Anne Bonny was perhaps one of the more notorious pirates working the High Seas in the 18th century; and one of the most mysterious. We have little to go on when looking at her early life : was she born in Ireland or Lancashire? Was she the daughter of an attorney? Was she even illegitimate? Was she married to a sailor called James Bonny? Or was it Captain Rackham? And did she disappear, or does she lie buried in Spanish Town?
What little is known has been embellished upon by myth and legend, and histories on pirates from the time tend to be unreliable. Bonny was first recorded in 1720 at her trial for piracy in Jamaica, alongside fellow pirate Mary Read, and their captain, John Rackham.
More is known about Mary Read than Anne Bonny - she is described as having dressed as a boy from childhood, owing to her mother gaining inheritance money for a dead son. Mary Read continued to dress as a boy to obtain work as a footman, and in order to join the army. She then married and moved to the West Indies in 1715 after her husband died.
A few years later, in the summer of 1720, we find her joining the crew of Captain Rackham’s ship, again dressed as a man, alongside Anne Bonny.
Anne Bonny’s story is given as very similar to Mary Read’s parts: brought up as the illegitimate daughter of an attorney who attempted to pass her off as the son of a deceased friend. This meant Anne was also used to wearing male clothing from an early age. Like Mary, Anne married, arrived in the Bahamas, then took to piracy, joining Captain Rackham and his crew.
By the time of their capture, Bonny had participated in the taking of numerous ships across the West Indies.
Their careers however were brief - they were captured in October of the same year, together with Rackham. While Rackham was executed, the two women claimed pregnancy and were imprisoned instead. This is where their stories diverge - while Mary Read is recorded as having died in her cell, there is no record of Bonny being hanged; she simply disappears, leaving behind speculation and legends.
According to one of these legends, Bonny was originally brought up in a comfortable home in South Carolina, where her father had taken his lover, her mother. The child Bonny is said to have had a fierce and violent temper, which led to her attacking a servant, although again, there is no record of this.
Marriage did nothing to becalm her, and apparently she took up piracy out of boredom.
The various similarities in the early lives ascribed to both Bonny and Mary Read suggest that authors ‘borrowed’ from Mary Read’s life story in order to fill the missing gaps in Bonny’s.
At some point, in whatever way Bonny became a pirate, she ended up in the Bahamas, where she fell in with Captain Rackham and his crew, and by the time of their capture, Bonny had participated in the taking of numerous sloops across the West Indies.
In the words of one of their victims, Dorothy Thomas, both Bonny and Read "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 (Dorothy Thomas)’’
From these few details it is not hard to form a picture of ruthless, violent individuals, high on adrenaline,set on taking what they could from all those they encountered on the high seas.
After their capture, both Read and Bonny pleaded pregnancy and so their sentences were postponed; Read died in captivity, while Anne Bonny … well, she vanished from public records at this point.
Various theories have surfaced over the centuries - her wealthy father bought her freedom and she lived out her life quietly somewhere in America; or he took her back to South Carolina, where she raised a family; or even, that she escaped, took up another identity and continued pirating. Naturally, the less known about her, the more imagination has been fueled over time: novels, films, stage, tv and video games abound with her ‘life story’, where she acquires red hair, a variety of accents, and any number of adventures both romantic and piratical. She lives on, immortalised in book, film, the mystery of her final days an open page. So of course, along the way, there was nothing to stop her joining the merry crew aboard the good pirate ship ‘Meteor’ under the captaincy of Archibald Lambert in our episode ‘The Haunted Cow’…
Or perhaps the mystery was solved a few years ago by a Youtuber doing research, who unearthed a burial register in Spanish Town (where Bonny was tried) that lists the burial of an "Ann Bonny" on 29 December 1733. Coincidence? Anything’s possible.
The Tryals Of Captain John Rackham and Other Pirates can be found here:
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