by Nobel Nothstine, Blue Ink
March is a time of year to celebrate the strong women in your life. Women’s History Month is a celebration of women’s contributions to history, culture and society and is observed every year
in the month of March in the United States since 1987. The 2020 theme is “Valiant Women of the
Vote,” which speaks to the 100th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment, which gave
women the right to vote.
The theme honors "the brave women who fought to win suffrage rights for women, and for the women who continue to fight for the voting rights of others." Women’s History Month 2020 takes place from Sunday, March 1 to Tuesday, March 31, 2020. To commemorate, The Blue Ink will be celebrating hidden women in history each week this month.
To begin, this week will briefly cover Anne Bonny and Mary Read, two pirates from the 1700’s. Anne Bonny began her life as the illegitimate daughter of a wealthy Irish lawyer. Her father had her dress a boy and pose as his law clerk for part of her youth. She later moved to America, where she married a sailor in 1718 and journeyed to the pirate-infested island of New Providence in the Bahamas. There, she abandoned her husband and fell under the spell of “Calico” Jack Rackam, a wild buccaneer who was a master of trade in the Caribbean.
Bonny had always been known for her “fierce and courageous temper”, and she later forged a friendship with the similar fellow female pirate Mary Read. The pair played a leading role in a group of raids against fishing boats in the summer and fall of 1720. Then, Calico Jack’s ship was captured by a band of pirate-hunters. Calico Jack and several other men were executed, but Bonny and Read dodged the noose after they both claimed to be pregnant.
Mary Read was born in England, and spent most of her youth disguised as her deceased half-brother so that her penniless mother could scam the boy’s grandmother. She later adopted the name Mark Read and took on a large number of traditionally male jobs, first as a soldier and later as a merchant sailor. Read turned to pirating in the late-1710s, after buccaneers attacked the ship she was working on and impressed her so much, that she joined them. She later found her way aboard Calico Jack’s boat, where she met and befriended Anne Bonny and revealed herself to be a woman.
Read only sailed with Calico Jack for a few months, but during that time she won a fearsome reputation. One of her most famous exploits came in October 1720, when she and Bonny fought like banshees during an attack by pirate-hunters. “If there’s a man among ye,” she supposedly screamed at the male buccaneers cowering below decks, “ye’ll come up and fight like the man ye are to be!” Despite Read’s heroics, she and the rest of Calico Jack’s crew were captured and charged with piracy. Read later came down with a fever and died in prison. Anne stayed imprisoned until she gave birth, and then there is no other records of her whereabouts.
This week, we celebrate these sisters of the sea and their admirable ability to unabashedly be themselves in a world that has always pitted against them.
