The Story of Female Pirates

Categoy: Marine Culture
2 Comment
28 January 2013

We art reminded of ravenous, bloodthirsty freebooters when the word is prayed “Pirate”. However two women match with the men when it comes to the virtues foresprecena. These two women are Anne Bonney and Mary Reed. Their adventures are as attractive as the 1001 Arabian nights.

Mary Reed’s story starts three or four years before her mother gets married a seafarer. However it takes not so much time for the mother to understand how feels like marrying a seafarer. Before they savour the marriage the seafarer sails to open seas and never returns. Unfortunate woman moves to her mother-in-love to endure. Later on she brings a boy into the world. She is fascinated with fun after her husband’s death and most likely she loses herself and somehow gets pregnant. Under these circumstances she leaves home since it is impossible to endure with the presence of her mother-in-love and gives birth to a second child female and named Mary Reed. Thereafter her son gets ill and passes away. It sounds to her reasonable to return to mother-in-love’s place after she is penniless and alone with her daughter Mary. Due to fact that her son is passed away and her mother-in-love does not welcome a fatherless girl, she clothes Mary like a boy and returns home. Mary becomes a stronger girl in time. After grandmother is deceased Mary Reed is made to work for a shoemaker by her mother, nevertheless she does not like it at all. She joins a battleship after she leaves home and so her adventurous life begins. Even though she spends a couple of years in the seven oceans she just could not get used to it and leaves the ship. Having left the sea she joins the army in the Netherlands dressing and acting like a man. The reason is that the army does not recruit women as a soldier.

As the time goes on Mary’s heroism is widely talked amongst the people within the army. She cannot stand this fame and leaves the army and joins the armoured cavalry troop. Her ladette life comes to an end after she makes a feminine mistake. She falls in love with her colleague and bares to him about her feelings. Her lover advises that they could be together forever provided she keeps the secret that she is actually a woman. He says that wherever the troop is going they could be together without letting others know of them. However Mary does not go along with this idea. Everything should be explicit and performed as per customs and practises according to Mary. Her lover admits this and marries her. After the marriage ceremony organised by military officers, both of them leave the troop and buy a house somewhere close to Bur-ge. Mary Reed has the greatest memories in her life in this house. After sometime her husband passes away and she becomes lonely again. Then, she sells the house and joins the army again via the same trick. It is not a big deal to join the military since there is no strict health examination. She cannot handle military after her husband’s death.

She joins a ship which sails to “Garbî Indian Islands”. Hence with this, Mary Reed’s life of piracy has begun. The ship she has been on had been attacked and detained by the pirates just before they arrived to Garbî Indian Islands. Mary is captured. Later on Mary had a chance to work with Galico Jack. Everything is on the rails then. However Mary’s feminity reappears once again. She falls in love with a French actor who is captured in an attacked English ship. She confesses her sex to him with no delay. French actor kindly responds to Mary’s feelings and they decide to marry. However before they get married Mary’s husband is obliged to do a rencontre with a pirate as per Pirates’ customs. He is not the one expected to win against a pirate. Mary knows that she has to do something to prevent his death. Mary starts a quarrel and invites the pirate to have a rencontre with her before the pirate has a chance to have rencontre with Mary’s lover. Mary and the pirate leave the ship and go to the coast with their swords and guns. After a while Mary comes back to the ship alone. She leaves the dead body on the coast and secures her lover’s life.

Mary Reed and Anne Bonney, who is also a beautiful female pirate had a chance to work together then. Anne Bonney bumps into with GalicoJack in the city of New Providence in Bahamas. Her husband used to be seafarer and penniless. One night GalicoJack comes to Anne’s help just after she has been attacked by a bunch of drunken sailors. After a battle royal GalicoJack kills nine of the pirates raped to Anne. Anne cannot keep her feelings to her saviour who is such a hero and she becomes his shadow in a men’s wear. There are two women on board the ship from then on who wear men’s clothes and each fight like a man: Anne Bonney and Mary Reed. Shortly after Anne becomes a pirate that is daredevil and quite lunatic just like Mary Reed. Also she is still fond of Galico Jack.

These women have fought two years shoulder to shoulder. Their fortune becomes massive. However this prosperous cooperation comes to an end by 1720. Job was on course in autumn, thereof they have sunken a couple of ships to the bottom of the sea. One day a British corvette appears on the horizon and mucks up everything for them. The pirates, who realized the corvette, go to the holds and hide in there with bated breath. Anne Bonney and Mary Reed get angry to pirates who get horrified and hide in the holds. Anne and Mary ask them to get out and fight like a man and otherwise threat them to kill. Two pirates, who do not obey the order, are killed without a moment to spare. These two women fight a losing battle against the British corvette leaving the all coward pirates behind. Naturally the fight does not last long and they get captured.

All captured pirates are sentenced to death by the trial conducted in St. Jago de la Vega in 1720. Judge of the trial asks Anne and Mary pray last wordy. Both of them state that they are pregnant. Thereon the judge sends them to prison instead of the gallows. Just one day before the verdict Anne has a permission to see Galico Jack. Anne gives short change to Jack because of his cowardliness and tells him “If you had fought like a man you would have been free!”

We do have very few information regarding the fate of these two women. As far as we know Mary Reed could not endure in the prison and there is no any information about Anne Bonney.

Source: Maritime Magazine -1956 / Denizcilik ve Gemi Mühendisliği Sayfası

Translation By: Cem Kutukoglu