PARTNERS IN CRIME

In November 1720, a pair of women named Anne Bonny and Mary Read took the stand in Spanish Town, Jamaica, accused of piracy in the Caribbean. Their surviving victims, Dorothy Thomas and Thomas Spenlow, recounted harrowing attacks in which the women fired their pistols at will, struck people with their cutlasses, swore, cursed, and even fought with their shirts open, revealing their bare breasts. The fact that the two women were said to fight harder and deadlier than their male pirate crewmates was shocking enough for the jury to convict them almost immediately. But who exactly were these women, and how did they end up being two of the most notorious pirates of the 18th century?

Unfortunately, much of their early existence is a mystery, with virtually no information about their lives before they entered piracy in August 1720. The only account comes from Captain Charles– a collection of pirate biographies published in 1724. However, the book is largely fiction, with very little fact. Anne Bonny and Mary Read’s biographies are no different, and may be the most fictitious of them all.