Anne Bonny, born around 1698 near Cork, Ireland, was an Irish-American pirate whose brief period of marauding the Caribbean during the 18th century enshrined her in legend as one of the few women to have defied the proscription against female pirates. However, much of what we know about Anne is written in the volume A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pyrates (1724) by Captain Charles Johnson, and many consider it to be speculative. In the volume, Anne was hypothesized to be the illegitimate daughter of Irish lawyer William Cormac and of a maid working in his household. Cormac separated from his wife following the discovery of his infidelity and later assumed custody of Anne. Following his cohabitation with her mother, he lost much of his clientele, and the trio emigrated to Charles Towne, which is now Charleston, South Carolina. Anne’s mother died of typhoid fever when Anne was 13 years old.
Instead of marrying a local man at her father’s request, Anne married a sailor named John Bonny in 1718, with whom she traveled to the island of New Providence in the Bahamas. When her husband became an informant for the governor of the Bahamas, she became involved with pirate John “Calico Jack” Rackham, who is also known as an inspiration for the character Jack Sparrow from Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean franchise. He offered to pay her husband to divorce her, but John Bonny refused.
In August 1720, Anne Bonny abandoned her husband and assisted Rackham in commandeering the sloop William from Nassau Harbour on New Providence. Along with a dozen others, the pair began pirating merchant vessels along the coast of Jamaica. Rackham’s decision to have Anne accompany him was highly unusual, as women were considered bad luck aboard ship. However, Anne had a fierce and determined disposition. She didn’t conceal her gender from her shipmates, only disguising herself as a man during pillages, and participated in armed conflict.
Accounts begin to diverge when her female compatriot, Mary Read, joined the crew. Some state that Read, who had served as a mercenary while disguised as a man, was among the original hijackers of the William, while others claim that she was aboard a Dutch merchant ship that Rackham’s crew captured.
The exploits of the crew aboard the William had not gone unnoticed by Rogers, who soon sent privateer Capt. Jonathan Barnet in pursuit. On November 15, 1720, Barnet caught up with the William at Negril Point, Jamaica. Save Bonny and Read, who fiercely battled their pursuers, the corsairs were too inebriated to resist, and the crew was captured and brought to Spanish Town, Jamaica, for trial. Rackham and the male crew members were immediately found guilty and hanged. Bonny and Read were tried on November 28. Though they, too, were found guilty and initially sentenced to death, their recently discovered pregnancies won them stays of execution. Read died in prison the next year, but Bonny was released, likely because of her father’s influence. She returned to Charles Towne, where she married, had children, and lived out the remainder of her life.
Anne Bonny’s life is hard to decipher due to the many stories surrounding her, and due to just how much time has passed, it is difficult to separate reality from fiction. However, every story has its origin, and while it is just as likely that Anne was a fairly average pirate who never killed anyone, she’s equally likely to be one of the most fearsome and cutthroat women in human history. Regardless, she lives on in legend, and her legacy is nothing short of infamous.