female piratesAhoy, BobY! So right you are, matey! Anne Bonny and her even better known compatriot, Mary Read, actually wound up on the same pirate ship disguised as men (sailors and seamen of the day, even pirates, would have no women aboard ship...bad luck, pure and simple!) But in those days people didn't see other people nekked much, so the gender masquerade was not too difficult (even into the 19th century they found women disuised as men among the battlefield dead during the Civil war (US), but that's a whole nother story). You see, I've been telling these piratey tales as a children's storyteller for several years now, so I could fill the board ("no, don't!"...I hear ya!
) So suffice it to say the womanly pirates are sure worth lookin' up for their exploits. Anne Bonny was a mere adolescent, so she had another life comin' after piratin'. Mary Read wasn't as fortunate. Both ladies held the day on their final battle with a British man-o-war as the men cowered in the hold. In fact, Mary became so incensed with their lack of bravery that she fired wrathfully into the hold, killing and wounding several of her pirate mates. But just before the hangin' of her beloved Capt. Calico Jack Rackam, Anne Bonny said to him, "Well, Jack, you know how I care for ya...but if ya had come up and fought like a
man, you wouldn't have to be hanged like a
dog!"
Wimmin (sigh)...you can't live with 'em, and...well...
BTW...another intriguing, and fierce, lady pirate from an earlier era was Grace O'Malley, an Irish pirate who preyed the coast of of Europe in the 1500s. Also known as Granuaile, and The Pirate Queen of Connacht, she was so mean that legend has it that after her own son fell overboard from a small skiff and tried to climb back on she cut off his hands and let him drown, 'cause she was disgraced that an O'Malley had lost his sea-legs and stumbled overboard.
