0:02 [SPEAKER_00]: Now when you hear the word pirate, you might imagine one of two things. 0:08 [SPEAKER_00]: Either Jack Sparrow, a swashbuckling hero who loves rum, but arguably not more that he loves the open sea. 0:17 [SPEAKER_00]: Or something more dangerous, like Samoyan pirates, who raid crews and cargo ships. 0:25 [SPEAKER_00]: The stories we hear in the movies we watch, all paint a very specific picture of pirates 0:32 [SPEAKER_00]: But there's much more to piracy as evidence by Anbani and Mary Reed, unlikely names for the real pirates of the Caribbean. 0:49 [SPEAKER_00]: Welcome back friend to hometown history. 0:52 [SPEAKER_00]: As usual, we will be covering a lesser-known part of history. 0:57 [SPEAKER_00]: And this one is going to be fun. 1:05 [SPEAKER_00]: The period of about the mid-17th century, to the early 18th century, is considered the golden age of piracy. 1:14 [SPEAKER_00]: During this time, mostly European North American and North African pirates sailed the seas and attacked British and Spanish naval ships. 1:25 [SPEAKER_00]: In merchant ships engaged in the Atlantic Triangle Trade, their goal, simply put, was to steal 1:36 [SPEAKER_00]: Now most of the modern assumptions about pirates, in this time period, comes from books and films, set during the Golden Age of Piracy. 1:46 [SPEAKER_00]: But the thing is, they were written centuries after the fact, and that means there's a high chance of misconceptions. 1:57 [SPEAKER_00]: Just to bust out some of these myths, there was really no such thing as walking the plank or berry 2:05 [SPEAKER_00]: and not all pirates were rum-drunk fighters, or Grizzly'd sailors. 2:11 [SPEAKER_00]: Many pirates, including the infamous Captain Kid, were devoted family men, and their lives outside the raids were fairly ordinary. 2:22 [SPEAKER_00]: They weren't just running around, causing trouble for others. 2:26 [SPEAKER_00]: And to add to that, as we established earlier, not all pirates were men 2:33 [SPEAKER_00]: What is true though, is that pirates did have a superstition about women being on board, especially during the 17th and 18th centuries. 2:44 [SPEAKER_00]: It was believed that they brought bad luck to the sailors. 2:48 [SPEAKER_00]: This belief came from medieval times when women were banned from boarding naval and merchant ships, and it wasn't just a belief, it was almost an unwritten rule. 3:00 [SPEAKER_00]: in one tragic incident, a ship carrying women encountered a severe storm, and this led to the sacrificial throwing overboard of around 60 female passengers to try to calm the angry sea. 3:16 [SPEAKER_00]: But despite the superstition, women continue to be present and actively involved in the maritime community. 3:23 [SPEAKER_00]: They took on various roles such as laundresses, sex workers, cooks, and occasionally even sailors, officers, merchants, and pirates. 3:36 [SPEAKER_00]: And among these women were Anne Bonny and Mary Reed, two of the most famous and fearless pirates to ever sail the seas. 3:48 [SPEAKER_00]: Let's start with Anne Bonny. 3:51 [SPEAKER_00]: And Bonnie was born in Cancel County, Corp, Ireland. 3:56 [SPEAKER_00]: Sometime between 1698 and 1700, she was the daughter of a servant woman, Mary Brennan, and her employer, the lawyer William Kormack. 4:08 [SPEAKER_00]: At this time, Kormack's wife was sick, and had moved into his mother's home to recover. 4:14 [SPEAKER_00]: This basically gave Kormack free reign to begin an affair with his maid, Mary Brennan, and Anne was born. 4:23 [SPEAKER_00]: Now although Anne was technically a legitimate, Kormack always presented her as his legitimate daughter, he moved to London to get away from his wife's family, and he started dressing Anne as a boy, calling her Andy and bringing her up to be a lawyer's clerk. 4:43 [SPEAKER_00]: It's worth mentioning, I think, that William might have been a good lawyer, but his fortune came from his wife. 4:51 [SPEAKER_00]: So when his wife learned about his affair and the illegitimate child, she stopped sending him money. 4:58 [SPEAKER_00]: That was pretty much the end of that family. 5:01 [SPEAKER_00]: But William was about to start a new one. 5:04 [SPEAKER_00]: He moved to the Providence of Carolina, taking a long hand in her mother, Mary Brennan. 5:11 [SPEAKER_00]: At first, the family had a rough start and their new home. 5:15 [SPEAKER_00]: Do you do the financial limitations? 5:17 [SPEAKER_00]: So Kormack tried to establish himself at a lawyer in Charles Town, which did not go well. 5:26 [SPEAKER_00]: But his knowledge of the law and ability to buy and sell goods worked for him. 5:31 [SPEAKER_00]: And he soon financed a townhouse, and eventually a plantation just outside the town. 5:41 [SPEAKER_00]: until they weren't. 5:46 [SPEAKER_00]: Anne's mother passed away in 1711 when Anne was only 12, and this became the turning point in her life. 5:56 [SPEAKER_00]: She started having a fierce and curious temper, murdering a serving girl with a case knife, and beating and attempted rapist have to death. 6:06 [SPEAKER_00]: There were even rumors in the town that she liked to hang out and the local taverns and sleeping with all the fishermen. 6:14 [SPEAKER_00]: So it seemed like her life was getting off track, but this wouldn't even be the worst of it. 6:20 [SPEAKER_00]: She married James Bonny, a sailor, and not a very rich one. 6:25 [SPEAKER_00]: The fact that Anne married down, angered William, and he disowned his daughter. 6:35 [SPEAKER_00]: which, if he had been paying attention, he would have known was a terrible idea, because in retaliation and burned his plantation to the ground. 6:49 [SPEAKER_00]: You can see the elements coming together, the fierceness, the life of violence, and now a connection to the sea. 7:05 [SPEAKER_00]: which is modern day, Nassau, where James became something of an informant, Empire at Bounty Hunter, riding out pirates to a man named Governor Woods Rogers. 7:17 [SPEAKER_00]: Woods himself was a former pirate, and he was on a mission to compile a list of the most wanted out laws on the list of the top 10 most notorious. 7:28 [SPEAKER_00]: but Anne's life took a different turn. 7:31 [SPEAKER_00]: Instead of helping her husband, she started getting involved with other pirates, having relationships with many of them, while her husband was busy working for the governor. 7:43 [SPEAKER_00]: According to Captain Charles Johnson, author of a general history of the pirates, Anne wasn't exactly faithful to her husband, and even James knew that, having found her embed with another man, 7:57 [SPEAKER_00]: but the marriage stayed intact. 8:00 [SPEAKER_00]: One of the pirates and gotten involved with was a man named John Rackham, also known as Calacogia. 8:08 [SPEAKER_00]: He even offered to pay Anne's husband to divorce her, so they could be together. 8:14 [SPEAKER_00]: But James refused and threatened to fight Calacogia, for reasons known only to him. 8:20 [SPEAKER_00]: But Anne was not want to give up. 8:24 [SPEAKER_00]: Eventually, she and Rackham ran away together, and she joined his pirate crew. 8:30 [SPEAKER_00]: This was the start of a career that would become history. 8:37 [SPEAKER_00]: Anne wasted no time, as soon as she was on board, she started participating in attacks. 8:44 [SPEAKER_00]: Her early exploits and private hearing included a raid organized alongside another male pirate, possibly Pierre Boussa. 8:54 [SPEAKER_00]: They learned that a French merchant ship filled with valuable goods, with soon set sail. 9:01 [SPEAKER_00]: So with the help of Pierre's associates, they prepared for their first venture. 9:07 [SPEAKER_00]: To strike fear into the hearts of their targets, they came up with a cunning plan. 9:12 [SPEAKER_00]: They acquired a boat from a abandoned rucks in the harbor and covered its deck and themselves with turtle blood for a gruesome appearance. 9:23 [SPEAKER_00]: At the bow of their vessel, they placed a dressmaker's dummy, dressed in women's clothing, drenched in blood, and wielding an axe. 9:32 [SPEAKER_00]: So under the glow of the full moon, you can imagine what this scene looked like. 9:38 [SPEAKER_00]: They set course for the French merchant ship, and upon seeing the vessel, the crew of the merchant ship was so terrified that they surrendered their cargo without putting up a fight. 9:53 [SPEAKER_00]: According to some rumors, Anne had a rather sneaky way of getting on to ships they wanted to steal from. 10:01 [SPEAKER_00]: She typically always dressed like a man, but when it came time to sneak into ships, she would dress as a woman, and flirt with the captain to get information. 10:12 [SPEAKER_00]: And then, when Calico Jack's crew attacked the ship, Anne would join them, dressed as a 10:21 [SPEAKER_00]: And around this time, I arrived her first encounter with her future partner in crime. 10:29 [SPEAKER_00]: One day, Calico Jack's crew took over a ship that Mary Reed was working on, and she also ended up joining the crew. 10:36 [SPEAKER_00]: It said that Anne was drawn to Mary, who seemed more feminine, even though she was stressed, like a man. 10:45 [SPEAKER_00]: And that it was when Mary told Anne as she was actually a woman. 10:49 [SPEAKER_00]: a secret that made their friendship even stronger. 10:52 [SPEAKER_00]: They were two women trying to make their way in a world dominated by men, and they knew they could count on each other. 11:02 [SPEAKER_00]: Interestingly, some people think they might have even been and love. 11:07 [SPEAKER_00]: Now the question is, who was Mary Reed, and what were the events that brought her to that position? 11:16 [SPEAKER_00]: Now the interesting part here is her childhood, which is kind of similar to Anne's. 11:22 [SPEAKER_00]: Mary Reed was born in England some time between 1680 and 1693. 11:27 [SPEAKER_00]: According to most reports, Mary's mother was married to a sailor with whom she had a son. 11:35 [SPEAKER_00]: But her husband was lost at sea in the early years. 11:39 [SPEAKER_00]: As she was left to raise the boy alone, 11:42 [SPEAKER_00]: The sailors' family did send her financial support for the boy, but her son passed away shortly after. 11:49 [SPEAKER_00]: She was then pregnant with Mary by another man, and to hide the illegitimate pregnancy, and continue receiving child support payments from her husband's family, she dressed Mary like a boy, passing her off as her first and only child. 12:06 [SPEAKER_00]: When Mary was 13, she found work as a foot boy, and then started working on ships. 12:13 [SPEAKER_00]: She did various odd jobs around the ship, but one of them was a powder monkey for a British man during the war. 12:20 [SPEAKER_00]: That sounds weird, so let me clarify. 12:24 [SPEAKER_00]: A powder monkey was a young boy who carried gunpowder from the ship's powder magazine to the gun crews. 12:31 [SPEAKER_00]: These boys had to be small to move more quickly and easily through the tight spaces on a ship. 12:37 [SPEAKER_00]: And the job was dangerous because there was always a risk of explosions, fire, and combat injuries. 12:45 [SPEAKER_00]: After doing that, Mary served in the army of flanders as an infantry man and a cavalryman, which meant that she had internalized that identity by this point. 12:56 [SPEAKER_00]: She was dressed just like a fully grown man, and was fighting with armies successfully pulling through. 13:04 [SPEAKER_00]: But during this time, Mary fell in love with one of the soldiers in the Flemish army, and revealed herself to him. 13:12 [SPEAKER_00]: They got married, but life was not about to be easy for her yet. 13:18 [SPEAKER_00]: Her husband died young and she had to rejoin the army, but things were different now. 13:24 [SPEAKER_00]: She had realized that this was not the path she wanted to be on, and there wasn't much room for her to grow. 13:32 [SPEAKER_00]: That was when she decided to become a pirate, instead, a decision that eventually led her to the day that she met and Bonnie, 13:42 [SPEAKER_00]: Now after they met, Mary continued to live and dress as a man, aboard ships, and even went by the name Mark Reed. 13:51 [SPEAKER_00]: She really committed to this identity and probably even felt more comfortable and safe with it, just like Anne. 14:00 [SPEAKER_00]: At first, Calico Jack was incredibly jealous of Anne's closeness with Mary, and his eyes 14:11 [SPEAKER_00]: Maybe he was right in a sense, after all, and in Mary were said to be pretty close. 14:18 [SPEAKER_00]: So one day, Calico Jack burst into Mary's cabin to slit her throat. 14:24 [SPEAKER_00]: Luckily, she was quick and managed to evade him, and actually point his own knife back at him. 14:31 [SPEAKER_00]: She then revealed her true gender to him. 14:35 [SPEAKER_00]: After which, he seemed to be okay with the two of them hanging out. 14:39 [SPEAKER_00]: He also agreed to keep Mary's secret, so the only person on board, who knew the truth about Anne and Mary, was him. 14:49 [SPEAKER_00]: And the truth remained hidden until Anne got pregnant. 14:54 [SPEAKER_00]: That's a pretty dead giveaway, my thing. 14:58 [SPEAKER_00]: Not that it changed much. 15:00 [SPEAKER_00]: In fact, the crew went on having the time of their lives, looting and terrorizing the sailors 15:09 [SPEAKER_00]: but the joy didn't stay long. 15:15 [SPEAKER_00]: On November 15, 1720, Ann and Mary were on deck when they noticed a slew, lighting up alongside them. 15:24 [SPEAKER_00]: A slew is basically a small ship with a single mast. 15:29 [SPEAKER_00]: They soon realized it was one of the governor's vessels, capped him by private hunter, capped in Jonathan Barnett. 15:41 [SPEAKER_00]: Barnett surprised Calico Jack's crew, while they were hosting a run-party with another crew off at Naver Point, off the west coast of the colony of Jamaica. 15:53 [SPEAKER_00]: A sudden, incordinated burst of gunfire, disabled the pyro vessel, and soon after that, Barnett ordered them to surrender, but they were not about to give up that easily. 16:06 [SPEAKER_00]: Calico Jack began shooting at him, and the counter attack disabled his ship, sending the few men on deck, powering into the hold. 16:16 [SPEAKER_00]: At this point he knew he was outnumbered, and signaled surrender. 16:21 [SPEAKER_00]: But Ann and Mary refused to surrender. 16:25 [SPEAKER_00]: They remained on deck and fought the governor's men alone, firing their pistols and swinging their cutlaces. 16:33 [SPEAKER_00]: Mary was apparently disgusted with her fellow crew members' cowardice. 16:39 [SPEAKER_00]: She even took a break from fighting to look into the hold and shouted, if any of you men have the courage, come up and fight like real men. 16:48 [SPEAKER_00]: And when no one responded, she shot into the hold, hitting one of them. 16:54 [SPEAKER_00]: It was fierce and cold, but there was no point to it. 16:59 [SPEAKER_00]: Barnets crew evidently had more people. 17:02 [SPEAKER_00]: Eventually, Anne, Mary, and the rest of Calico Jack's crew were defeated and captured. 17:11 [SPEAKER_00]: After their capture, there wasn't much of a defense from Calico Jack's crew during the trial. 17:17 [SPEAKER_00]: He and his crew had surrendered, requesting quarter, which meant they asked for mercy or leniency. 17:25 [SPEAKER_00]: The crew was brought to trial in what is now Spanish town Jamaica. 17:30 [SPEAKER_00]: where they were sentenced to hang for acts of piracy, as were read and Bonnie. 17:37 [SPEAKER_00]: Calico Jack was scheduled to be executed for piracy by hanging on November 18th, and his final request was to see Anne one last time. 17:48 [SPEAKER_00]: And if you're expecting a sweet moment here, you're about to be disappointed. 17:54 [SPEAKER_00]: Seeing him one last time before he was to die, and said, if you had fought like a man, you'd need not have been hanged like a dog. 18:03 [SPEAKER_00]: These were definitely not the last words someone wanted to hear. 18:10 [SPEAKER_00]: 10 days after CalicoJack's execution, Ann and Mary were tried and found guilty of piracy, so they were also sentenced to hang. 18:20 [SPEAKER_00]: But the women claimed they were both pregnant and asked for mercy. 18:24 [SPEAKER_00]: Receiving temporary stays of execution. 18:28 [SPEAKER_00]: Unfortunately, Reed died of a violent fever while she was in prison. 18:33 [SPEAKER_00]: On April 28, 1721, 18:37 [SPEAKER_00]: Her burial is in the records of St. Catherine's Church in Jamaica. 18:42 [SPEAKER_00]: Other than that, there is no record of the burial of her baby, which probably means that she died while she was pregnant, or that she wasn't actually pregnant. 18:53 [SPEAKER_00]: On the other hand, there is no official record of Anne Bonny being released or executed. 19:00 [SPEAKER_00]: Yet there is a ledger that lists the burial of an anbonne on December 29, 1733, the same town in Jamaica where she was tried. 19:11 [SPEAKER_00]: After Anne's trial, there have been many different ideas floating around about what might have happened to her after the trial and sentencing. 19:21 [SPEAKER_00]: Some people say she headed back to the United States or her father. 19:25 [SPEAKER_00]: where she tied the knot again, had eight children from this marriage, and eventually passed away in South Carolina. 19:33 [SPEAKER_00]: Another theory suggests that Ian turned to a life of religious devotion, and became a nun, which we see as common, with criminals finding religion when they are in prison. 19:44 [SPEAKER_00]: Now while that might sound intriguing, it's hard to verify if it's actually true. 19:53 [SPEAKER_00]: But the most common theory is that Anne probably spent the rest of her days behind bars, and eventually died in prison, and this is the one that makes the most sense. 20:04 [SPEAKER_00]: Captain Charles Johnson also agreed with this idea, mentioning that she had never faced the gallows and had stayed in jail. 20:12 [SPEAKER_00]: So it's quite possible that she just faded away, right there. 20:23 [SPEAKER_00]: Some say Mary didn't actually die, and then Anne and Mary managed to escape together, fleeing to Louisiana. 20:32 [SPEAKER_00]: There they supposedly lived out the rest of their days, recounting stories about their exciting and adventurous experiences. 20:41 [SPEAKER_00]: But who knows how much of it is actually true, and how much is just wishful thinking. 20:48 [SPEAKER_00]: either way, it was the end of an era, and what a fun one it was for some, and that wraps up today's episode. 20:58 [SPEAKER_00]: I hope you enjoyed the journey as much as I did. 21:01 [SPEAKER_00]: Be sure to follow along for more colorful and intriguing stories, for more past, and things for listening.
Show full transcript (162 segments)
