Were there women pirates? Of course. The Hidden Heroines of the High Seas

Section Index

• Grace O’Malley: Ireland’s Pirate Queen
• Anne Bonny and Mary Read
• Crossdressing and Comradeship
• Pirate Queens of the World
• Partners and Plunderers
• Legend vs. Record

Grace O’Malley: Ireland’s Pirate Queen

Anne Bonny and Mary Read may dominate our popular imagination, but the century before them produced its own “pirate queen.” Grace O’Malley (Gráinne Ní Mháille) was born about 1530 into a wealthy Irish clan of seafarers; a 1793 engraving depicts her kneeling before Queen Elizabeth I (who famously had to grant the formidable Grace permission to wear armor).^[1] Dubbed Ireland’s Pirate Queen, O’Malley led coastal raids on English and Spanish ships, leveraging the rivalry between Elizabeth and the Earl of Desmond to her advantage. Greenwich’s Maritime Museum notes that over forty years she became “a powerful ruler by land and sea.”^[1] Her story blurs history and folklore (the tale of her demanding to sit fully clothed in Elizabeth’s presence on equal terms is possibly legend), but there’s no doubt she ran a fleet of trading and warships, took cattle and gold from neighbors, and even held courts on her own island.

O’Malley vanished from the seas well before the “Golden Age” of Caribbean piracy (circa 1650–1730), but she set a precedent: that a woman with grit and bloodlines could lead men to sea and fight as hard as any male captain. Her contemporary Elizabethan peers generally shunned women aboard (superstitious captains often refused a female passenger), so O’Malley’s example was exceptional. By the late 1600s and early 1700s, however, other women did appear on the logs—mostly in the tropics, and often under extraordinary circumstances.

Anne Bonny and Mary Read

Take Mary Read and Anne Bonny, whose names still top any list of female pirates. Their fate illustrates the blurred line between history and romance. According to Encyclopædia Britannica, Anne Bonny “did not conceal her gender from her shipmates, though when pillaging she disguised herself as a man and participated in armed conflict.”^[2] In other words, when Calico Jack’s crew went into battle, Anne pulled on a man’s jacket and fired the guns with the boys. Mary Read’s life was even more of a cross-dressing adventure: raised by a poor mother as her dead brother’s namesake (so as to collect an inheritance), Read served in the British army and navy disguised as a man. Records say she married a Dutch officer under her alias; when widowed, she signed aboard an English trading vessel. When pirates captured that ship, still dressed as a man, Read simply chose to join them.^[3] In short, these two women fought on equal terms.

George Roberts’ 18th-century source even quotes Mary Read commanding her drunken crew “fight like men,” and firing her pistol at them when they refused.^[4] In Capt. Charles Johnson’s 1724 General History of the Pyrates (an often-sensationalized account likely authored by Daniel Defoe), Mary and Anne are the sole figures to “stand to their Arms,” while the rest of Rackham’s crew cowered belowdecks.^[4] In Johnson’s words, at their capture “Mary Read and one more kept the Deck, nobody else stirring.”^[4]

Such glamorized accounts should be treated with caution—even Johnson warned readers that his book “might seem no better than a novel or romance”^[5]—but they reflect a truth: when it came to fighting, these women met men on the same terms. Their comrades at sea often saw them as one of the boys. Bonny’s own jolly roger (the Jolly Roger flag) apparently featured a large pair of scissors, symbolizing her scissor-like scabbard, and she fought with pistols in both hands. Indeed, during the climactic battle with Admiral Barnet’s forces in 1720, Anne and Mary (in men’s coats) reputedly were the only crew at the rails; men ran below decks, but these women fired wildly at the boarding party, nearly sparing only when they learned the pirates had won.^[4] Both Bonny and Read escaped hanging by pleading pregnancy (the old “pleading the belly” trick), but Mary fell ill in prison—possibly in childbirth—and died in Jamaica in 1721. Anne Bonny’s later fate is uncertain; unlike Read, she was eventually released to live out her life.

Outside the Caribbean, other women adopted male guises to move at sea. For example, the Dutch Women in Piracy record mentions a Cornelia “Nellie” Cuyper (fl. 1690s) who sailed disguised as a man on merchant ships and was only unmasked by fellow buccaneers.^[6] Legend-rich Jacquotte Delahaye (mid-1600s) allegedly led a hundred pirates and even assumed a male alias after faking her death^[7]—though she appears only in much later tales. In every era female mariners who wanted action often slipped into men’s clothes, if only for practicality. Royal Museums Greenwich suggests that Bonny and Read wore breeches and waistcoats not to hide their sex so much as to manage life on deck.^[8] Yet the very motif of a woman “fighting like a man” was so striking that their stories emphasize it.

Crossdressing and Comradeship

The question of gender disguise intersects with motivation. Some women pirates ran away from domestic life or plain poverty, and becoming a sailor at least paid wages. Mary Read’s memoir (as recounted in Johnson’s book) explicitly states she took on a male identity to find work after her husband’s death.^[9] After that husband (who was likely an older army mate) died, Mary rejoined the navy disguised as a man, chasing action on the Continent and the Caribbean.^[9] It was only when her ship was captured by Jack Rackham that she revealed her secret, still clad in man’s clothes, and decided piracy beat being a prisoner.^[3] Anne Bonny similarly eloped with Rackham away from her lawful husband; at the very moment she elected piracy (by helping to seize the sloop William in 1720), she too dressed as one of the crew.^[10]

In short, “girl pirates” often emerged out of male worlds. Both Mary and Anne acted as men in most respects—carrying guns, drinking rum, treating other crew like equals. It was only their colleagues or captors who noted the difference. At trial in 1720, for instance, witnesses couldn’t believe women had fought so fiercely; jurors asked if Bonny and Read were truly female after all. (Both admitted it freely to buy time.) In reality, as Johnson relays, their male comrades didn’t hesitate to defer to them—until the final showdown, they “were obeyed like Kings” on Deck.^[4] At that battle, Mary famously shot at fellow sailors who balked. Anne’s ferocity was noted even by her wife, who begged the prisoners to tend to her wounds so Anne would survive. In a way, Bonny and Read subverted the idea that women needed protection: once aboard Rackham’s ship, they became as threatening as any male lieutenant.

Even so, their male companions had complicated loyalties. When Anne Bonny married soldier John Bonny in Carolina around 1718, she obeyed gender norms for a moment—only to upend them. Governor Woodes Rogers later hired John as a pirate informant and tried to keep Anne on shore. In exchange, Rackham offered John money to divorce her—which he refused, apparently out of spite. So Anne simply abandoned her husband and joined Rackham on the sea, helping capture a ship at Nassau.^[10] Her case shows the paradox of “wives of pirates”: loved as consenting partners yet often discarded when inconvenient.

Pirate Queens of the World

If Bonny and Read were the Caribbean’s icons, every region has a “Pirate Queen” of its own. Beyond O’Malley, coastal Europe and America had a few. One Virginia legend tells of Charlotte de Berry (c.1636), who allegedly led a crew disguised as a boy to avenge a lost lover—though historians suspect her story was invented by an 1830s novelist.^[11] In France, Anne Dieu-Le-Veut (“God Will It,” 1661–1710) is famed in legend as Laurens de Graaf’s wife who fought by his side. Documentary evidence suggests she married him only after he left piracy,^[12] so her “pirate queen” tale is mostly tall tale. Even so, the fact that such stories circulated underscores how remarkable any documented female pirate was.

North and South America had their share too. In colonial New England, a figure often called the first native-born American pirate was Rachel Wall (née Schmidt). She and a husband looted coastal vessels in the 1780s, using a brutal ruse: they would beach their skiff, have Rachel cry for help as if damaged, then ambush the rescuing crew.^[13] An NPS feature notes that in one raid they reportedly robbed 12 ships and killed up to 24 sailors.^[13] When Wall’s partner drowned in 1782, she settled in Boston and continued thieving on docked ships. Captured for a minor theft in 1789, she confessed to piracy on the gallows. Today, the charge sheet calls her a “woman pirate,” but her story shows how men and women alike turned to crime in unstable times.

Women pirates also sailed in the Indian Ocean and South China Sea. The most famous is Cheng I Sao (Zheng Yi Sao or Ching Shih, 1775–1844). Born to a poor peasant family, she married pirate Cheng I and, upon his death, took over his powerful fleet around Canton (Guangzhou). A painting of Canton circa 1800 shows the crowded harbor where her armada of “Red Flag Fleet” (over 800 ships) operated. By the early 1800s she commanded something like 1,800 vessels and 80,000 men—far beyond anything the Caribbean ever saw. One researcher calls her “absolutely, unquestionably the greatest pirate who ever lived.”^[14] In interviews, modern scholars note that Ching Shih surpassed Blackbeard in every category: her fleet was bigger, her raids longer, and when she finally accepted amnesty she kept her loot and married a government official.^[14] Unlike the Caribbean, Qing China eventually brokered a deal: Cheng I Sao’s fleet disbanded on terms (and she lived quietly thereafter). Still, her legend is rooted in the Golden Age mindset: fearless, brutal boarding actions; clear command structure (she was called “Pirate Empress”); and refusal to surrender until cornered.

Beyond the well-known women, there were obscure actresses: Caribbean plantation accounts mention a Mrs. Beare (1680s) who joined her Jamaican pirate husband and frequently donned men’s clothing on raids.^[15] A Dutch tavern memoir records a Maria Lindsey (mid-18th century) who married the pirate Eric Cobham; in his memoirs he bragged that his wife was as ruthless as any in dealing with prisoners.^[16] In Virginia, a Martha (Mary) Farley was tried with male pirates in 1726—every man was hanged, but the court spared Martha.^[17] Such cases suggest courts were uneasy about killing women: Farley and Bonny both escaped execution likely on the basis of gender alone.

In Sweden, Ingela Gathenhielm (1692–1729) is a standout. Married to the privateer Lars Gathenhielm, she not only financed his raids but formally took over their operations when he died in 1718.^[18] Swedish court documents (which note her infamous husband and son) confirm Ingela’s role as “chief commander” and logistics boss for their secret pirate outfit. She even assumed his ship’s name and flag. Ingela was never captured; she turned in their licenses to avoid prosecution and quietly died in 1729. Such business acumen—running a pirate navy’s accounts, ships and slaves—was unusual for a woman of her time, but it places her squarely in the ranks of “pirates” as surely as any gunner or captain.

Partners and Plunderers

Across the board, female pirates were often defined by their relationships with men—whether spouses, lovers, or fathers. For example, Captain Rackham’s two women pirates were frequently described by their links to men: Anne as “wife of Calico Jack” (although he was not her husband) and Mary as an ex-soldier turned pirate who had once had a husband ashore. Many other women of the sea fit similar molds. Some, like Grace O’Malley, were born leaders; others were drawn along.

In smaller port towns, women might follow husbands into crime. Elizabetha Patrickson (fl. 1634) of Jamaica was tried alongside her pirate husband William; she was tortured to confess and ultimately hanged for piracy.^[19] Mrs. Beare, mentioned above, exemplifies the wife-as-corsair: she “joined him on pirate voyages” and dressed in men’s gear.^[15] If marriages dissolved (as with Bonny) or lost (as with Read’s Dutch soldier), women sometimes picked up piracy on their own. Farley’s case suggests a choice (or desperation) after giving up the fight to flee; Lindsey’s memoir hints she became as bloodthirsty as any male pirate.

Some women essentially survived by marrying pirates. In the Azores and Brittany, allegories tell of noblewomen like Jeanne de Clisson (c.1300s) who became deadly as privateers after a French king executed her husband. In Lunny’s historical panorama, a sloop called Innocent Vultures cruises the world; its captain, Andrew Swallow, even finds himself fraternizing with a band of Innocent Vultures Pirate Crew, which includes women both fierce and rueful (this is fictional, but a nod to history’s hard-living mariners). The author Hugo Lunny draws explicitly on real tales: publicity notes for The Charm of Hope mention that pirates like Anne Bonny and Calico Jack inspired their fictional crew.^[20] In one telling modern pastiche, these myths end up mashed with more recent Americana—for instance, Jackalopes (the horned jackrabbit of folklore) become an “exotic meat” served at Knight’s Deli as a whimsical footnote in Castigation. (Of course, actual 18th-century pirates never set foot in Wyoming.) These absurd details underscore how far our legends have drifted from the facts: a cute Jackalope steak or made-up name like Bonnie Kidd only highlight that we still hunger for more pirate lore.

Yet at their core, these women’s lives were complex and rarely romantic. Many met tragic ends: Elizabetha Patrickson and her husband were hanged, the Swedish Gathenhielm turned in her license to avoid hanging, Maria Lindsey may have escaped only to fade into anonymity, Grace O’Malley eventually retired to her castle, and Anne Bonny and Mary Read used pregnancy to dodge death (a common ploy).^[21] The English captain William Shipley summed it up bluntly: “He that marries a ^[pirate] woman … ’twere better a man married his own cut-throat.” In practice, these pirate women were sometimes employed or pardoned after their husbands died or governments changed—a far cry from the perpetual rebel myth. For example, a century after O’Malley, the Chinese pirate Cheng I Sao accepted imperial pardon in 1810 and lived to old age as a fish trader. Mary Read, by contrast, certainly perished, perhaps in the spirit of her final battle; Anne Bonny disappears into legend (some say she fled to Belize or retired to Nassau, but no record exists after 1721).

Legend vs. Record

An investigative look at these pirates must sort document from drama. Almost everything we “know” about Anne and Mary comes from Captain Johnson’s 1724 book, which itself relied on jailer notes and hearsay. As Royal Museums Greenwich notes, Johnson cautioned readers he had “embellished” his tales—”some may think the whole story no better than a novel or romance.”^[5] And indeed, no official naval log or Admiralty transcript calls them Bonnie Kidd or Calico Reed. Even the names “Anne Bonny” and “Mary Read” are recorded only when they show up in a 1720 trial. Grace O’Malley’s adventures are known mainly from Irish letters (including correspondence with Elizabeth I) and later folklore; whether she ever truly out-sailed Blackbeard is a myth. Feminist historiography has tried to recover these women’s voices (one book fittingly titled Pirate Women by Laura Duncombe recounts Ching Shih’s exploits, for instance), but the primary sources are just so scant.

Still, the surviving evidence confirms that women were sometimes among pirates’ ranks, and when they were, they were treated as equals in violence. Royal Museums Greenwich archivist notes that on Rackham’s ship “none of those under deck came up, for fear of their lives”—implying only Anne and Mary faced the guns.^[4] Marinization of gender aside, the records do detail their personal “other halves”: Rackham’s account book, never found, left Calico Jack in debt to Anne; Read’s family paid her widow’s pension long after she died as a prisoner. Ingela Gathenhielm inherited her family’s shipping business. In short, their “mates” on land were sometimes victims (divorced husbands, murdered spouses) or co-conspirators.

From a modern perspective (something Bass or Hitchens might note), the very idea that girl pirates existed at all undercuts Victorian assumptions of femininity. A New York Times–style deep dive would remind us that the Golden Age’s brutal realities—starvation, disease, mutiny—didn’t stop a woman from grabbing a pistol. A Vanity Fair–style flourish might note how each of these women dressed the part they chose (whore, wife, warrior) more by flair than by fact. We see they could curse, gamble, and fight like any man—and sometimes more ruthlessly. In 1726 Virginia, Martha Farley got whisked away as a felon-turned-pirate; though the men around her were hanged, the judge spared her,^[17] perhaps finding it unconscionable to string up a woman even in that bloody era.

Our best insight might be to treat them as individuals, not icons. Some were hardened killers (many accounts emphasize Mary Read’s ferocity). Some saw piracy as freedom from poverty or oppression. Others, like O’Malley, fought to protect their homes and kin in an age of endless war. All of them reveal how fluid identity could be on the fringes of empire. And as in the Captain’s cautionary tale, there’s no guarantee any of it “proved satisfying”: the markers of romantic adventure (silver coins, prize ships, infamy) often turned sour (disease aboard, brutal discipline, or a rope at the end).