Mary Read (unknown – 28 April 1721), fictionally[1] known as Mark Read, was an English pirate about whom there is very little factual documentation. She and Anne Bonny were two famous female pirates from the 18th century, and among the few women known to have been convicted of piracy at the height of the "Golden Age of Piracy".
Read was born in England between 1680 and 1693. Lore[2] has it she began dressing as a boy at a young age, at first at her mother's urging in order to receive inheritance money and then as a teenager in order to join the British military. She then married and upon her husband's death moved to the West Indies around 1715. Circa 1720, she met Jack Rackham and joined his crew, dressing as a man alongside Anne Bonny. Her time as a pirate was successful but short lived, as she, Bonny and Rackham were arrested in November 1720. Rackham was executed, but Read and Bonny both claimed to be pregnant and received delayed sentences. Read died while imprisoned in April 1721.
Early life
Mary's mother had married a sailor, with whom she had a son.[3] The husband then disappeared at sea. His mother then began to send her financial support for the boy.[4]
She soon became pregnant again by another man, hiding the shameful second pregnancy. Her son died, then she gave birth to a girl, Mary. To hide the shame, her mother passed young Mary off as her first and only child, the boy, to continue receiving support from the boy's grandmother. The grandmother was fooled, and they lived on her money as long as possible.[5]
At age 13, dressed as a boy, Read found work as a foot-boy, and, then, employment on a ship.[4] She later joined the British military, and the crew of a British man-of-war. She later quit this and moved into Flanders where she carried arms in a regiment of foot as a cadet and served bravely but could not receive a commission because promotion in those days was mostly by purchase. Mary moved on to a regiment of horse [6] which was allied with Dutch forces against the French (this could have been during the Nine Years War or during the War of the Spanish Succession). Read, in male disguise, proved herself through battle, but fell in love with a Flemish soldier. When they married, she used their military commission and gifts from intrigued brethren in arms to acquire an inn named "De drie hoefijzers" ("The Three Horseshoes") near Breda Castle in the Netherlands.
Upon her husband's early death, Read resumed male dress and military service in the Netherlands. With peace, there was no room for advancement, so she quit and boarded a ship bound for the West Indies.[7] The ship that she boarded happened to be boarded by a pirate ship. Being disguised as a British male helped her, as the British crew members took her in.
Becoming a pirate
A contemporary engraving of Mary ReadA contemporary engraving of Anne Bonney
Read's ship was taken by pirates, whom she willingly joined. She accepted the King's pardon c. 1718–1719, then took a commission to privateer, but joined the crew in mutiny. In 1720 she joined pirate John "Calico Jack" Rackham and his companion, Anne Bonny, who both believed her to be a man. On 22 August 1720, the three stole an armed sloop named William[8] from port in Nassau.[9][10] Scholars are uncertain how female pirates like Read and Bonny concealed their sex in a male-dominated environment.[11] Some scholars, however, have theorized that the wearing of breeches by female pirates may have been either a method of hiding their identity or simply as practical clothing that solidified their working place on board the ship among the other seamen.
When Bonny told Read that she was a woman because she was attracted to her, Read revealed that she too was a woman. To abate the jealousy of her lover, Rackham, who suspected romantic involvement between the two, Bonny told him that Read was a woman.[12] Speculation over the relationship between Bonny and Read led to images depicting the two in battle together.[11]
A victim of the pirates, Dorothy Thomas, left a description of Read and Bonny: They "wore men's jackets, and long trousers, and handkerchiefs tied about their heads: and ... each of them had a machete and pistol in their hands and they cursed and swore at the men to murder her [Dorothy Thomas]." Thomas also recorded that she knew that they were women, "from the largeness of their breasts."[13]
On 15 November 1720, pirate hunter Captain Jonathan Barnet took Rackham's crew by surprise, while they hosted a rum party with another crew of Englishmen at Negril Point off the west coast of the Colony of Jamaica.[14] Allegedly, after a volley of fire disabled the pirate vessel, Rackham's crew and their "guests" fled to the hold, leaving only the two women and one other to fight Barnet's boarding party[10] (it is also possible that Rackham and his crew were too drunk to fight). Allegedly, Read angrily shot into the hold, killing one, and wounding others, when the men would not come up and fight with them. Barnet's crew had a numerical superiority and eventually overcame the women. The official trial transcript says there was no defense mounted aside from a swivel gun being fired before Barnet fired in response. After that the record says that Rackham and his crew surrendered, requesting "quarter".[15]
Rackham and his crew were arrested and brought to trial in what is now Spanish Town, Jamaica, where they were sentenced to hang for acts of piracy, as were Read and Bonny. However, the women claimed they were both "quick with child" (known as "pleading the belly"), and received temporary stays of execution.[16]
Mary Read declared in front of the court that she had never committed adultery and fornication with any man on the ship. She commended the court before her but was ultimately tried after distinguishing the nature of her crimes. One of the pieces of evidence that was included with her crimes was that she was with Rackham and that they fell into discourse when he took Read as a young man. [17]
Read died of a violent fever while in prison on the 28 April 1721. Her burial is in the records of St. Catherine's church in Jamaica.[9] There is no record of the burial of her baby, suggesting that she may have died while pregnant.
In popular culture
Mary Read, The Duel, from the Pirates of the Spanish Main series (N19) for Allen & Ginter Cigarettes MET DP835033
A wood sculpture, believed to be from the 18th century, of Mary Read is fixed to the front elevation of the 18th-century The Earle Arms public house in Heydon, Norfolk.[27]
^Cordingly, David (2007). Seafaring women : adventures of pirate queens, female stowaways, and sailors' wives (2007 Random House Trade paperback ed.). New York: Random House Trade Paperbacks. ISBN9780375758720. OCLC140617965.
^ abCordingly, David (1996). Under the Black Flag: The Romance and the Reality of Life Among the Pirates. New York: Random House. p. 61.
^Daniel, Defoe; Johnson, Charles (1724). "Chapter VII: Of Captain John Rackham and His Crew". A General History of Pyrates. Lodon: Ch. Rivington, J. Lacy, and J. Stone. Finding her Burthen grew, in order to conceal her Shame, she takes a formal Leave of her Husband's Relations, giving out, that she went to live with some Friends of her own, in the Country: Accordingly she went away, and carry'd with her her young Son, at this Time, not a Year old: Soon after her departure her Son died, but Providence in Return, was pleased to give her a Girl in his Room, of which she was safely delivered, in her Retreat, and this was our Mary Read.
^Defoe, Daniel, and Charles Johnson. A General History of Pyrates . Printed by J. Watts ..., 1725.
^Druett, Joan (2005) [2000]. She captains : heroines and hellions of the sea. New York: Barnes & Noble Books. ISBN0760766916. OCLC70236194.
^Rogers, Woodes (10 October 1720). "A proclamation". The Boston Gazette.
^Johnson, Charles (1724). A General History of the Pyrates. London: T. Warner. p. 162. […] this Intimacy so disturb'd Captain Rackam, who was the Lover and Gallant of Anne Bonny, that he grew furiously jealous, so that he told Anne Bonny, he would cut her new Lover's Throat, therefore, to quiet him, she let him into the Secret also.
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