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Mary Read

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For other uses, see Mary Read (disambiguation).

Mary Read
1724 engraving of Read from A General History of the Pyrates
Born
Kingdom of England
DiedApril 1721
Spanish Town, Colony of Jamaica
Resting placeSt. Catherine Parish, Jamaica
Piratical career
TypePirate
AllegianceJohn Rackham
Base of operationsCaribbean
See More

Mary Read (died April 1721), was a pirate who served under John Rackham. She and Anne Bonny were among the few female pirates during the "Golden Age of Piracy".

Much of Read's background is unknown. The first biography of Read comes from Captain Charles Johnson's 1724 book, A General History of the Pyrates. According to Johnson, Read was born in England, dressed as a boy much of her childhood, eventually joined the military and later moved to the West Indies. Though Johnson's version of events has become generally accepted, there is little evidence to support them.

At an unknown date, Read traveled to the Bahamas where she became acquainted with the pirate John Rackham. Around August 1720, she joined Rackham's crew, alongside Anne Bonny. Together they stole the sloop William from Nassau harbor. Read's time as a pirate was short lived, as she, Bonny, and Rackham were arrested in October 1720. Rackham was executed in November, but Read and Bonny both claimed to be pregnant during their trials and received a stay of execution. Read died while imprisoned in April 1721, while Bonny's fate is unknown.

Early life

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Read's date and place of birth are unknown.[1] Nothing definitive is known about her early life. No primary source, including her own trial's transcript, makes mention of her age or nation of origin. Unlike Anne Bonny, numerous Mary Read's were born in the late 17th century across England, making it difficult to figure which one is the future pirate. Read is not noted to have been a colonist of Nassau before 1713. Before 22 August 1720, little can be definitively said about Read's early life.

Early life according to A General History of the Pyrates

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Mary Read's name, alongside Anne Bonny's, is in notably larger font than other pirates like Blackbeard or Charles Vane.

All details concerning Read's early life stem from Captain Charles Johnson's A General History of the Pyrates (a greatly unreliable series of pirate biographies).[2] Johnson claimed that Read was born at an unknown date in London in the Kingdom of England.[3]

Read's unnamed mother married a sailor, with whom she had a son. The husband then went on a sea voyage, never to return. Despite lacking a husband, Read's mother became pregnant again. To avoid the stigma of bearing a Illegitimate child the mother moved from London to the countryside. The boy did not live long, he died in infancy before he was one year old. Shortly after the boys death, the mother gave birth to a girl, named Mary.[4]

When Mary Read's mother ran out of money, she turned to her late husbands wealthy mother for support. To get support, Read's mother dressed her in boys clothing, to appear to be her deceased brother. The deception worked, the mother in law gave the family a crown a week until she eventually died.[5]

After the death of Mary Read's grandmother-in-law, her mother made the now 13 year old child a foot-boy for an unnamed French lady. Soon after getting the job, Read's mother died. Disillusioned with the job, Read instead joined the crew of an English man-of-war. She later quit this and moved into Flanders where she carried arms in a regiment as a cadet and served bravely but could not receive a commission because promotion in those days was mostly by purchase.[6]

Read moved on to a regiment of cavalry which was allied with Dutch forces against the French. The conflict Read is involved with is vague but implied to be the Nine Years War. Read, in male disguise, proved herself through battle, but fell in love with a Flemish soldier. When they married, she used their military commission and gifts from intrigued brethren in arms to acquire an inn named The Three Horseshoes near Breda Castle in the Netherlands.[7] No known inn near Breda was recorded under that name.

Sometime after opening the inn, Read's husband died, and with the end of conflict following the Peace of Ryswick there was no room for advancement, so she left the military and boarded a ship bound for the West Indies.[8] The ship that she boarded happened to be attacked by pirates. Read, while still disguised as a man, chose to join the pirates.[9]


1724 engraving of Bonny from A General History of the Pyrates

John Rackham and Piracy

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John Rackham

When Mary Read arrived on the island of New Providence in the Bahamas is unclear, but it was likely before 1720.

While living in the pirates nest of Nassau, Read at some point met John Rackham. The nature of his relationship with her is unclear and ambiguous, her own trial transcript says nothing on the matter. She was likely well acquainted with Rackham by the year 1720, after the War of the Quadruple Alliance and two years into the reign of Governor Woodes Rogers.

In August 1720, Read, Rackham, and another woman, Anne Bonny, together with about a dozen other pirate crewmembers, stole the sloop William, then at anchor in Nassau harbor, and put out to sea.[10] The crew spent months in the West Indies attacking merchant ships.[11]On 5 September 1720, Governor Rogers put out a proclamation, later published in The Boston Gazette, demanding the arrest of Rackham and his associates. Among those named are Mary Read and Anne Bonny.

Proclamation issued by governor Rogers 5 September 1720 that mentions Mary Read as a member of Rackham's crew.[12]

A General History claims Bonny eventually fell in love with Mary Read, only to discover she was a woman. To abate the jealousy of Rackham, who suspected romantic involvement between the two, Bonny told him that Read was a woman and swore him to secrecy.[13] This is unlikely, since Rogers' proclamation names both women openly. Later drawings of Read and Bonny would emphasise their femininity, although this too likely did not reflect reality.[14]

A victim of the pirates, Dorothy Thomas of Jamaica, would describe in detail Read and Bonny's appearance during their trial. She said they "wore men's jackets, and long trousers, and handkerchiefs tied about their heads: and ... each of them had a machete and pistol in their hands and they cursed and swore at the men to murder her." Thomas also recorded that she knew that they were women, "from the largeness of their breasts."[15]

Capture and imprisonment

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Main article: Capture of John Rackham

On 22 October 1720,[16] former privateer Captain Jonathan Barnet took Rackham's crew by surprise, while they drank punch with a group of turtlers they had brought aboard near Negril Point off the west coast of the Colony of Jamaica.[17] What followed was a short engagement that ended when the Williams boom was knocked down. Rackham and the crew surrendered immediately after, requesting "quarter". Nobody was killed in the engangement.[18]

Rackham and his crew were arrested and brought to trial in what is now Spanish Town, Jamaica, where they were sentenced to hang for acts of piracy, as were Read and Bonny. However, the women claimed they were both "quick with child" (known as "pleading the belly"), and received temporary stays of execution.[19] Everyone else was executed.

Read died while in prison in April 1721. Her burial 28 of April is in the records of St. Catherine's church in Jamaica.[20] There is no record of the burial of her baby, suggesting that she may have died while pregnant, or perhaps never had been pregnant.

Legacy

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Despite a career of only two months, Mary Read is among the most famous pirates in recorded history, primarily due to her gender. Within a decade, Read-inspired characters were already appearing. The first notable inspiration is Polly in John Gay's 1729 ballad opera Polly. Despite already appearing in Gay's previous play The Beggars Opera, her characterization in Polly is blatantly Read.[21]

In the 19th century, literature such as Charles Ellms' Pirates Own Book would discuss Read at length, often with illustrations. Throughout much of the 19th and early 20th century, Read dominated literature and the stage. For the Victorian era, Read was far more popular than Bonny.

By the 21st century, Read had fallen in popularity compared to Bonny, who has appeared in hundreds of books, movies, stage shows, TV programs, and video games.[22] Almost every female pirate character, is in some form, inspired by Anne Bonny.[23]

Speculation of Read's Sexuality

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Since the mid 18th century, certain writers have claimed that Read Read was the lesbian lover of Anne Bonny. This was never stated in the trial transcript or newspapers, and only begins to appear after much of Read's legend was written, and by highly suspect sources.

The first written appearance of this claim is in an unauthorized 1725 reproduction of A General History titled, The History and Lives of All the Most Notorious Pirates and Their Crews. In the passage describing the trial of Bonny and Read, the book briefly says they were lovers. Since A General History is itself unreliable, this claim cannot be trusted.[24] History and Lives would be the only book to claim Bonny and Read were lovers for almost a century. A chapbook knock off of History and Lives would again repeat the claim verbatim in 1813,[a] but discussion of Read's sexuality would only really begin in the 20th century.

This claim would briefly appear again in 1914, via sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld's book, The Homosexuality of Men and Women. Much like History and Lives, it contains a mere one sentence claim that Mary Read was a lesbian.[25]

The claim that Bonny and Read were lesbians largely entered popular understanding via radical feminist Susan Baker's 1972 article, "Anne Bonny & Mary Read: They Killed Pricks" published in a newspaper run by the lesbian separatist organization, The Furies Collective.[26] This article would inspire writers such as Steve Gooch, which in turn would influence many media depictions.

In 2020, a statue of Bonny and Read was unveiled at Execution Dock in Wapping, London. The statues were created in part for the podcast series Hellcats, which centers on a lesbian relationship between Bonny and Read. The statues themselves are abstract depictions of Bonny and Read, claiming that one emotionally completed the other. It was originally planned for the statues to be permanently placed on Burgh Island in south Devon,[27] but these plans were withdrawn after complaints of glamorizing piracy, and because Bonny and Read have no association with the island.[28] The statues were eventually accepted by Lewes F.C.[29]

Ultimately, it is impossible to determine if Mary Read was Anne Bonny lover. Neither woman left any primary sources behind, and sources such as the trial transcript make no mention of their personal lives.[30]

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Mary Read, The Duel, from the Pirates of the Spanish Main series (N19) for Allen & Ginter Cigarettes MET DP835033

See also

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Notes

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  1. ^ The book was titled The Extraordinary Adventures and Daring Exploits of Captain Henry Morgan, but appears to be a 34 page abridged plagiarized version of History and Lives.

References

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  1. ^ Baldwin, Robert. "The Tryals Of Captain John Rackham and Other Pirates". Internet Archives. 1721, The trial transcript does not give an age, although she claims to be pregnant by the end of the trial. This could theoretically give an upper and lower age range between menarche and menopause, but proof of her pregnancy is not assured and thus cannot be trusted. Retrieved 22 October 2023.
  2. ^ Bartelme, Tony (21 November 2018). "The true and false stories of Anne Bonny, pirate woman of the Caribbean". The Post and Courier. Archived from the original on 11 November 2020. Retrieved 10 November 2020.
  3. ^ Johnson, Captain Charles (1724). A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pyrates. p. 157.
  4. ^ Johnson, Captain Charles (1724). A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pyrates. p. 157-158. Finding her Burthen grew, in order to conceal her Shame, she takes a formal Leave of her Husband's Relations, giving out, that she went to live with some Friends of her own, in the Country: Accordingly she went away, and carry'd with her her young Son, at this Time, not a Year old: Soon after her departure her Son died, but Providence in Return, was pleased to give her a Girl in his Room, of which she was safely delivered, in her Retreat, and this was our Mary Read.
  5. ^ Johnson, Captain Charles (1724). A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pyrates. p. 158.
  6. ^ Johnson, Captain Charles (1724). A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pyrates. p. 159.
  7. ^ Johnson, Captain Charles (1724). A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pyrates. p. 160.
  8. ^ Johnson, Captain Charles (1724). A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pyrates. p. 160.
  9. ^ Johnson, Captain Charles (1724). A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pyrates. p. 161.
  10. ^ Druett, Joan (2000). She Captains: Heroines and Hellions of the Sea. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-684-85690-5.
  11. ^ Canfield, Rob (2001). "Something's Mizzen: Anne Bonny, Mary Read, 'Polly', and Female Counter-Roles on the Imperialist Stage". South Atlantic Review. 66 (2): 50. doi:10.2307/3201868. JSTOR 3201868.
  12. ^ The Boston Gazette 1720 October 17 The Documentary Record Archived 25 September 2023 at the Wayback Machine,
  13. ^ Johnson, Charles (1724). A General History of the Pyrates. London: T. Warner. p. 162. [...] this Intimacy so disturb'd Captain Rackam, who was the Lover and Gallant of Anne Bonny, that he grew furiously jealous, so that he told Anne Bonny, he would cut her new Lover's Throat, therefore, to quiet him, she let him into the Secret also.
  14. ^ O'Driscoll, Sally (2012). "The Pirate's Breasts: Criminal Women and the Meanings of the Body". The Eighteenth Century. 53 (3): 357–379. doi:10.1353/ecy.2012.0024. JSTOR 23365017. S2CID 163111552. Archived from the original on 4 January 2022. Retrieved 1 July 2022.
  15. ^ Baldwin, Robert. "The Tryals Of Captain John Rackham and Other Pirates". Internet Archives. 1721, p. 18. "Dorothy Thomas deposed, That she, being in a Canoa at Sea, with some Stock and Provisions, at the North-side of Jamaica, was taken by a Sloop, commanded by one Captain Rackam (as she afterwards heard;) who took out of the Canoa, most of the things that were in her; And further said, That the Two Women, Prisoners at the Bar, were then on Board the said Sloop, and wore Mens Jackets, and long Trouzer:, 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 murther 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.". Retrieved 28 May 2024.
  16. ^ Baldwin, Robert. "The Tryals Of Captain John Rackham and Other Pirates". Internet Archives. 1721, p. 31. "...on the 22d Day of October, in the feventh Year of the Reign of our faid Sovereign Lord the King, that now is, upon the high Sea, in a certain Place, diftant about one League from Negril-Point, in the Island of Jamaica, in America, and within the Jurisdiction of this Court ; did piratically and felonioufly, go over to, John Rackam...". Retrieved 12 May 2024.
  17. ^ Pallardy, Richard. "Anne Bonny". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 15 June 2015.
  18. ^ Baldwin, Robert (1721). The Trials of Captain John Rackam and other Pirates. Jamaica.
  19. ^ Johnson, Charles (1724). A General History of Pyrates (1st ed.). London: T. Warner.
  20. ^ Woodard, Colin. "Mary Read Biography". Archived from the original on 4 January 2020. Retrieved 20 August 2014.
  21. ^ Powell, Manushag (2015). British Pirates in Print and Performance. Palgrave Macmillan. p. 128. ISBN 978-1137339911.
  22. ^ Molenaar, Jillian. "Index". Depictions of John Rackam, Anne Bonny, and Mary Read. Retrieved 29 May 2024.
  23. ^ Rennie, Neil (2013). Treasure Neverland: Real and Imaginary Pirates. Oxford University Press. pp. 241–269. ISBN 978-0198728061.
  24. ^ Defoe, Daniel (1725). The History and Lives of All the Most Notorious Pirates and Their Crews. p. 55.
  25. ^ Hirschfeld, Magnus (1914). The Homosexuality of Men and Women. p. 284.
  26. ^ Baker, Susan (August 1972). "Anne Bonny & Mary Read: They Killed Pricks" (PDF). The Furies. Retrieved 30 June 2024.
  27. ^ "Female pirate lovers whose story was ignored by male historians immortalised with statue". The Independent. 18 November 2020. Archived from the original on 7 May 2022.
  28. ^ "Burgh Island female pirates statue plans withdrawn". BBC News. 30 March 2021. 30 March 2021. Archived from the original on 14 October 2023. Retrieved 6 October 2023.
  29. ^ Lewis, Samantha (18 March 2023). "Introducing Lewes FC, the world's only gender-equal football club, and the Australians who play there". ABC News. 18 March 2023. Archived from the original on 14 October 2023. Retrieved 6 October 2023.
  30. ^ Baldwin, Robert. "The Tryals Of Captain John Rackham and Other Pirates". Internet Archives. 1721. Retrieved 11 May 2024.
  31. ^ Kain, Erik (10 December 2013). "The Surprisingly Beautiful Ending Of 'Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag'". Forbes. Retrieved 24 December 2017.
  32. ^ Schei, Kelley (2 January 2007). Zarker, Karen (ed.). "True Caribbean Pirates". PopMatters. Retrieved 26 March 2018.
  33. ^ Dziki, Oskar (8 June 2016). "Queen of the Seas (1961). Włoska heroina na morzu". Kinomisja (in Polish). Retrieved 8 February 2018.
  34. ^ Patten, Dominic (2 April 2017). Fleming, Mike (ed.). "'Black Sails' Creators On Tonight's Series Finale & More Possible Pirate Adventures". Deadline Hollywood. Penske Business Media, LLC. Retrieved 26 March 2018.
  35. ^ Dubofsky, Chanel (12 October 2023). "Meet the real pirate queens behind 'Our Flag Means Death' hijinks". Mashable. Retrieved 1 December 2024.
  36. ^ Waters, Katherine (19 April 2024). "A tale of cross-dressing and wild adventure from the golden age of piracy". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 1 December 2024.
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