The Pirate Anne Bonny – engraving from “A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pyrates” written under the pseudonym Captain Charles Johnson in 1724.

Anne was born around 1690 in Cork, Ireland. Her father was a married lawyer William McCormac and her mother was his servant Mary Brennan. William fled to London with Mary and Anne to escape the scandal of his adultery, where he began to dress Anne as a boy and called her “Andy”. The family then moved to Charles Town, South Carolina, where William became a successful merchant. Her mother died when Anne was just twelve years old and as a child she had a fiery temper; the following year she stabbed a servant girl with a table knife. After Anne was disowned by her father when she married a pirate, James Bonny. Around 1714 Anne and James moved to Nassau, New Providence Island. Nassau was known as the “Republic of Pirates”, a sanctuary where piracy flourished until the arrival of Governor Woodes Rogers in 1718. James became an informant for the Governor, while Anne became the mistress of Captain John “Calico Jack” Rackham of the ship “Revenge”. Anne divorced James and married Calico Jack. Together with fellow notorious female pirate Mary Read they sailed the seas around Jamaica, capturing many vessels and amassing a large fortune. Anne and Mary fought alongside their male crew and were highly respected by their shipmates for their fearlessness. In 1720 Calico Jack’s ship was attacked by a vessel sent by the Governor of Jamaica. Much of his crew was too drunk to fight, but Anne and Mary bravely held off the attack on their own. Eventually the “Revenge” was captured and they were all sentenced to hang for piracy. Anne’s last words to her husband were allegedly “had you fought like a man, you need not have been hang’d like a dog”. Anne and Mary received a temporary stay of execution, as they were both pregnant at the time. Mary died in prison, most likely of childbed fever, while Anne disappeared from record completely. There are no details of her execution, release or her child. It has been suggested that Anne’s father purchased her freedom and that she changed her name to Annabelle. Annabelle married a Jamaican civil servant and had eight children; she died around 1778 at 88 years old.