A Bonny Lady Pirate, Lamar Register (Article, 1897)
Full Text
A Bonny Lady Pirate
Sailed Main and Fought like a Tigress
Daring and Bloodthirsty Anne Came from a Respectable Family, but in Her Youth Has Run Away with a Villainous Sailor.
In the latter part of that period in which fleets roamed about the [Caribbean] Sea and the Mexican Gulf flying the "Jolly roger," and armies of buccaneers stormed and plundered the cities of the Spanish Main, there appeared a [female] pirate from South Carolina, pretty as a picture and as bloodthirsty as Captain Kidd.
Her name was Anne Bonny, and she could lead a boarding party to take a galleon of Spain and make the passengers and crew walk the plank afterward with the most dashing buccaneer that ever sailed under the skull and crossbones.
Anne was born in Ireland, her parents immigrating to the Carolinas when she was a baby. She was a wild and headstrong girl as she grew up, but as her father was a man of property it was expected that she would make a good marriage and settle down.
Several desirable young men were arriving for her hand and fortune, and but for that opportunity which Satan always sends to the wickedly inclined Anne Bonny's name might now be read in the pedigree of some old and proud Southern family. But the opportunity came in the shape of a wicked sailor, fresh from the Spanish main, a sailor strong and lusty of limb, full of strange oaths and Jamaica rum, and more than half suspected of being a pirate. And in sooth he was a pirate, left by some chance on the American coast, and waiting for an opportunity to get back to the West Indies and the life of a rover again. Anne must have had in her the same devil which has recently been shown by the Princess Chimay, for, turning her back on her well-born sweethearts, she eloped with the pirate sailor. The pair, somehow, found their way to the island of Old Providence, then a great pirate resort.
At Old Providence Anne found a man who pleased her more than her sailor in the person of Captain Rackham, a mighty plunderer of the seas, a stormer of cities, a slayer of men and a taker of gold-laden Spanish galleons. Rackham and Anne were married, and they put to sea in his ship on a voyage of blood and plunder.
There never was a crew in the world that approved the captain taking his wife to sea with him. Pirate crews were no exception. Rackham did not care to run counter to the wishes of his gallant crew, for pirates were a hasty folk, and it was ill arguing with them. So Anne went on board her husband's ship disguised as a cabin boy. On board the ship she found a woman named Mary Reed, who was disguised as a sailor. The ship had an eventful voyage, and many fierce fights with armed merchant vessels and ships of the King which tried to take them.
The old chronicles say that in all those engagement the two women pirates fought like fiends, killing many with their own hands and encouraging the men to all sorts of horrible deeds.
At last there came along one of the King's ships too strong for Captain Rackham to fight with successfully and too swift for her to flee from. It was an English frigate, and she at once gave battle to the saucy pirate. A storm of grape and canister swept the decks of the pirate ship and the crew in terror ran below. Anne Bonny and Mary Reed, so far from leaving the deck, waved their cutlasses in the faces of the enemy and cursed them. Mary Reed, drawing her pistol, fired into the men who were huddled below, killing one and wounding others. The ship of the wicked Rackham was taken, and those left alive on board of her were tried for piracy. Anne Bonny and Mary Reed, though they had exposed themselves so recklessly in the fight, were taken alive and carried to England to be tried. At the trial both were found guilty and sentenced to be hanged. Anne, however, was reprieved from time to time, and finally escaped execution. What ultimately became of her is uncertain.
