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Mary Read: The Defiant Life of a Female Pirate

Sep 24

4 min read

The lives of Mary Read and her fellow female pirate Anne Bonny were immortalised in Captain Charles Johnson’s A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pyrates (1721), which chronicled the histories and crimes of many infamous pirates from the Golden Age of Piracy. Despite being published under a pseudonym, it remains one of the most authoritative accounts on the lives of pirates, including Mary Read and Anne Bonny, the only women featured in it. This led to their immediate sexualisation, as Sally O’Driscoll’s article ‘The Pirate’s Breasts: Criminal Women and the Meanings of the Body’ points out that the second edition of the book depicted Mary Read and Anne Bonny with their breasts exposed while fighting. This portrayal tainted the historical view of female pirates, reducing them to objects of the male gaze and overshadowing the defiant women behind the history. Mary Read’s life of seafaring and piracy stands out in the history books as it is marked by her challenge to and conformity with gender norms.

 

Mary Read’s life is one of defiance, independence, and cross-dressing, having been raised as a boy to impersonate her deceased half-brother. After growing up and entering service as a footman, Mary spent time in both the Navy and Army, concealing her true gender before revealing herself and marrying a fellow soldier. They lived in Breda, the Netherlands, until his death, after which she returned to the sea, once again hiding her femininity. Sailing as a merchant, Mary eventually joined Captain Jack Rackham’s pirate ship and sailed as a pirate alongside Anne Bonny, who was also in disguise and the wife of Rackham.

 

Her story, like Anne Bonny’s, is recounted only in A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pyrates, as Rackham and his crew were captured in 1720, and the women were tried in a separate trial. The pamphlet The Tryals of Captain John Rackham (1721) details how they were both "quick with child" and thus escaped the common punishment of execution. Mary died shortly after in prison in 1721 and was buried in Jamaica, where they were captured.

 

This tragic ending did not mark the death of her memory. As Marcus Rediker argues, although these female pirates did not fundamentally alter the course of womanhood, they presented an alternative image for its future. This shows that these pirates, to some extent, defied their traditional roles, using cross-dressing as a necessary means to establish their chosen lifestyle and to be taken seriously as women. By taking charge of their lives, Mary Read and Anne Bonny left a permanent mark on the male-dominated history of piracy, with their defiance celebrated through fiction.

 

Mary Read lives on today through biographical fiction, or biofiction, which reimagines her unconventional life in modern media. She features in Assassin’s Creed, the hugely successful video game franchise, where she is a member of the West Indies Brotherhood of Assassins, embarking on many extravagant and exciting adventures until she meets her fate in prison in 1721. Mary Read also appears in Our Flag Means Death, the HBO Max comedy that depicts Blackbeard and Stede Bonnet and their adventures across the sea in this LGBTQIA+ celebration of piracy. In a one-episode appearance, Mary Read and Anne Bonny are married (in a love-hate relationship), selling antiques and befriending Blackbeard. This portrayal plays on the historical stereotype that the two women were lovers, though there is limited historical evidence to support this.

 

Lastly, Francesca De Tores’ debut novel Saltblood, published in April 2024, recounts Mary Read’s life with a slight fictional element, creating an enticing and factual biofiction. This novel is an excellent starting point to understand and relive Mary Read’s life in literary form, placing great emphasis on telling her story separate from Anne Bonny’s. It also explores the emotional impact of cross-dressing and piracy on her, making it a recommended read about one of history’s most defiant women.

 

Bibliography

Cordingly, David, ‘Bonny, Anne (1698–1782), pirate.’ Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. 23 September 2004 <https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-39085> [Accessed 23 August 2024].

Cordingly, David, ‘Read, Mary (c. 1695–1721), pirate.’ Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. 23 September 2004,  <https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-45454> [Accessed 23 August 2024].

De Tores, Francesca, Saltblood (London: Bloomsbury, 2024).

‘Fun and Games’, Our Flag Means Death, HBO Max, 5 February 2024, online video recording, BBC iPlayer <https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001vlrf/our-flag-means-death-series-2-4-fun-and-games> [Accessed 23 August 2024].

Johnson, Charles, A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pyrates…, (London: Ch. Rivington, 1724) <https://archive.org/details/generalhistoryofrobberies00johnson/page/n3/mode/2up> [Accessed 23 August 2024].

‘Mary Read’, Assassin’s Creed Wiki, 22 August 2024, <https://assassinscreed.fandom.com/wiki/Mary_Read> [Accessed 23 August 2024].

Meyer, W. R., and Randolph Cock, ‘Rackam, John [nicknamed Calico Jack] (d. 1720), pirate.’ Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. 23 September 2004, <https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-37875> [Accessed 23 August 2024].

O’Driscoll, Sally, ‘The Pirate’s Breasts: Criminal Women and the Meanings of the Body.’ The Eighteenth Century, 53, no. 3 (2012), 357–79, <http://www.jstor.org/stable/23365017> [Accessed 23 August 2024].

Rediker, Marcus, ‘When Women Pirates Sailed the Seas,’ The Wilson Quarterly (1976-), 17, no. 4 (1993), 102–10, <http://www.jstor.org/stable/40258786> [Accessed 23 August 2024]. 

‘The Tryals of Captain John Rackam, and other Pirates… also, the tryals of Mary Read and Anne Bonny, alias Bonn; on Monday the 28th Day of the said Month of November, at St. Fago de la Vega aforesaid’, printed by Robert Baldwin, pamphlet, 1721, <https://archive.org/details/the-tryals-of-captain-john-rackham/mode/1up> [Accessed 23 August 2024].

 

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