Anne Bonny
Anne Bonny was a pirate who served under John Rackham. Amongst the few recorded female pirates in the Golden Age of Piracy, she has become one of the most recognized pirates of the era, as well as the history of piracy in general.
Much of Bonny's background is unknown. The first biography of Bonny comes from Captain Charles Johnson's 1724 book A General History of the Pyrates. According to Johnson, Bonny was born in Ireland, the illegitimate daughter of an attorney and his servant. Bonny and her father later moved to Carolina, where she married a sailor. Though Johnson's version of events has become generally accepted, there is little evidence to support it.
At an unknown date, Bonny travelled to the Bahamas where she became acquainted with the pirate John Rackham. In August 1720, Bonny joined Rackham's crew, alongside another female pirate, Mary Read. Together they stole the sloop William owned by John Ham from Nassau on 22 August 1720. Rackham and his crew carried out a number of attacks on merchant ships in the West Indies until they were captured by former privateer Jonathan Barnet following a brief naval engagement in October 1720 near Jamaica. Rackham, along with all male crew members, were tried, sentenced, and executed, but Bonny and Read had their executions stayed due to both of them claiming to be pregnant. Read died in jail around mid April 1721, but Bonny was likely let go at an unknown point, living until 1733.
Early life
Bonny's date and place of birth are unknown. Nothing definitive is known about her early life. No primary source, including her own trial transcript, makes mention of her age or nation of origin. No Anne Bonny born in the late 17th or early 18th century has been found in the baptism records of Ireland. Its entirely possible she wasn't even born in Ireland. Bonny is not noted to have been a colonist of Nassau prior to it becoming a pirates nest in 1713 under Benjamin Hornigold. Before 22 August 1720, little can be definitively said about Bonny's early life.Early life according to ''A General History of the Pyrates''
All details concerning Bonny's early life stem from Captain Charles Johnson's A General History of the Pyrates. Johnson claimed that Bonny was born in a town near Cork in the Kingdom of Ireland. She was the daughter of a servant woman named Mary, and her employer, an unnamed attorney. Later versions of this story would refer to the attorney as William Cormac and the mother as Peg/Mary Brennan. These are fictional names first written down in John Carlova's 1964 romance novel Mistress of the Seas, which has been quoted as fact for many years by historians such as David Cordingly.The attorney's wife had become ill and was moved to her mother-in-law's home a few miles away to be cared for. While his wife was away for four months, the attorney began an affair with Mary. The attorney's wife discovered the affair following a comical mix up concerning silver spoons.
This theatrical misunderstanding began with a tanner Mary knew stealing three silver spoons and hiding them in her bed. Mary called a constable on the man, but they were not found. Upon the wife's return, the tanner told her the entire story about stealing silver spoons, but confessed it was only a joke. The wife found the three silver spoons in Mary's bed as the tanner had claimed. She became suspicious however, the tanner had noted he had hidden the silver spoons days ago. The wife questioned why Mary had not been sleeping in her bed. The wife then assumed her husband had been unfaithful the past four months. The wife stayed in the bed and waited for the attorney, who called for Mary and laid in her bed, confirming the affair. The wife then put the silver spoons back into the bed, and when Mary went to sleep, she found them and hid them in her trunk. The wife later accused Mary of theft and called a constable, who wrongfully arrested her. With the affair exposed, the wife separated from the attorney and moved to a different home.
Mary became pregnant from the affair and gave birth to a daughter, Anne, while in prison. After Anne's birth, Mary was let go out of pity. The attorney's mother in law died not long after, leaving a major source of income to be an allowance which his estranged wife gave him out of sympathy.
How Johnson was aware of the theft of spoons and the exact nature of Anne's birth, is never revealed.
Because everyone in town knew Mary had given birth to a bastard daughter, the attorney raised Anne as a boy, claiming she was the child of a friend. The attorney even hoped to raise Anne as a clerk. The attorney's wife soon found out who the child was, and cut off any allowance she had been giving him. The attorney in response ended the ruse and openly lived with Anne as his daughter, but this scandal damaged his reputation and few locals wished to work with him. The attorney was forced to move elsewhere.
The attorney first moved to Cork, but this proved not far enough. The attorney then moved to the Province of Carolina, taking along Anne and her mother Mary. At first, the attorney attempted to continue his law career, but eventually became a merchant instead. He proved quite successful as a merchant, earning enough money to buy a large plantation. At an undisclosed period of time, Mary died. Anne Bonny was now grown up.
Johnson claims that Bonny possessed a fierce temper, such as supposedly stabbing a maid to death with a knife, a claim he immediately finds groundless. He also says she once beat a man severely for attempting to rape her.
There is no documented example of an attorney becoming a plantation owner in the Carolinas in the 17th and 18th century.
The attorney expected Bonny to marry a good man, instead she married a poor sailor. The attorney was so outraged he threw her out. In the original volume of A General History, the sailor husband is unnamed. In A General History volume II released in 1728, the sailor is named James Bonny.
After being kicked out, Anne and James Bonny moved to Nassau, on New Providence Island, known as a sanctuary for pirates. Johnson claims that, after the arrival of Governor Woodes Rogers in the summer of 1718, James Bonny became a minor officer for the governor after taking a pardon. Anne cared little for James and frequently cheated on him. James Bonny serving Woodes Rogers is highly unlikely, as no James Bonny is noted in Captain Vincent Pearse's list of pirates who took the Kings Pardon. No documentation outside of A General History even confirms there was a James Bonny, making it possible he is one of Johnson's fictional creations, similar to Captain Misson.
John Rackham and piracy
While in Nassau, Bonny at some point met John Rackham. The nature of his relationship with her is unclear; A General History claims it was romantic, while her own trial transcript says nothing on the matter. She was likely well acquainted with Rackham by the summer of 1720, after the War of the Quadruple Alliance and two years into the reign of Governor Rogers.In August 1720, Bonny, Rackham, and another woman, Mary Read, together with about 13 other male pirate crewmembers, stole the sloop William from former pirate and privateer John Ham, then at anchor in Nassau harbor, and put out to sea. The crew spent two months in the West Indies attacking merchant ships. Bonny took part in piracy alongside the men, handing out gunpowder to fellow pirates, a job usually referred to as a powder monkey. On 5 September 1720, Governor Rogers put out a proclamation, later published in The Boston Gazette on 17 October, demanding the arrest of Rackham and his associates. Among those named are Anne Bonny and Mary Read.
A General History claims Bonny eventually fell in love with another pirate on board, only to discover it was Mary Read. 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. This is unlikely, since Rogers' proclamation names both women openly. Later drawings of Bonny and Read would emphasise their femininity, although this too likely did not reflect reality.
A victim of the pirates, Dorothy Thomas of Jamaica, described in detail Bonny and Read'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."
Capture and imprisonment
On 22 October 1720, Rackham and his crew were discovered near Negril Point by a sloop captained by Jonathan Barnet, a former privateer. Rackham and his crew briefly resisted, but surrendered soon after the fight began. What Bonny and Read did during the fight is unclear. A General History claims Bonny and Read were the only ones to fight back, but the trial transcript does not support this claim. They were taken to Jamaica where, in groups, they were tried for the crime of piracy. Rackham was tried on 16 November in front of Nicholas Lawes governor of Jamaica.Rackham was quickly found guilty. His execution at Port Royal was carried out two days later on 18 November.
Bonny was tried for piracy alongside Mary Read in Spanish Town on 28 November. Like Rackham, the trial was short and the verdict inevitable. After calling four witnesses and a brief period of discussion, Governor Lawes found Bonny and Read guilty of piracy and sentenced them both to be hanged.
With the judgement pronounced, Bonny and Read both "pleaded their bellies", asking for mercy because they were pregnant. A jury of matrons likely granted them a stay of execution until they gave birth, but it is also likely the claim was false to delay their deaths. Read died in prison of unknown causes around April 1721. A burial registry for Saint Catherine Parish lists her burial on 28 April 1721 as, "Mary Read, Pirate".