Mary Read
Cutlass in hand, a pair of daggers around her waist and a battleax in reserve as she boarded yet another ship: Mary Read was not to be messed with, as her enemies learned the hard way. Sailing alongside Calico Jack Rackham and Anne Bonny, she epitomized the so-called ‘Golden Age of Piracy’, wreaking havoc on the Caribbean Sea and leaving this world as dramatically as she entered it.
The future swashbuckler was born in 1685, the illegitimate child of a sea captain’s widow. Given the circumstances of her birth, Mary’s mother was keen to keep it secret. Since she had a son who had recently died, she decided to raise Mary as a boy, fooling friends and even family. The ruse was so effective, in fact, that Mary was able to find employment, first as a footboy and then, even more improbably, as a sailor in the British Navy.
In her female guise, Mary met a Flemish soldier. The two were married and Mary gave up her sea-faring ways to settle down as an innkeeper in the Netherlands. But her domestic bliss was short-lived. Her husband’s untimely death tempted her back into service, this time for the Dutch Navy. However, this was a time of peace, and so, seeking adventure and fortune, she soon quit and jumped on a boat heading to the West Indies.
Ever the rebel, Mary joined the rest of her crew in mutiny, and soon joined with small-time pirate John ‘Calico Jack’ Rackham and his partner-in-crime Anne Bonny. Mary succeeded in fooling everyone with her male disguise. So much so, in fact, that Bonny soon found herself attracted to her new crewmate, forcing Mary to tell the truth. The three then enjoyed great success targeting smaller vessels in the Caribbean, until one night, when they were drunk from celebrating a heist and the British Navy caught up with them off the coast of Jamaica.
Led by feared pirate hunter Captain Jonathan Barnet, the British had the element of surprise, and the pirates were almost all too drunk to put up a fight. Mary Read did, however, refuse to be taken without a struggle. According to lore, she killed one of her crewmates to encourage the others to resist, but to no avail. All were captured and sentenced to hang.
As with Anne Bonny, Read claimed that she was with child, sparing her the hangman’s noose, but not prison. It was here, behind bars in Spanish Town, Jamaica, that she caught a fever and died in April 1721.