Mary Read
 | This article may need to be rewritten to comply with Wikipedia's quality standards. (May 2009) |
Mary Read | |
|---|---|
 Mary Read | |
| Born | |
| Died | |
| Piratical career | |
| Type | Pirate |
| Allegiance | English-allied infantry & cavalry in Holland |
| Years active | c.1690s or c.1709-1714 |
| Rank | unknown |
| Base of operations | Caribbean |
Mary Read (died 1721) was an English pirate. She is chiefly remembered as one of only two women (her comrade, Anne Bonny, was the other) known to have been convicted of piracy during the early 18th century, at the height of the Golden Age of Piracy.
Early life
Mary Read was illegitimately born in England, in the late 17th century, to the widow of a sea captain.
Her date of birth is in dispute among historians because of a reference to the "Peace of Ryswick" by her contemporary biographer Captain Charles Johnson in A General History of the Pyrates. He very well may have made an error, intending to refer to the "Treaty of Utrecht". The discrepancy would place her birth either c.1680 or c.1690. If she was born the later, she was the very typical age of 28 at the time of her piracy. (If Read was born earlier, there is no record by Johnson nor any other contemporary author to explain what happened in the 15 year gap from the war to her piracy.)
Read's mother began to disguise illegitimately-born Mary as a boy after the death of Mary's older, legitimate brother (name unknown). This was done in order to continue to receive financial support from his paternal grandmother. The grandmother was apparently fooled, and Read and her mother lived on the inheritance into her teenage years. Still dressed as a boy, Read then found work as a footboy, and later found employment on a ship.
After learning the harsh realities of the sea life, she jumped ship and joined the British military, allied with Dutch and Austrian forces (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 she fell in love with a Flemish soldier. When they married, she dressed as a woman for the first time in her life. They used their military commission and gifts from intrigued brethren in arms as a funding source to acquire an inn named "The Three Trade Horses" near Breda Castle in The Netherlands.
Upon her husband's early death, Read resumed male dress and military service in Holland. With peace, there was no room for advancement, so she quit and boarded a ship bound for the West Indies.
Becoming a pirate
Read's ship was taken by pirates, who forced her to join them. She took the King's pardon c.1718-1719, and took a commission to privateer, until that ended with her joining the crew in mutiny. In 1720 she joined pirate John "Calico Jack" Rackham and his companion, the female pirate Anne Bonny.
Read remained dressed as a man at first. Nobody knew that Read was female until Bonny began to take a liking to Read thinking she was a handsome young fellow. That forced Read to reveal to Bonny that she was a woman. Rackham, who was Bonny's lover, became jealous of the intimacy between them and threatened to cut the throat of Bonny's new paramour. To prevent Read's death, Rackham was also let in on the secret; following, Rackham decided to break male seafaring tradition by allowing both women to remain on the crew.
Eventually, Read and Bonny would wear men's clothes while attacking merchants in Jamaica, and women's clothes at other times.[1]
Capture and imprisonment
In October 1720, pirate hunter Captain Jonathan Barnet took Rackham's crew by surprise while they were hosting a rum party with another crew of Englishmen off the west coast of Jamaica. After a volley of fire left the pirate vessel disabled, Rackham's crew and their "guests" fled to the hold, leaving only the women and one other to fight Barnet's boarding party. Allegedly, Read angrily shot into the hold, killing one, wounding others when the men would not come up and fight with them. Barnet's crew eventually overcame the women. Rackham surrendered, requesting "quarter."[2]
Rackham and his crew were arrested and brought to trial in what is now known as Spanish Town, Jamaica, where they were sentenced to hang for acts of piracy, as were Read and Bonny. However, the women escaped the noose when they revealed they were both "quick with child" (known as "Pleading the belly"), so they received a temporary stay of execution. Read was believed to have been pregnant by one of the "sea artists" (technician/handyman) who had been pressganged into Rackham's crew, and whom she considered her legal husband before God. Bonny was believed to have been pregnant by Rackham himself (who was not her legal husband).
Read died in prison in April 1721, but there is no record of burial of her baby. Official documents state that Read died of fever associated with childbirth.
Bonny disappeared from the historical record, presumed to have lived a long life in Colonial America.
References in popular culture
- The novel "The Only Life That Mattered: The Short and Merry Lives of Anne Bonny, Mary Read and Calico Jack Rackam" by James L. Nelson is a fictionalized account of the lives of the three famous pirates. Mary is characterized as tough and honorable, and forced to live most of her life disguised as a man. The author based his novel on historical documents, especially the transcript of the three pirates' trial.
- Mary Read's life is briefly outlined in a short story about another female pirate, The Widow Ching by the Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges.
- Mary Read is mentioned in Adam and the Ants' song "Five Guns West", from their hit 1981 album Prince Charming.
- Bonny and Read are featured in Disneyland's Pirates of the Caribbean ride.
- The 2002 board game Pirate's Cove, published by Days of Wonder, contains the six legendary pirate cards one of which is Anne Bonny and Mary Read.
- "The Strength Of Mary Read" as recorded by The Good Wives off the A Response To Piracy EP, which references the heyday and eventual destruction of Port Royal.
- Mary Read and Anne Bonny both have their lives retold in vivid detail (presumably with the gaps filled in - such as Mary's brother's name is Billy Carlton) in the 2003 book Lobas de Mar (She-Wolves of the Sea) by Zoé Valdés.
- Mary Read, Anne Bonny and Calico Jack can be recruited as Pirate Captains in the computer game Tropico 2
- In the popular Zynga game Vampire Wars, there is an ability named "Mary Read's Deception" that can be won. It depicts a digital drawing of Read holding a sword to another pirate.
See also
References
External links
