

so a lot of wives

were purchased.

And sometimes if you

were in a bad marriage

and you wanted to remarry,

that person could buy the woman.

Now, Woodes Rogers

had actually outlawed

the practice of wife selling,

so what he does

is James Bonny goes

to Woodes Rogers and says,

"Jack Rackham is trying

to buy my wife, Anne Bonny."

[Blakemore] But Woodes Rogers

is very angry

and tells them

that they mustn't do it.

And it is this that inspires

Jack and Bonny

to go and steal a ship

and take to the seas.

♪

♪

[Narrator] August 22, 1720.

Rackham and Bonny recruit a

small group of co-conspirators.

♪

As night falls,

they steal a ship

known as the William

from Nassau Harbor.

♪

It's a brazen move

which voids Rackham's pardon

immediately putting

his life in danger.

But it's a gamble

he's willing to take for love.

♪

Rackham and Bonny will need

all the speed

the William can muster.

They know it won't be long

before pirate hunters

are on their trail.

They set out towards Jamaica,

attacking merchant vessels

along the way.

♪

But Bonny's presence

amongst this rabble of pirates

is considered

to be highly unusual.

[Mélanie Lamotte] Piracy was

an extremely masculine world.

It was extremely rare

for female pirates.

We know of approximately,

I think, 40 female pirates

in the Golden Age of Piracy.

♪

The 17th and 18th centuries,

this time period,

people were

extremely superstitious,

and they believed

that it was bad luck

for women to be aboard a ship.

And also captains were afraid

that the presence

of women aboard

would create conflicts

between the sailors.

♪

[Narrator] As the captain's

lover, Bonny is accepted

as a valuable and capable

member of the crew.

♪

But before long,

she begins to find herself

drawn to another sailor

on board.

♪

[Simon] It's believed that

in A General History

of the Pyrates

that Captain Charles Johnson,

the author,

said the two of them

fell in love with each other.

♪

Actually what he writes is

that Anne Bonny had recognized

a male crew member,

fell in love with him.

[Narrator] But the object

of Bonny's desire

harbors a dangerous secret.

♪

The pirate ultimately revealing

her true female identity--

Mary Read.

[Simon] Now, how does

Mary Read meet them?

How does she join up with them?

Mary Read's story is that

she was an illegitimate child

and that she was raised

as a boy in London

in order to avoid scandal.

It was less scandalous to have

an illegitimate boy as a child

versus an illegitimate girl.

And according to the story,

when Mary Read was

about 13 years old,

her mother told her,

you're actually female,

and now we've got to put you

to work as a domestic servant,

like pretty much all women do.

And Mary Read goes back

into her male clothing,

and then she actually leaves,

and she heads down

to the European continent.

♪

[Narrator] Read, disguising

herself as a man,

joins a merchant ship

destined for the West Indies.

But how did she manage to hide

her identity for so long?

[Lamotte] Mary Read

was actually cross-dressing,

like she was dressing

as a man to not be recognized.

And she went by another name.

[Cusworth] It would have

been pretty dangerous

to be a woman on the ship.

It was a hard life.

[Lamotte] It would have been

a very difficult profession

for a woman.

And, yes, in terms

of sexual assaults,

there is evidence of women,

mostly from sl*ve ships,

being assaulted

by members of the crew.

A lot of women, when they

arrived in the New World,

were actually pregnant.

The sailing world

was a very harsh world.

They wouldn't sleep a lot,

and they would have

to face a lot of risks

and also attacks by enemy ships

and other pirates.

It would have been

a scary world for a woman.

[Cusworth] A number

of these women

were kind of going incognito

dressed as men,

and that might have been

to protect themselves.

♪

[Hanna] They're always sort of

surprised about how easy it was

for them to get away

with being dressed as men

and how come people

didn't suspect them.

And I think there's

an important element of this,

which is how important clothing

was in the early modern period.

Clothing was

the primary demarcator

of one's social status

or gender,

that you were supposed to wear

the clothing of your job

or employment

or your gender norm.

And that clothing was

so powerful and important

for people to understand

who you were

and recognize you right away.

So, when they wore

men's clothing,

that clothing was so powerful

that you can imagine

people would never

imagine they could be

anything other than men.

And it's very hard for us

today to grasp that

because I don't think we have

the same obsession with clothing

being the sort of

indicator of reality

the way it was at the time.

[Iszi Lawrence] There were

more women dressed as men

than we have evidence for.

I mean, we have famous

incidents in the 18th century

of women like Hannah Snell,

who were a part of the navy

for four years before

they got discovered.

So, a lot of women, if they

wanted to flee their husbands,

if they wanted to make a life

or career for themselves,

you're gonna go to sea.

[Narrator] Mary Read masters

the fashions and behaviors

needed to convince

her fellow sailors

she was, like them, a man.

By the time she meets

Rackham and Bonny,

she's been at sea

for several years,

passing undetected

as a regular sailor.

There are different accounts

of Read's shift

to a life of piracy.

Some claim she had

already turned pirate,

while others say it happened

when Rackham plunders

the merchant ship she's aboard.

[Narrator] According to legend,

Mary Read reveals herself

to be a woman

but only to Anne Bonny.

The pair grow closer,

with Bonny vowing to keep

her identity secret.

[Blakemore] Calico Jack,

Bonny, and Read

sail to the coast of Jamaica.

And they spend

a couple of months there

plundering local shipping.

Some of these

are quite small vessels.

They even plunder a canoe.

But there's also some

quite large merchant vessels

carrying a variety

of valuable commodities.

♪

♪

[Simon] Jack Rackham,

in the meantime,

saw that Anne Bonny

had fallen in love

with another male crew member.

♪

[Narrator] The stories say,

in a fit of jealous rage,

Rackham threatens to cut

his love rival's throat.

♪

Read reveals her true identity.

♪

Bonny and Read

now sail together,

openly as women and as pirates.

[Simon] But there's actually

nothing in the story

written about the two of them

having a relationship.

This idea was actually

a 20th-century concept.

There were plays written about

them that began to speculate

that maybe they had

a romantic relationship.

This was written about

in feminist writings,

and now it's become considered

to practically be fact

about the two of them.

What their lives also did

is it really highlighted

what the realities could

have been for women at sea

and shows that women

could have been very competent

on a pirate ship

because they were.

♪

[Narrator] Bonny and Read prove

to be determined fighters.

No one, it seems, is prepared

for the extraordinary sight

of this fearsome pair

of women warriors.

[Simon] Anne Bonny

and Mary Read were also

in an interestingly

fortunate position.

They were not forced

to be pirates.

They were not under any threat

by any members of the crew.

They had not been

sexually assaulted.

They were not captured.

They were respected,

equal members of the crew

for the most part.

Now, how would they have managed

to survive this world at sea?

It was extremely difficult.

It's very masculine.

It's physically difficult.

They will be smaller.

They will be lighter

than the men,

and so this means that

they're going to be able

to climb up the mast,

probably do more repairs.

They're going to be faster

and more lithe in a fight.

They're going to have their

own skills that they can bring,

such as repairing and cooking

and that sort of thing.

They actually would have been

very, very useful members

of the crew.

♪

They wore male clothing

in battle

not to disguise themselves,

not because

they were cross-dressers,

but because it was practical.

It's easy to fight

in a loose shirt and trousers,

just like the men do.

And also, it was a way for them

to not be noticed

right away in battle.

They wore their hair very long.

And supposedly rumors say

that they would fight

with their shirts open, exposing

their breasts to people,

thus intimidating people

and sort of freezing men

in their tracks,

not expecting this at all.

[Hanna] The idea that

when a female pirate

sort of displays herself

by opening and

displaying her breasts,

it was shocking

because they said,

"You're wearing men's clothes.

How is it possible?"

[Blakemore] I think one

of the significant things

about Bonny and Read

is the fact

that they don't hide

their gender.

They are not afraid to be

seen as female pirates.

And in fact, in some ways,

that makes them more bold

and more brave because they are

flaunting these expectations

around female behavior

without pretending to be male.

♪

One of the vessels they capture

is a canoe crewed

only by Dorothy Thomas.

[Simon] They knew that

she had identified them

and that she could go and

report them to the authorities.

And being a woman, this would

be considered so outrageous

that authorities would

believe Dorothy Thomas

and they would probably

take it very seriously

that a woman had been

harassed by pirates.

[Blakemore] Bonny and Read

urge the pirates

to k*ll Dorothy Thomas.

They say, if we let her go,

she will be evidence against us.

But Calico Jack apparently

refuses to k*ll Dorothy Thomas,

so she is set free.

[Narrator] Bonny and Read

were right to be concerned.

Dorothy Thomas

reports the incident

directly to the governor,

Woodes Rogers.

[Simon] September 5, 1720,

Woodes Rogers issued

a proclamation for the arrest

of Jack Rackham on the William,

which contained

two female pirates,

and he named Anne Bonny

and Mary Read.

Woodes Rogers has put a large

bounty on Jack Rackham's head.

And so naturally, this is going

to attract pirate hunters,

and a very well-known and

very successful pirate hunter

named Jonathan Barnet decides

to take up the challenge

and go hunting for them

alongside another man

named Jean Bonadvis.

[Narrator] Bonadvis and Barnet

are seasoned privateers.

Having spent years sailing

among the intricate coves

and inlets of the Caribbean,

there are few criminal

hideouts they can't find.

[Simon] So, the two of them

have a small fleet

of their two ships,

and they go sailing

around the parts

where Jack Rackham

was known to be spotted.

♪

[Narrator] Unaware

they're being hunted,

the pirates skirt

the coast of Jamaica,

targeting ships as they go.

This includes

a fine merchant vessel,

now giving them

a flotilla of three crafts

helmed by a crew

brimming with confidence.

Rackham pilots his fleet

to a cove in Negril Bay,

where the pirates break out

in a drunken celebration

of their recent success.

As the party rages

and the liquor flows,

nobody notices

a new arrival in the bay.

It's Bonadvis and Barnet,

the pirate hunters.

[Simon] Bonadvis and Barnet

wait until it's dark,

and then they hail

Rackham's ship.

Now, Rackham and his crew

at this point are very drunk.

They'd actually managed

to capture a small ship,

and they were celebrating

by drinking all the wine

that they stole.

The only two people

who had not been drinking

were Anne Bonny and Mary Read.

[muffled voices]

When Barnet hails them,

Jack Rackham

basically taunts him,

saying that we will

accept no quarter,

we will take no mercy,

we will give no mercy.

[Narrator] The pirates manage

to load their cannons,

firing on the hunters,

but they barely do any damage.

[Simon] And then Barnet fires

a cannon into Rackham's ship.

[Narrator] Rackham

and his men realize

they're doomed

to lose this battle.

The pirate hunters

prepare to board.

[Simon] Now, Rackham

and the men are so inebriated

that they would not

be able to fight back,

and so Rackham orders everyone

to go and hide below deck.

The only people

who don't do this

are Anne Bonny and Mary Read.

They actually shout orders

against Rackham's,

saying, "No, you must stay."

Mary Read supposedly said,

"If there is a man among ya

to fight, then you must fight."

And supposedly she even

fired her g*n into the hold,

k*lling two of the crew members,

out of anger that

they would not fight.

♪

So Jonathan Barnet,

Jean Bonadvis,

and all of their crew

end up fighting against

just Anne Bonny and Mary Read.

♪

[Blakemore] Ultimately,

they are unsuccessful,

and they are all captured

and imprisoned

and brought

to Port Royal for trial.

♪

♪

[Simon] In November of 1720,

the entire crew was put on trial

in St. Jago de la Vega, Jamaica.

[Blakemore] Pirate trials

have become a very common sight

in the Caribbean

and North America at this time.

English law had changed

to allow local governors

and naval officers

to hold a piracy court.

[Narrator] This is in order

to create real stability

and security for the British,

who are intent on making

the sea safe for trade.

Those pirates who had rejected

or breached their pardons

would face the full force

of the law.

[Blakemore] So, the defendants

would have been brought

before the tribunal.

This legislation

authorizes English officers

to prosecute piracies

anywhere in the world.

[Simon] You have

the persecution.

You have, of course,

all the pirates on the stand.

You have a jury.

All the crimes are laid out,

and they bring witnesses.

[Blakemore] The victims,

if they survived,

would often have presented

the evidence to the court,

especially giving the detail

of what had been stolen

from them, the value,

because they want to reclaim

some of these commodities.

[Narrator] Rackham, Bonny,

and Read are put on trial,

facing a litany of charges

for their crime spree,

offenses which could

lead to hanging.

[Blakemore] One of

the really interesting things

about the trial is that

Calico Jack and several sailors

are tried on one day,

Bonny and Read are tried

by themselves on a separate day.

Clearly, the judge and the court

feel that these women

are of a different status.

They need a different procedure

to deal with the trial.

♪

[Narrator] Bonny and Read

are kept behind bars

whilst Rackham and some

of his crew are put on trial.

[Simon] Dorothy Thomas,

she was the chief witness.

She was able to see

everything in detail.

She was able to talk

about their character.

♪

We have other witnesses

who had actually

spent time on board ships,

so they knew exactly what

Jack Rackham had been doing

and what goods they had stolen

and how they'd been treated.

The hostages had been treated

pretty decently on the ship.

They weren't beaten or injured,

and they were usually let go

after just a few days.

We don't really know why,

but they offered

the best information.

[Blakemore]

At the end of the trial,

the defendants were given an

opportunity to plead their case,

although they weren't

given legal representation

or advice to do so.

And there were only really

two defenses that were possible.

One was to claim that

you were yourself a victim

who had been forced

to board the pirate ship

and that you never

intended to commit piracy.

And in fact, there are

some men put on trial

with Calico Jack's crew

who claimed that they'd simply

been invited aboard

the ship for a drink

and they had not been involved

in any of the piracies.

The other defense

would be to claim

that you were

legally authorized.

And indeed, it seems that

Calico Jack at various times

tried to claim

that he was authorized

to attack Spanish shipping,

but, of course,

this was a time of peace,

so the commission

was meaningless

and could not defend him.

[Simon] Jack Rackham and the men

were allowed to plead,

and, of course,

they all pled not guilty.

[Narrator] But their defense

is feeble and unpersuasive.

The court finds Rackham

and four of his accomplices

guilty of piracy,

robbery, and felony.

They are sentenced to hang.

[Lincoln] Calico Jack is allowed

to say farewell to Anne Bonny

before he's ex*cuted, and

she's totally unsympathetic.

She just says,

if he'd fought like a man,

he wouldn't be hanged

like a dog.

And I think this is a phrase

that has kind of echoed

down the centuries

about Jack Rackham

unfortunately.

[Simon] At the end

of November 1720,

they were all hanged

at Gallows Point in Jamaica,

which today is known

as Rackham's Cay.

♪

[cheering]

[Narrator] As a grim warning

to other would-be pirates,

Rackham's corpse is left

to rot in plain view.

♪

[Simon] Anne Bonny and

Mary Read's trial is conducted

a few days

after Rackham's death,

in mid-November of 1720.

This one is a little bit more

unusual, in that they're women.

The high court of admiralty

doesn't really know

what to do with them.

Women don't go on trial

as often as men.

Women often, if they are

caught committing a crime,

they'll spend time in jail,

but then they'll be let go

after a certain amount of time.

It's already quite rare

that the two of them

were put on trial

in front of everybody.

♪

Once again,

it's the same witnesses

who speak out against them,

in particular, Dorothy Thomas.

When asked how Miss Thomas

was able to recognize

Anne Bonny and Mary Read,

she said it was, quote, due to

the largeness of their breasts.

So she was able

to see them up close

to see that they

were actually women.

[Blakemore] Yes, these women

were on the ship.

Yes, we knew

that they were women,

even when they were dressed

in men's clothes.

Yes, they were wielding

g*ns and swords

and swearing more than any of

the other pirates in the crew,

so it does give us

some taste of their character

and their boldness and

how much they broke the rules

of the society

that they lived in.

♪

When it comes to the end

of the trial,

Bonny and Read were permitted

to plead their case,

but the record, whoever

wrote down this trial,

which is published

soon afterwards,

simply said they said

nothing material.

So we don't know whether that

means that they said nothing

or they said nothing that

the court thought was important,

and their voices are erased

from the record.

[Simon] Anne Bonny and Mary Read

were found guilty of piracy.

But there was a big twist.

When they were asked

if they had anything to say,

they both, according

to the trial transcript,

pled their bellies.

[crowd exclaims]

[Blakemore] Which was

a plea of pregnancy,

because if you were pregnant,

the court would

stay your execution

at least

until the baby was born.

[Hanna] This was a strategy

that many women followed,

would be to plead their bellies,

either to lie or

to attempt to get pregnant.

It happened quite a bit.

[Blakemore] Both women

were then examined

and found to be pregnant.

Given that their voyage

lasted around two months,

they were probably pregnant

for the whole time

that they were at sea.

[Simon] And this really

changes everything

because in the 18th century,

a pregnant woman

would not be ex*cuted.

Instead, they are granted what

is called a stay of execution,

meaning you won't be ex*cuted

until after the birth

of the child.

[Blakemore]

And they were imprisoned.

♪

[Narrator]

Five long months pass.

Anne Bonny and Mary Read

await the birth of their babies

and the hangman's noose.

[Simon] Ultimately what happened

to them is quite tragic.

Mary Read dies in jail

in April of 1721.

It was recorded that

she died of jail fever,

which is what

we call typhus today.

♪

[Simon] Now, Anne Bonny,

we don't actually know

what happened to her.

[Narrator] Anne Bonny's fate

remains a mystery to this day.

[Simon] There's no record

of her being ex*cuted.

There's no record of

what happened to her child.

[Lincoln] Although rumor has it

that her father came

and collected her,

managed to get her

out of prison,

and took her back

to American colonies,

where she married again

and had innumerable children,

and died at a ripe old age,

which may or may not be true.

[Simon] The reason

why we can speculate this

is because in English law

in the 17th and 18th centuries,

while, yes, women could

be sentenced to death

and many were, about 95%

of them were actually let go.

Only 5% of women

sentenced to death

actually had their

punishments carried out,

so it is very likely

that Anne Bonny

probably was not

hanged as a pirate.

[Blakemore] Some people

in the Carolinas even claim

to be descended from Anne Bonny.

But again, there is

no historical evidence

that this ever

actually took place.

[Simon] In 2021, there was

some new evidence unearthed

that suggested Anne Bonny

may have lived out

the rest of her life in Jamaica

because of a death record

of Saint Catherine's

Parish, Jamaica,

that listed a woman named

Anne Bonny in January of 1731.

So it is possible Anne

may have been sent free

or at least lived out

the rest of her life there.

♪

♪

[Narrator] Remarkably,

Jack Rackham, Anne Bonny,

and Mary Read

only sailed together

for two months.

And yet, over

three centuries later,

their adventures live on

in history and legend.

[Cusworth] There were

probably a significant number

of other women that we just

don't know about, right,

that have been

forgotten to history.

[Lamotte] But the main reason

why female pirates

were written out of history

because all, they would

hide their identities,

and they would

change their names,

they would dress as men,

they would behave as men.

So unless people found out

that they were women,

then they would just

be erased from history.

[Simon] In fact, Anne Bonny

and Mary Read are anomalies

when it comes to female pirates.

The story of Anne Bonny and

Mary Read really demonstrates

that there was the possibility

that women in the 18th century

could forge their own paths.

[Blakemore] Within, I think

it's four years of their voyage,

The General History

of the Pyrates is published

as one of the most important

accounts that historians have.

And Bonny and Read are

the only two non-captains

who get their own chapter.

So I think that's

the essence of the legend,

is these two women breaking

the contemporary ideas

about femininity

and about the role

of women in society

to go on a pirate voyage.

And in all of the accounts,

it's very clear that they are

the boldest aboard this ship,

they are at the forefront

of the action.

They would probably

have made better pirates

if they weren't

with Calico Jack.

[Lincoln] I mean, I think

actually they'd just gone

completely off the rails.

They were young,

and they wanted fun.

If you were a woman,

even in the Bahamas,

it was quite restrictive.

And so I imagine that

it was just a lot more fun

to be on a pirate ship than

to be doing some embroidery,

you know, in your home.

[Simon] People really enjoy

listening to the story

about Anne Bonny and Mary Read

because it is

quite a romantic story.

Whether or not

it's fact or fiction,

what we know about them

before they were pirates

and what their relationship was,

it still creates

a very interesting narrative.

It's very romantic in a sense.

You do have a woman who joined

up on a pirate ship for love.

[Lawrence] Not only do we have

an amazing pirate story

with the real pirates

at the Golden Age of Piracy,

we also have the tragedy

that love isn't enough,

that punishment comes in,

that men don't stand up for you,

it's only the women that fight.

We have this huge feminist wave,

and we also have now

historically q*eer culture

coming to the fore.

The fact that these people, that

they've always been amongst us,

that all of this history

is real and celebrated

with actual people,

and it was written down.

It matters to us now

more than ever.

♪

[Narrator] By the 1720s,

pirate hunters are winning

their w*r for the seas.

The English Crown

firmly controls Nassau,

the Caribbean no longer

providing such easy pickings

for men like Jack Rackham.

Many of the most feared

pirate captains

have been hunted down

and ex*cuted,

but the Golden Age of Piracy

isn't over yet.