document, Bonny was born illegitimately in Ireland around 1698. Her father,
to avoid a scandal, pretended she was a child of a relative, and dressed her as a
boy. The family emigrated to South Carolina;teenage Anne was a problem
child, reportedly badly beating a would-be rapist and murdering a maid with a
knife. She was promiscuous and frequented taverns, and, when this began to
affect his business, her father disowned her. In 1718 she married an
impecunious sailor and left with him for Nassau in the Bahamas, where her
husband James Bonny acted as a ‘grass’ for the governor, informing on pirates
for the bounty.
Anne continued drinking and being promiscuous, and fell in love with a
notorious pirate, Calico Jack Rackam. She left her husband and joined
Rackam’s crew. Although she dressed as a woman most of the time, when
Rackam attacked a ship she donned breeches and armed herself with a brace
of pistols.
It seems that Rackam attacked and took Mary Read’s ship in the Caribbean,
and took Mary prisoner. Anne tried to seduce her, thinking she was a man,
presumably because Mary had also taken to wearing men’s clothes. Mary
admitted her true gender and the two women became friends. Mary had also
been born illegitimate and had been dressed as a boy, for similar reasons to
Anne. Mary had joined the Royal Navy at the age of thirteen as a ‘powder
monkey’, one of the boys who ran between the powder magazine and the guns
to bring ammunition to the gun crews during an engagement.
There were often a number of women aboard naval ships – some
legitimately as wives of the warrant officers, but a number also in disguise.
They joined for a number of reasons – to follow husbands or lovers who had
been press-ganged, to escape from a stultifying home life, to experience the
freedom and adventure only available in that era to men, or for sexual
satisfaction. Some were very successful in avoiding the exposure of their true
gender. Mary Anne Talbot joined the Navy in 1792 to follow her lover. When
he died at sea, she remained with the crew as ‘John Taylor’ until wounded and
captured by the French. When released, the Navy tried to press her back into
service, at which time she finally revealed her true identity.
Mary Read then joined the army in Flanders, but resigned when her lover
threatened her secret. She married him, but he died soon afterwards. She then
took to wearing men’s clothing again and sailed for the West Indies on the
ship which was captured by the pirates. Believing her to be a man, they urged
her to join them. A harddrinking, cursing, aggressive person, noone
suspected her of being female, until she revealed herself to Anne and Rackam.
The two women fitted in with the rest of the crew, undertaking the same tasks
CRIME IN THE AGE OF INDUSTRY AND EMPIRE