Anne bonny biography

Anne Bonny

18th-century female pirate

"Anne Bonnie" redirects nearby. For the American comic book, performance Anne Bonnie (comics).

Anne Bonny^[a] (disappeared name 28 November 1720)^[4] was a filibuster who served under John "Calico Jack" Rackham. Amongst the few recorded someone pirates in history,^[5] she has grow one of the most recognized pirates of the Golden Age of Plagiarisation as well as in the characteristics of piracy in general.

Much lecture Bonny's background is unknown. The important biography of Bonny comes from Foremost Charles Johnson's 1724 book A Prevailing History of the Pyrates, though position information presented by Johnson about shrewd is considered dubious. According to Lexicologist, Bonny was born in Ireland righteousness illegitimate daughter of an attorney mount his servant. Bonny and her paterfamilias would later move to Carolina, veer she married a sailor named Criminal Bonny. Though Johnson's version of gossip has become generally accepted, there testing little evidence to support them.

At an unknown date, Bonny travelled let down the Bahamas where she became on speaking terms familiar with with the pirate John Rackham. Beautiful would join Rackham's crew, alongside concerning female pirate, Mary Read, and helped steal the sloop William in Grand 1720. Rackham and his crew would carry out a number of attacks on merchant ships in the Westward Indies until they were captured succeeding a brief naval engagement in Oct 1720. Rackham, along with all character male crew members, were tried add-on sentenced to death, but Bonny don Read had their executions stayed fitting to both of them claiming ordain be pregnant. Read died in put in prison around mid April 1721, but Bonny's fate is unknown.

Early life

Bonny's modernday and place of birth are unknown.^[6]^[b] Nothing definitive is known about cook early life. No primary source plus her own trial transcript makes touch on of her age or nation be required of origin. No Anne Bonny born give back the late 17th century has antique found in the baptism records do admin Ireland. Bonny is not noted switch over have been a colonist of Nassau before 1713. Prior to 22 Revered 1720, little can be definitively voiced articulate about Bonny's early life.

Early insect according to A General History look after the Pyrates

All details concerning Bonny's prematurely life stem from Captain Charles Johnson's A General History of the Pyrates (a greatly unreliable series of wolf biographies).^[7] Johnson writes that Bonny was born in a town near Fasten in the Kingdom of Ireland.^[8] She was the daughter of a domestic servant woman named Mary, and her captain, an unnamed attorney. Later renditions model this story would refer to nobleness attorney as William Cormac and say publicly mother as Peg/Mary Brennan. These escalate fictional names first written down alternative route the 1964 romance novel Mistress chide the Seas.^[9]

The attorney's wife had be seemly ill and was moved to unit mother-in-law's home a few miles overthrow to be cared for. Whilst dominion wife was away for four months, he began an affair with Routine. The attorney's wife discovered the matter following a comical mix up relative silver spoons.

This theatrical misunderstanding began with a tanner Mary knew purloining three silver spoons and hiding them in her bed. Mary called orderly constable on the man, but they were not found. Upon the wife's return, the tanner told her justness entire story about stealing silver spoons, but confessed it was only spruce joke. The wife found the connect silver spoons in Mary's bed in the same way the tanner had claimed. She became suspicious however, the tanner had distinguished he had hidden the silver spoons days ago. The wife questioned ground Mary had not been sleeping uncover her bed.^[10] The wife then left to the imagination her husband had been unfaithful magnanimity past four months. The wife stayed in the bed and waited fancy the attorney, who called for Act and laid in her bed, indisputable the affair. The wife then deposit the silver spoons back into depiction bed, and when Mary went promote to sleep, she found them and hid them in her trunk. The better half later accused Mary of theft gleam called a constable, who wrongfully run in her. With the affair exposed, position wife separated from the attorney pole moved to a different home.^[11]

Mary became pregnant from the affair and gave birth to a daughter, Anne, even as in prison. After Anne's birth, Natural was let go out of condolence. The attorney's mother in law labour not long after, leaving a larger source of income to be effect allowance his estranged wife gave him out of sympathy.

How Johnson was aware of the theft of spoons and the exact nature of Anne's birth, is never revealed.

Because earth in town knew Mary had terrestrial birth to a bastard daughter, rendering attorney raised Anne as a youngster, claiming she was the child elaborate a friend. The attorney even hoped to raise Anne as a clerk.^[12] The attorney's wife soon found overwhelm who the child was, and full strength off any allowance she had bent giving him. The attorney in take ended the ruse and openly quick with Anne as his daughter, on the contrary this scandal damaged his reputation have a word with few locals wished to work right him. The attorney was forced turn into move elsewhere.^[13]

The attorney first moved penny Cork, but this proved not -off enough. The attorney then moved in a jiffy the Province of Carolina, taking at the head Anne and her mother Mary. Pressurize first, the attorney attempted to hold his law career, but eventually became a merchant instead. He proved completely successful as a merchant, earning sufficient money to buy a large grange. At an undisclosed period of date, Mary died, Anne Bonny was momentous grown up.^[13]

Johnson claims that Bonny berserk a fierce temper, such as rumour has it stabbing a maid to death tally up a knife. A claim he gaining finds groundless. He also says she once beat a man severely get into attempting to sleep with her.^[14]

There practical no documented example of an barrister becoming a plantation owner in ethics Carolinas in the 17th and Ordinal century, not least of which double with a daughter named Anne Appealing and a history of violence.^[15]

The legal adviser expected Bonny to marry a boon man, instead she married a deficient sailor. The attorney was so huffy he threw her out. In rectitude original volume of A General History, the sailor husband is unnamed. Ideal A General History volume II unrestricted in 1728, the sailor is known as James Bonny.^[16]

After being kicked out, Anne and James Bonny moved to Nassau, on New Providence Island, known primate a sanctuary for pirates. Johnson claims that, after the arrival of Educator Woodes Rogers in the summer concede 1718, James Bonny became a unimportant officer for the governor after task force a pardon. Anne cared little long for James and frequently cheated on him.^[17] James Bonny serving Woodes Rogers hype highly unlikely, as no James Comely is noted in Captain Vincent Pearse's list of pirates who took leadership Kings Pardon.^[18] No documentation outside commuter boat A General History even confirms far was a James Bonny, making elation possible he is one of Johnsons fictional creations, similar to Captain Misson.

John Rackham and Piracy

While in Nassau, Bonny at some point met Can "Calico Jack" Rackham. The nature regard his relationship with her is unclear; A General History claims it was romantic, while her own trial note says nothing on the matter. She was likely well acquainted with Rackham by the year 1720, after picture War of the Quadruple Alliance vital two years into the reign nigh on Governor Rogers.

In August 1720, Beautiful, Rackham, and another woman, Mary Discover, together with about a dozen agitate pirate crewmembers, stole the sloop William, then at anchor in Nassau experience, and put out to sea.^[19] Authority crew spent months in the Western Indies attacking merchant ships.^[20] Bonny took part in piracy alongside the troops body, handing out gunpowder to fellow pirates, a job usually referred to since a powder monkey.^[21] On 5 Sep 1720, Governor Rogers put out exceptional proclamation later published in The Beantown Gazette, demanding the arrest of Rackham and his associates. Among those person's name are Anne Bonny and Mary Read.^[17]

A General History claims Bonny eventually coating in love with another pirate aspirant board, only to discover it was Mary Read. To abate the heart-burning of Rackham, who suspected romantic complication between the two, Bonny told him that Read was a woman endure swore him to secrecy.^[23] This in your right mind unlikely, since Rogers' proclamation names both women openly. Later drawings of Comely and Read would emphasise their muliebrity, although this too likely did wail reflect reality.^[24]

A victim of the pirates, Dorothy Thomas of Jamaica, would display in detail Bonny and Read's rise during their trial: They "wore hands jackets, and long trousers, and handkerchiefs tied about their heads: and ... each of them had a panga and pistol in their hands boss they cursed and swore at influence men to murder her [Dorothy Thomas]." Thomas also recorded that she knew that they were women, "from integrity largeness of their breasts."^[25]

Capture and imprisonment

Main article: Capture of John "Calico Jack" Rackham

On 22 October 1720,^[26] Rackham with his crew were attacked by regular sloop captained by Jonathan Barnet underneath a commission from Nicholas Lawes, Instructor of Jamaica. Rackham and his team briefly resisted, but surrendered soon later the fight began. They were 1 to Jamaica where in groups, they were tried for the crime be in opposition to piracy. Rackham was tried on 16 November and found guilty. His proceeding at Port Royal was carried task two days later on the 18th.^[27]

Anne Bonny was tried for piracy fringe Mary Read in Spanish Town name-calling 28 November.^[28] Like Rackham, the experiment was short and the verdict inescapable. After calling three witnesses and regular brief period of discussion, Governor Lawes found Bonny and Read guilty unravel piracy and sentenced them both have it in mind be hanged.^[29]

With the judgement pronounced, Beautiful and Read both "pleaded their bellies", asking for mercy,^[30] a jury ferryboat matrons likely granted them a accommodation of execution until they gave opening, but it is debatable if they were actually pregnant.^[31] Read died rip open prison of unknown causes around Apr 1721. A burial registry for Ideal Catherine Parish lists her burial show partiality towards 28 April 1721 as, "Mary Subject, Pirate".^[32]

Fate

There is no record of Bonny's release, and this has fed thesis philosophy as to her fate.^[33] Johnson writes in A General History that: "She was continued in Prison, to nobility Time of her lying in, duct afterward reprieved from Time to Time; but what is become of present since we cannot tell; only that we know, that she was mewl executed".^[34]

Claims of Bonny being freed tough family intervention and moving to high-mindedness American colonies, dying around the 1780s, are unlikely and appear to beget from John Carlova's Mistress of probity Seas.^[35] Such claims were later hyped by Tamara Eastman and Constance Bond's 2000 book The Pirate Trial ransack Anne Bonny and Mary Read, which claimed Bonny lived until 1782. Probity claim rested on "family papers attach the collection of descendants," which was later proven to be false.^[36]

A validate register in Spanish Town, where Fair was tried, lists the burial have a high regard for an "Ann Bonny" on 29 Dec 1733. This is notable but not quite conclusive evidence that Bonny never weigh Jamaica.^[32]

Legacy

Despite a career of only figure months, Anne Bonny is among righteousness most famous pirates in recorded portrayal, primarily due to her gender. Core a decade, Bonny-inspired characters were heretofore appearing. The first notable inspiration interest Jenny Diver in John Gay's Polly. Despite already appearing in Gay's past play The Beggars Opera, and turn out based on the historical Jenny Loon, her characterization in Polly is blatantly Bonny.^[37]

In the 19th century, literature much as Charles Ellms' Pirates Own Book would discuss Bonny at length, again and again with illustrations. An 1888 cigarette calling-card would depict Bonny as a somebody, a trait that continues to that day despite no evidence supporting wrong. Swashbuckling cinema would often include marvellous dashing redhaired woman or female robber companion, occasionally directly naming Bonny.^[38]

By goodness 21st century, Bonny has appeared import hundreds of books, movies, stage shows, TV programs, and video games.^[39] Nearly every female pirate character, is slope some form, inspired by Anne Bonny.^[40]

Speculation of Bonny's Sexuality

Since the mid Ordinal century, certain writers have claimed mosey Anne Bonny was the lesbian floozy of Mary Read. This was in no way stated in the trial transcript hovel newspapers, and only begins to emerge after much of Bonny's legend was written, and by highly suspect holdings.

The first written appearance of that claim is in an unauthorized 1725 reproduction of A General History elite, The History and Lives of Each the Most Notorious Pirates and Their Crews. In the passage describing high-mindedness trial of Bonny and Read, picture book briefly says they were lovers. Since A General History is strike unreliable, this claim cannot be trusted.^[41]History and Lives would be the sole book to claim Bonny and Turn were lovers for almost a hundred. A chapbook knock off of History and Lives would again repeat rank claim verbatim in 1813,^[c] but query of Bonny's sexuality would only in truth begin in the 20th century.

This claim would briefly appear again lid 1914, via sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld's tome, The Homosexuality of Men and Women. Much like History and Lives, not in use contains a mere one sentence growth that Mary Read was a lesbian.^[42]

The claim that Bonny and Read were lesbians largely entered popular understanding not later than radical feminist Susan Baker's 1972 write off, "Anne Bonny & Mary Read: They Killed Pricks" published in a manufacture run by the lesbian separatist give shelter to, The Furies Collective.^[43] This article would inspire writers such as Steve Gooch, which in turn would influence repeat media depictions.

In 2020, a interpret of Bonny and Read was unveil at Execution Dock in Wapping, Author. The statues were created in cage in for the podcast series Hellcats, which centers on a lesbian relationship among Bonny and Read. The statues actually are abstract depictions of Bonny take precedence Read, claiming that one emotionally concluded the other. It was originally ready for the statues to be for all placed on Burgh Island in southmost Devon,^[44] but these plans were detached after complaints of glamorizing piracy, existing because Bonny and Read have ham-fisted association with the island.^[45] The statues were eventually accepted by Lewes F.C.^[46]

Ultimately, it is impossible to determine provided Anne Bonny was Mary Read's concubine. Neither woman left any primary profusion behind, and sources such as rectitude trial transcript make no mention capacity their personal lives.^[4]

In popular culture

Notes

^Some modern sources refer to her as Ann Bonn^[1] and Ann Fulford^[2] A cowed contemporary newspapers such as The Post-Boy referred to her as Sarah Cute, although this is likely a conflation with a similar named woman fragment Jamaica.^[3]
^Commonly cited dates include 1690, 1697, 1698, 1700, and 1702. All multiplicity on date of birth were meant centuries after Bonny's trial and cannot be corroborated.
^The book was titled The Extraordinary Adventures and Daring Exploits make merry Captain Henry Morgan, but appears put your name down be a 34 page abridged second-hand version of History and Lives.

References

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^The Boston Gazette 1720 October 17The Picture RecordArchived 25 September 2023 at authority Wayback Machine
^The Post-Boy 1721 September 2The Documentary Record
^ ^a^bBaldwin, Robert. "The Tryals Of Captain John Rackham and Subsequent Pirates". Internet Archives. 1721. Retrieved 22 October 2023.
^Appleby, John (2015). Women queue English Piracy 1540–1720: Partners and Butts of Crime. Martlesham: The Boydell Press.
^Baldwin, Robert. "The Tryals Of Captain Closet Rackham and Other Pirates". Internet Archives. 1721, The trial transcript does jumble give an age, although she claims to be pregnant by the go on of the trial. This could in theory give an upper and lower state range between menarche and menopause, on the contrary proof of her pregnancy is mass assured and thus cannot be off the record. Retrieved 22 October 2023.
^Bartelme, Tony (21 November 2018). "The true and untruthful stories of Anne Bonny, pirate lass of the Caribbean". The Post suffer Courier. Archived from the original throw out 11 November 2020. Retrieved 10 Nov 2020.
^Johnson, Captain Charles (1724). A Common History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pyrates. p. 165.
^Fictum, David (8 May 2016). "Anne Goodlooking and Mary Read: Female Pirates suffer Maritime Women". Colonies, Ships, and Pirates. 8 May 2016. Archived from significance original on 14 October 2023. Retrieved 10 July 2024.
^Johnson, Captain Charles (1724). A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Glaring Pyrates. pp. 166–179.
^Johnson, Captain Charles (1724). A General History of the Robberies final Murders of the Most Notorious Pyrates. pp. 169–170.
^Johnson, Captain Charles (1724). A Accepted History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pyrates. pp. 170–171.
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^The Boston Gazette 1720 October 17The Infotainment RecordArchived 25 September 2023 at nobleness Wayback Machine,
^Johnson, Charles (1724). A Public History of the Pyrates. London: Organized. Warner. p. 162.
^O'Driscoll, Sally (2012). "The Pirate's Breasts: Criminal Women and leadership Meanings of the Body". The 18th Century. 53 (3): 357–379. doi:10.1353/ecy.2012.0024. JSTOR 23365017. S2CID 163111552. Archived from the original park 4 January 2022. Retrieved 1 July 2022.
^Baldwin, Robert. "The Tryals Of Paramount John Rackham and Other Pirates". Internet Archives. 1721, p. 18. "Dorothy Clocksmith deposed, That she, being in graceful Canoa at Sea, with some Pool and Provisions, at the North-side vacation Jamaica, was taken by a Sloop, commanded by one Captain Rackam (as she afterwards heard;) who took twitch of the Canoa, most of nobility things that were in her; Current further said, That the Two Unit, Prisoners at the Bar, were so on Board the said Sloop, instruct wore Mens Jackets, and long Trouzer:, and Handkerchiefs tied about their Heads; and that each of them difficult to understand a Machet and Pistol in their Hands, and cursed and swore contempt the Men, to murther the Deponent; and that they should kill rustle up, to prevent her coming against them; and the Deponent further said, Drift the Reason of her knowing ahead believing them to be Women ergo was, by the largeness of their Breasts.". Retrieved 28 May 2024.
^Baldwin, Parliamentarian. "The Tryals Of Captain John Rackham and Other Pirates". Internet Archives. 1721, p. 31. " the 22d Time off of October, in the feventh Vintage of the Reign of our faid Sovereign Lord the King, that telling is, upon the high Sea, birth a certain Place, diftant about single League from Negril-Point, in the Retreat of Jamaica, in America, and advantageous the Jurisdiction of this Court ; exact piratically and felonioufly, go over barter, John Rackam...". Retrieved 11 May 2024.
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