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Friday, September 19, 2008

Friday Mieography




Arrr! It be talk like a pirate day! But I like my mieography's, so I found myself a woman pirate to mie-ogriohy.
This lass be Anne Bonny. She was born in County Cork, Ireland, the daughter of an attorney, and his maidservant. It was a scandal, and so they left Ireland, and moved to Charleston, South Carolina, where he made pots of money and bought a large plantation.
She is said to have been intelligent, attractive, and very quick tempered. At 16, she married a sailor, and small time pirate named James. James married her for the money her father had. Her father disowned her. She set fire to the plantation. Together, she and her husband moved to the Bahamas.
She began to mingle with pirates in the local drinking establishments, where she met John, "Calico Jack" Rackham. She promptly had an affair with him. Her husband dragged her before the Governor, and demanded she be flogged for adultery, and offered Rackham a divorce by purchase. Anne refused to be "bought and sold like cattle", and they escaped together to live like pirates.
She disguised herself as a man, and joined Calico Jack's crew on board the pirate ship Revenge. She competently fought along side the crew. They pirated for several years. She met another woman pirate, and they became good friends. Mary Read. Both of them became pregnant. They kept their secret from everyone (that they were women) however, Calico Jak got suspicious and demanded an explaination because Anne was spending so much time around another sailor. They told him, and Mary became part of his crew as well. Eventually, the crew was let in on the secret, and both women were accepted
In October, 1720, Calico Jack and his crew were attacked by a sloop that belonged to the Jamaican governor. Most of the crew was too drunk to fight. The women fought though, and held them off for a short time. They were captured, and sentenced to be hung. While the women were fighting, Calico Jack was hiding. When he asked to see her one more time, Anne replied "I am sorry to see you here, Jack, but if you had fought like a man, you need not be hanged like a dog."
The women both "pleaded their bellies" and received a temporary stay of execution. Mary Read died in prison. There is no historical record of what happened to Anne. It is speculated her father ransomed her, and she went back to South Carolina, where she married a local man, and had eight children with him, and became "respectable."
I hope she escaped to a life of piracy on her own, and no one discovered her secret.

4 comments:

Daryl said...

Ahoy .. Avast .. Oy Vey


Shiver my tsimmes .. a hameshe Jewish maidala dont know from this sort of talking....

:-Daryl

Anonymous said...

Dad gum near the best bio I've heard all week.

Knot

julie said...

Very interesting. Not quite as, um, inspirational as most mieographies... but much more entertaining.

sybil law said...

I really liked this one! I think I like the gutsy, rebel chicks the most...