Anne Bonny and Mary Read: real-life pirates of the Caribbean

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1:26roommates in History Corner. She's curator of the Atlantic at the National Maritime Museum and is doing a PhD in University College London. Her research interests bring together the histories of the Atlantic world and black studies and you might recognise her name from her time as a researcher on this very programme. It's Hannah Cusworth. Ahoy me matey. Welcome back to the show. You're the first ever research intern to come back as an expert on the show. Oh yeah I know. Thank you so much for having me back. Delighted. I feel very proud. Like a proud Like a little graduate. Yeah, it's wonderful.

1:56And in Comedy Corner, she's a fantastic comedian, writer and producer. You'll have seen her on the TV as the host of It's a Sin After Hours, on Richard Osman's House of Games, on QI, or maybe starring alongside Steve Coogan in Chivalry. Maybe you've seen her sell out tour shows, seen her at the Edinburgh Fringe. You go every year. She's also the host of the Icebergs podcast. You're very busy. But of course, most importantly, you'll remember her from our episodes, our raucous episodes indeed, on Prohibition in the USA and Pharaoh Hatshepsut. It's Kima Bob. Welcome back, Kima. Hey, glad to be here.

2:25Can't wait to laugh and learn. In that order. It's so funny. But I think like when someone does an intro and you're just like, oh, yeah, I did do that. That's awesome. So thanks for reminding me of who I am. That's it. That's why I'm here. I'm basically just making sure that you're aware of your own CV. Yeah, I'm excited to learn stuff today. That is the plan. And we've done America together. We've done ancient Egypt together. Today we are in what we're doing, Pirates of the Caribbean today. Love that. Not the movies. Yeah. Genuine, real Pirates of the Caribbean. So what do you know? What's your starting baseline of knowledge?

2:59Well, I love the fashion. Okay. I love the fashion of pirates. I love what they're doing. I like, I mean, sometimes pirates are like really righteous, right? Sometimes pirates are bad, but sometimes pirates are good. And so I'm curious. I'm like, what are these pirates going to be? Am I on the side of the pirates? And I tell you what, as a very Robin Hood leaning person, I think I'm going to be. I mean, these are some very famous pirates who do, I think, border the edges of both bad and good occasionally. Nice, spicy, complex characters. We'll see what we get with them. But do you know the names?

3:40Anne, Bonnie, Mary Read. Have you ever encountered them? Okay, so we're starting from scratch. Yes. Okay, that's exciting. So, what do you know?

3:52This is the So What Do You Know. This is where I have a go at guessing what you, our lovely listener or viewer, hello, might know about today's subject. And I reckon you might know a bit. Kima didn't know Mary and Anne in terms of the names, but they are two of the most famous women of the golden age of piracy. They popped up in the hilarious 2023 sitcom Our Flag Means to Death, very funny show. They're in the video game Assassin's Creed 4. black flag. Perhaps you've stumbled across the statue of them at execution docks in London. Maybe a bit of a spoiler there. Sorry. Maybe you've just tumbled down a Reddit thread on their relationship.

4:25But how did two women from Ireland and England end up becoming pirates of the Caribbean? Why did they disguise themselves as men? And do you really need to take to the high seas to find yourself a girlfriend? Let's find out. Right then, Hannah. Bonnie and Reid, they're a double act. We often assume they spend their whole life together, but they don't, They grew up completely separately. They do. Nothing in common. So can we start with Anne Bonny's early life? Where was she born? What was her family situation? Of course. So for both women, details of their childhood and actually kind of lives are unclear.

4:58And we're not always sure what is true. Not great for the historians among us. But it's also not that unusual for women who were born in the kind of late 17th century, kind of early 1700s. our main source is a 1724 book called a general history of pirates by one captain charles johnson we're not 100 sure if that's his real name if that's a like a stage name right um but it was written very close to the time that and bonnie and mary reed were doing their thing so he probably spoke to actually quite a lot of people sailors maybe people who knew them and the book is a wild ride like he is telling wanting to tell a really entertaining story and it really captivated people at the time.

5:41It was a bestseller. It went through numerous editions. It was translated into different languages. But it also is still pretty hilarious today. So excited to get into it. Okay, so we should take it with a pinch of sea salt, right? Some of these facts. A bucket of sea salt. All right. Anne Bonny is often said to have been born Anne Cormack in Cork, Ireland. And then we think she was born in sort of the late 17th, early 18th century and an illegitimate daughter or so the story goes in the general life of pirates an illegitimate daughter of a married lawyer guy with quite a lot of status and a maid and it's a bit of a like bawdy tale there's there's bed swapping there's someone stealing silver spoons there's twins there's like adultery there's a lot going on um but as i said we're not 100 sure how much of that is just uh johnson kind of telling a good tale uh and how much is based in fact okay Okay, so Anne Bonny, actually Anne Cormac.

6:39We should start there. Yeah, I mean, some historian, it's unclear, but let's go with Anne Bonny. How many times today are you going to say, it's unclear? We should just get that little placard we should show on the screen. Okay, so Anne Cormac, born in Cork, Ireland. Her father is the sort of rich lawyer, but her mum is the maid. Bit of scandal there. And Kima, do you want to guess how Anne's father tried to hide his illegitimate daughter that he wasn't meant to have? In a closet. physically hide her just harry potter style yeah uh what i mean not quite in a closet but metaphorically metaphorically he dressed her as a boy um and i think the whole town knew this was not a very well-kept secret the her kind of um anne's birth and so he was like hmm how do i hide her in the house without people kind of letting on and they were like sure just her as a boy of course so wouldn't people be like where did this boy come from right so the story is that he was like oh this is a male relative of mine that i'm like training up to be like someone basically a paralegal in my law right okay and apparently people bought it okay um also i love like she's doing drag from a young age that is a consistent theme unfortunately people found out and they decided to find a new life in in the new world so they traveled to the Carolinas and this bit we think is probably based in in historical fact um and at this time as lots of our listeners will know South Carolina was a real kind of hub for the trade of enslaved people and so a lot of enslaved people who were brought into the U.S.

8:21were brought to South Carolina at this time figures are about roughly kind of 40%. And her father, it said, kind of left law and fell into merchandise, which as a historian of this period is often like, oh, what are you selling, cakes? And the answer is no enslaved people. So we think that's probably what he did as his job. And apparently he made so much money from that that he was able to purchase a considerable plantation. And so Anne grew up pretty well. Yeah, so it's not a great start, Kima. out hey shall we be responsible for the sins of our fathers no sure but at the same time she is living living high on the hog with money that comes from evil i don't oh no maybe i'm not maybe i'm not on her side okay oh man we've had our first moral quandary can you tell us more about anne's teenage years you know growing up according to johnson anne's mother died relatively soon after they arrived in the Carolinas and therefore kind of Anne became the lady of the house.

9:27And we don't have a huge amount of evidence about what her, that kind of life was like for her, but we do know that there are a number of other women, even in South Carolina, who had this kind of role, even being quite young women, of kind of being like the lady of the house and overseeing the plantation. There was a woman who's kind of really quite famous in the US, her name's Eliza pickney lucas and she uh at 16 was managing her family's plantation in the carolinas and then goes on to make a huge amount of money and is kind of credited as like bringing indigo into the the colony so that might have been quite a similar role for anne she might have been managing enslaved people she might have been responsible for kind of running the plantation the finances of it um and what the hell yeah she's not a hero yet is she no no okay oh man don't worry i mean there's more to come.

10:20There's more to come. Apparently she also had a temper from a young age and there is this story which apparently is almost certainly untrue of her attacking an English servant with a carving knife. Wow. Okay. Kima, our fiery tempered Anne wasn't the only one with the anger issues because she also managed to anger her father, the former lawyer. How did she do it? What did she do that's made Daddy angry? Ooh, hopefully free some slave. That would be good it wasn't quite that it was more of a sort of daddy i love him type thing right so anne married a poor sailor james bonnie hence becoming anne bonnie and her father was livid and threw her out he had wanted to make a good match for her and this kind of relatively lowly sailor james was not the one james was also really angry actually because he thought that by marrying anne he was going to be making a little bit of money right she was going to be bringing a little bit of money to the relationship and then daddy cut her off um and then according to one story she was kind of so furious that she burned down the plantation on her way out wow okay and i'm back in so we have our pyromaniac ann on the run uh let's check in with our other leading lady then so hannah how does mary reed if it is mary reed at this point how does she start her life is she similarly wealthy as her dad also a lawyer you know is it comfortable beginnings not so comfortable beginnings for mary reed from what we can tell again having to take this with a bit of a with a large pinch of salt there is a mary reed existing in bristol in the like historical record and apparently she's like there writing a petition to kind of pardon pirates so maybe we're not sure if this is like a family thing for the reeds um but her father apparently actually do you know what we don't know illegitimate mary reed's mother apparently had an affair while her sailor husband was away.

12:13And then to disguise her infidelity from the husband's family, she dresses Mary as her former child, male child, who had sadly passed away, so that she can continue getting the allowance from her family. These people are obsessed with the drag. So Anne Bonny was disguised as a boy. Yes. And Mary was disguised as her dead brother. Yes. So quite dark. At the time, These kind of mistaken identities or kind of gender swapping, dressing, this was quite a common theme in this kind of literature at this point. So we're not sure if this is just like a good tale or if there is some basis in fact for Mary Read.

12:52Right. So we've got a theme established, which is girls dressing as boys. Can you guess what Mary's new name was when she was dressing as a man? Mario.

13:05Not a plumber, sadly. Not Mario. You weren't far off Mark. Is that the English Mario? Classic. Classic name for a person. It's more chartered accountant than pirates, isn't it? And actually, Mark Reed stays this person's name for a while, right? They're living their life as Mark Reed, but they're also dressing as their dead brother. Yeah. And there's a sense that we get that Mary dressed as Mark or dressed as a man, even when the situation perhaps didn't really explicitly require it. so I'm not sure if you could sort of say that maybe she had more of a kind of attachment to this gender identity or whether it was a situation where dressing as a man or as a boy enabled more opportunities and was potentially kind of safer in in some way so real wow so she finds work as a sailor dressed as dressed as a man and then she becomes a soldier she's fighting in Flanders as part of the war of Spanish succession Mary meets another soldier apparently they're kind of sharing a tent together and she really falls in love with him and thankfully there's this kind of moment where she is like oh do you know what actually guess what i'm a woman and he is like absolutely let's crack on and she's like no no no no uh let's get married right okay let's not let's not do that kind of thing here i want to be your kind of honorable uh honorable wife um and i suppose like good for the good for the the kind of the people around them they were like yeah this is excellent let's like let's have a big wedding they gave them some money um and mary and her husband open a pub that's called the three horseshoes um sadly i like that i kind of like that name that's cute it is cute yeah because i feel like everything is like the the lion and the the witch and the wardrobe do you know what i mean i was like the queen's face exactly yeah they went three horseshoes sadly what happened to the fourth horseshoe that poor horse i know and also you would have thought three horseshoes would have been good luck right sadly it didn't work out that way for them and the husband died quite soon after and so mary after kind of getting maybe her happy ending is in quite a difficult situation the war is over there's not that much work for a soldier anymore and so she decides to try her luck by going on a ship to the americas so as a soldier she'd been mark as a soldier she'd been mark they'd been mark but yeah mark reed soldier yeah chartered accountant yes and now having got married she's Mary Reid.

15:34That's right. I'm running the pub as Mary Reid. And is Reid her husband's surname? No, Reid is her name. Okay, so she's keeping her original... Okay, fine. And now she's off to the Caribbean. She's off to the Caribbean. Okay. Pirate life for me. Quite a tough start to life for Mary. I mean, it sounds very spicy. It sounds eventful. I bet she was never bored. Yeah. I mean, that sounds like a kind of memoir you'd write. I was born and dressed as my dead brother. Then I became a soldier. Then I became... And can I say, both of these ladies are on a slippery slope to lesbianism. them okay so hannah can you tell us about the 18th century caribbean world that mary was sailing towards and was already there i would say the caribbean at this time really is defined by empire and enslavement by many ways and historians have kind of called it like the birthplace of modernity for lots of these things that we're more familiar with today the sugar plantation became incredibly kind of mechanized highly organized there were indigenous communities who were still in the Caribbean.

16:32I think it's often a myth that once Columbus got there, suddenly all of the indigenous people were wiped out. But they were living often quite challenged existences because so much of the Caribbean was turned over to sugar plantations or coffee, other kind of cash crops like that. By the time Mary and Anne get to the Caribbean, this kind of imperial system had been going on for about 200 years. And can I say, that's too long. way too long and so it wasn't something that was brand new although we do kind of get the sense the english are like slightly more latecomers to it yeah rather than than the spanish but you've got the english the spanish the french the dutch all kind of competing for supremacy over these different islands all there really to make money and port royal is kind of known as this like den of iniquity this kind of pirate haven um as is the what is now the bahamas and so you've kind of got These places of, I suppose you could argue lawlessness, but there's also really tight control, right?

17:37The colonists have to have incredibly tight control so they can run this kind of violent plantation system. Enslavement underpins all of it. Yeah. Okay. So Port Royal was the sort of primary capital that moves to Kingston? There's a big old earthquake in 1692. And some people at the time are like, it's because you're all sinners. That's why there's this big earthquake. But there's an earthquake and a lot of the focus moves to Kingston. So in somewhere like Port Royal or in Kingston, you've got a real mixture of white colonists, many of whom owned enslaved people. You've also got a small group of people who are kind of free people of colour.

18:15Some of them might have been born free. Some of them might have received their freedom or fought for their freedom. And they're this kind of middle ground, perhaps. Many of them do own enslaved people, but many of them also have been enslaved. And then you have the vast majority of people on these islands that are enslaved Africans who are working in really brutal conditions, sometimes in towns like Port Royal or Kingston, often on plantations. And then you have indigenous communities, particularly in some of the other islands in the kind of southern Caribbean, who are fighting against colonial control all the time that they can.

18:52Kima, what do you imagine the position of women was in this society? Particularly, you know, Anne and Mary. What do you imagine their freedoms or responsibilities would have been moving into this world? Okay, so I feel like it's probably like house stuff. Like people love, they're like, you gotta do the house. And maybe they're making clothes or something. Okay. And I think they have to do things that suck and are boring. I mean, suck and boring is perhaps part of it. I mean, are you saying that they're working in manufacturing? I think it's like domestically. Domestic chores, okay. I feel like it's domestic vibes because at this point, they are making other people do things that are actually hard.

19:38That's fair. And there is a big, yeah, there is a big element of that. I think perhaps surprisingly or perhaps not, right, considering this is where Anne and Mary go to, women in the Caribbean, we're talking white women here, we're talking free women of colour, had a lot more freedom and actually were a lot wealthier than their counterparts in Europe. So we've got loads of examples of white women doing exactly as Kima said, they're kind of the women of the plantation and they've got this big group of enslaved people who are doing the really hard work for them. But we also have loads of records of white women and to a lesser extent, free women of colour running businesses.

20:14They were making clothes at the kind of lower end, but they were also doing things like running taverns, running boarding houses, smuggling, piracy. That was like actually a thing that women in Jamaica did. There was a really big trade to be made in like smuggling and contraband and running shops. So these women were actually quite big players. And there was a large amount of like, people were a little bit more relaxed in Jamaica because people died all the time. So people were like, life is short. Let's just have a child out of wedlock. And people, lots of the kind of like senior people in the plantation weren't really super focused on people's morals.

20:54And so there was a little bit more freedom to be had if you were free, right? If you were enslaved, you're living a completely different existence. Right. Question. Yeah. What kind of, what are we smuggling? What's counterint? Ribbons. It was quite a big. Wow. No, so you've got... Ribbons was like a huge thing in sort of 17th century Jamaica. People are smuggling food, they're smuggling gold, they're smuggling wealth. There's a whole variety of things. Wine. Rum, presumably rum. Rum. So there's a big kind of, yeah, there's a big variety. But mainly ribbons. Just sort of opening up a trench going, do you want any ribbons?

21:33Would you like any? I've got the latest one from Europe for you. Yeah. Would you like to adorn yourself? But we should talk about piracy because we're here for pirates, right? We're here for pirates. That's why people have tuned in. They want pirates. So, Kima, this is known, this period is known as the golden age of piracy. So what do you think it was about this time in particular that made the life of the pirate appealing? There's going to be swashbuckling. Yes. Right? So there's swashbuckling, which do you know what that means? Does anyone know that? I do, yeah. What does that mean? Well, technically, it's an old phrase meaning where you bang your shield with your sword and pirates didn't use shields.

22:09So actually, swashbuckling isn't a thing a pirate did at all. What? But don't people say that about them? They do. It's the golden age of Hollywood has ruined it. Interesting. Okay, so they're not swashbuckling, which is unfortunate. Maybe they're just vibing. Maybe people are like, hey, we actually like that you're doing that. We're fans of your work. Do you know, that is a really interesting point because they were. So there were different in the kind of golden age of piracy from about 1670 to 1730. So Anne Bonny and Mary Read are kind of coming in towards the end of it. But at the beginning, states like Britain, France were quite into this kind of piracy.

22:48And they would often sponsor it, like state sponsored piracy called private kind of privateering. And then they were like, oh, no, this has really got out of hand. Right. And then at first, we're into these guys attacking these Spanish ships kind of on our behalf. But now they're attacking us and our wealth and we are not into that. So then they kind of turn on the pirates and start prosecuting them. What are we talking about in terms of what the pirates are stealing? Do we know? Like, are they nicking clothes, money, spices, people? The Caribbean is this real centre of, I suppose, like wealth extraction.

23:21And that is why it's so incredible to be a pirate in these waters, because you've got so many ships that are moving from South America. There's kind of Spanish silver ships that are going over. and you've also got then rum, sugar. I think it's not talked about a huge amount in the kind of literature on pirates, but a number of these ships would also have held enslaved people. And so the pirates were taking whatever they found on the ship and sometimes those were goods and sometimes it was people. Yeah. I mean, obviously, yes, as you say, it's, you know, this extraordinarily diverse economy, I suppose, but these pirates will steal whatever has value.

23:58Exactly. And we also have this sense of the pirate crews then could become quite racially mixed because you would have like formerly enslaved people who perhaps would be kind of taken on and would join the pirate cruise as well as pirates coming from Europe. And in particular, Nassau, the capital of Bahamas or what is now Bahamas, was like a really thriving base for pirates to sell the kind of spoils of their ill-gotten gains. Right. So the obvious question, Kima, how do Mary Read and Anne Bonny get into piracy? What do you think their route is? they're bored oh wait wait one of them had a pub but she might not anymore that's right maybe they just want more ribbons you know they're like i don't have enough ribbons they're just addicted to ribbons i've got to have more yeah how do i get these ribbons i know say all the high seas women love ribbons they do women be shopping and women be wearing ribbons From what we know from Johnson, so again, this kind of big caveat, but let's run with it for a little moment.

25:07She's on her way to the Caribbean and her ship actually gets stopped and attacked by pirates. Oh, OK. All right. And then they're like, oh, we're English pirates. And she's like, oh, hey, I'm English. And so then I think she kind of joins the ship. And at this moment, there's this kind of amnesty on pirates for a while. I think the British government are like, OK, let's try a new strategy, which is that we all kind of convince them they could become like legitimate traders for a bit and see who turns over and maybe that will solve the problem. Spoiler. Yeah, it doesn't really. And so Mary, we think, perhaps became pirate by choice.

25:46And we get more of a sense of she was like into the life. And so she's there with his husband, James Bonney, and quickly it seems kind of becomes bored of him, decides to go for this much more dashing or exciting guy called Jack Rackham, who some of the listeners will know as Calico Jack. Yeah, that's his pirate name, isn't it? Calico Jack. Calico's a type of fabric, right? Exactly. And so apparently I think it comes from the trousers that he was wearing. So when Kima said earlier that she liked the outfits, I think that was those like big trousers were quite big in the pirate world clearly Anne fancied the trousers too yeah okay so Anne sort of dumps her husband for calico jack that's right they tried to do a wife sale have you heard about this so um they tried to kind of suggest that like Anne should get an annulment but that's quite difficult in this time so they're like hey how about James you have this wife you're not really that into her how about we pay you off right and I'll take Anne and you can get an annulment and you can just kind of start again.

26:48I will buy your wife. I will buy your wife. Chaos. These people are obsessed with selling humans. Yeah. They got a taste for it and then, yeah, they couldn't let it go. Presumably she at least said yes to this. The sense we get is that she kind of, she's into it. She's like head over heels with Jack and is just like by any means possible. Okay. Yeah. We get the sense from Johnson that Anne is a very strong character, that she is kind of making very firm, kind of fierce choices across her life. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, so Mary Read is effectively captured by pirates. And then it's like, well, this is, this seems fine.

27:25Yeah. I'll just join you. Yes. But that's quite rare, right? Women aren't really common pirates at this point. No. So women would travel on ships, but women as pirates is incredibly rare. We only have like a small number of documented examples of women as pirates. There may have been a large number or a certain number that dressed up as men. And I suppose those people might be lost to the historical record. And kind of Anne Bonny and Mary Read are kind of really noted because they are that rare thing, which is a female pirate in the golden age. But of course, at this point, they're not female pirates because they are dressing as men again.

28:01As soon as they get it, as soon as they're on the pirate ship, they're back to their old characters. so it's uh wait does that make her thing with uh jack like gay i don't know i mean jack presumably knows because he's bought a wife right yeah so jack knows so at this point i think when she's in the south she is living um nassau sorry she's living as a woman that's the sense that we get but once on the ship yeah there's very clear like donning of men's clothes okay and so how much this is kind of a gender identity that she is kind of into it make it's like the best version of herself and how much this is more like i'm not going to be wearing all big skirts on a pirate ship because they're going to get tangled up in the ropes and the rigging it's impractical it's impractical all those ribbons they get tangled up indeed so real uh okay so i guess we we get to reintroduce mark reed chartered accountant and do we know ann's name her her dead brother's is i mean and andy Andy Bonney?

28:58So it's the dead brother is Mary. Oh, okay, I'm getting confused. And at some points in some historians' work is sometimes described as Andy, and I'm not sure where they got that from. Andy Bonney. It's not out of the realm of possibility that some of the people who kind of gave their stories to Johnson, who was writing a general history of pirates, had actually come across Anne Bonney and Mary Read. And some sources suggest that they met in kind of 1717, 1718 when they were in Nassau. They're definitely together by 1720 because their names appear in this kind of state proclamation from the government of Bahamas, the governor of Bahamas, sorry, declaring Jack Rackham and his crew to be enemies of the crown of Great Britain.

29:43And they are Anne Bonny and Mary Read. And she's kind of given this like alias. Sometimes she's known as Fulford. Sometimes she's known as Anne Bonny. So we get the sense that she's kind of got this slightly shady past already. And they're listed with Jack Rackham as being these big enemies of the state. That's cool. OK, so the previous sort of policy of like, hands off, it's fine. You just please be legitimate traders. That's ended. The government's come back down hard again. The government is not happy with Anne and Mary and Jack. And partly it's because they've stolen this ship called the William.

30:18And if you're into ships, it's a great little number, sloop, apparently very fast. I feel like I've got to say, you know, bring in the type of ship from working in a maritime museum. And yeah, so they do that in sort of August 1720. And they kind of slip away from Nassau and they're off into Caribbean waters. That's exciting. The pirate life for me. Keema, what do you imagine life was like on the ship for Anne and Mary slash Mark and Andy, whatever they're going by? Yeah. What do you think their daily life is like? On the deck, tanning, having little drinks. They invent the pina colada. They're having a lovely time, and they're giving orders while they sunbathe.

31:02Pop quiz. What's in your kid's lunchbox? At Whole Foods Market, they've already done the studying. Over 300 food ingredients are banned from their shelves. No hydronated fats in the peanut butter, and no high fructose corn syrup in the cookies. And for sandwiches, there are no synthetic nitrates or nitrites in any of their deli meat. So you can pack lunchboxes with peace of mind. Get back to school ready at Whole Foods Market. The U.S. has long been suspected of trying to sway elections in other countries. But is something more brazen going on these days? I'm Asma Khalid, and I'm one of the hosts of the Global Story podcast from the BBC.