Anne Bonny the Infamous Female Pirate

by Phillip Thomas Tucker

The story of the most famous female pirate in history provides a remarkable personal odyssey from a time when women were almost powerless and at the lowest level of the social order on both sides of the Atlantic. This new biographical work fills considerable gaps in Anne Bonny’s life beyond her mythology to rescue an actual person for posterity. After turning her back on everything she knew growing up in South Carolina to find a sense of personal freedom, Anne Bonny sailed the Caribbean’s pristine waters during the Golden Age of Piracy in the early eighteenth century. Few accurate records exist about these law-breakers, whose lifestyles called for hanging. Fortunately, Anne Bonny was a notable exception to the rule, as she was caught off the Jamaican coast and tried by a court of law, whose records have fortunately survived. So, who was the real Anne Bonny? A heartless prostitute, a bloodthirsty psychopathic, or a compassionate woman of faith and courage? Such a fundamental question has not been adequately answered by historians for 300 years. It is now time to take a fresh look at the life of Anne Bonny to present a corrective view into not only her story but also the seldom explored, but incredibly rich, field of women’s history. The Anne Bonny mythology is today popularly told in Starz channel’s Black Sails and the video game Assassin's Creed.

Genres: Pirates, History, Nonfiction, Biography, Historical

220 pages, Paperback

Published August 29, 2017

About the author

Phillip Thomas Tucker, Ph.D. has been recognized today as "the Stephen King of History," and the most groundbreaking historian in America, because of his great productivity of high-quality books (more than 190 books of history) in many field of history, including the American Revolution, Women's History, Civil War History, African American History, etc.
A winner of national and state book awards, Tucker has recently optioned out three books--Cathy Williams, Anne Bonny, and Mia Leimberg--for Hollywood films.
No American historian has authored more history books than Dr. Tucker. America's most prolific and innovative of historians has won international acclaim for breaking much new ground in history by authoring more than 180 history books of unique distinction. In total, he is the author of more than 225 works in history, including both books and scholarly articles.
Significantly, the vast majority of these groundbreaking books have a distinctive "New Look" focus, including five volumes of the Harriet Tubman Series and Haitian Revolutionary Women Series. An award-winning scholar of highly-original and uniquely human history, he has most often explored the remarkable lives of forgotten men and women in powerful historical narratives long ignored by other historians.
Most important, Dr. Tucker has emerged as one of America's leading Revolutionary War historians. He has authored groundbreaking Revolutionary war books, including "How the Irish Won the American Revolution"; "George Washington's Surprise Attack": "Saving Washington's Army"; "Brothers in Liberty"; "Kings Mountain"; "Alexander Hamilton's Revolution"; "Alexander Hamilton and the Battle of Yorktown"; "Captain Alexander Hamilton and His Forgotten Contributions at the Decisive Battle of Trenton"; and others no less distinguished.
The author has also written four books about female Buffalo Soldier Cathy Williams. In addition, he has completed groundbreaking New Look Glory 54th Massachusetts Regimental Series of four volumes. This important series has focused on the heroic story of the first black regiment from the North during the Civil War.
Throughout his distinguished career, Dr. Tucker has revealed some of the most overlooked chapters of America's hidden history to present new insights and fresh perspectives. The author's books have most often broken historical boundaries, while going well beyond traditional history in bold "New Look" narratives.
As America's leading myth-busting historian with three degrees in American history, including a Ph.D. from prestigious St. Louis University where he graduated summa cum laude, America's most prolific author has mined American history's obscure depths to present unique historical narratives long unexplored and forgotten. Tucker has long focused on illuminating the previously untold stories of forgotten women (black and white), who have been long overlooked. By revealing their distinguished hidden history that had been previously lost to the American public, the author has paid long-overdue tributes to these remarkable women of great courage and outstanding character. Ahead of their time, these dynamic women defied the odds in carving out their own unique destines with their hard work, enduring faith, and perseverance.
Dr. Tucker has authored groundbreaking books in many fields of study: African American, Women's, Irish, American Revolutionary War, Buffalo Soldiers, Civil War, Tuskegee Airmen, Little Bighorn, Caribbean, Private, Spanish American War, Second World War, George Armstrong Custer, and Southern history. He has long focused on telling the forgotten stories of lost souls, outcasts, renegades, misfits, rebels, deserters (like Buffalo Soldier David Fagen), iconoclasts, refugees, nonconformists, and outliers, whose unique lives deserve attention at this late day.
The author's award-winning books have often focused on iconic turning point moments in American

Reviews

[Jami · Rating 3 out of 5]

It seemed thoroughly researched & was interesting, but also admittedly used a dubious source throughout, so the reader wonders how much to believe. At the same time, it is incredibly verbose & repeats information numerous times in the text, often in the same paragraph. Was this a dissertation, padding the story with as many words as possible? The author also seemed to include past history at random times in the text, a feeling of 3 steps forward & 2 steps back for a reader trying to make sense of the narrative. All of this combined to make for a very slow read - I kept putting it aside for the last 3 weeks to read other things because I would get bogged down.

[Melisende · Rating 3 out of 5]

One of the more even-handed portrayals of Anne - her life, her times, her piratical activities, her end - that I have read in a long time.

We are given a real sense of the times despite a lack of documentation - afterall, many of those involved in piracy operated under aliases and in secrecy, and did not leave a written account, and very few survived to tell their tales. Even Anne did not leave an account of her life, preferring to retire into obscurity.

Anne was first portrayed "as a psychological female maniac cursed with a homicidal temper and unstoppable rage .." in Captain Johnson's book on pirates published a few years after she was captured and imprisoned (c.1724).

But what led Anne to a life of piracy is the question. From the scandal of her parent's relationship and her early childhood in Ireland, to her arrival in Charles Town where her father sought a new life (c.1708), Anne's refusal to bend and submit, saw her embark on an ill-fated marriage to Jim Bonny. When life Charles Town became too stifling, the couple fled to the Caribbean (c.1718) where a life of piracy - for Jim at least - seemed the easiest way to make a living.

It would be her meeting of Calico Jack Rackman (1719) that would see Anne embark on her "career" as a pirate - all for her love of a man. In the end, it would be the courageous actions of two women, who led the final hopeless last stand before their capture (1720).

What is implied from Anne's trial, which drew much publicity, was that both she and Mary Read "... had been sentenced to death to pay for the crimes and sins of all those successful pirates who had come before her ...". She was 22.

As a glimpse into the world of piracy that is far from either whimsical or fantastical, then this conveys the harsh realities of piracy which saw over 400 pirates hanged in a ten year period. Tucker's aim was " .. to present a corrective view ..." of Anne's story, which I felt he achieved.

[Cindy Vallar · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ask for the name of a female pirate and Anne Bonny will inevitably be given. History has left us two main sources of information about this woman – Captain Charles Johnson’s A General History of the Pyrates and the account of her trial in Spanish Town, Jamaica in 1720. The former isn’t an entirely accurate history of famous pirates and the latter covers only a short period in Anne’s life that is primarily seen from the victims’ perspectives. Anne herself left no journal or diary detailing her life. Over the centuries, a number of books, mostly collections about women pirates, have included Anne, but author bias and cultural interpretations have sometimes intruded into these biographies. Dr. Tucker’s goal is to separate the mythology from Anne’s story to resurrect the real Anne Bonny and place her within the world in which she lived.

Anne Bonny begins in 1698 and lays the framework for who her parents were, how she came to be born, and how circumstances in Ireland eventually led to Anne and her parents emigrating to South Carolina. Subsequent chapters cover her life in that colony, her marriage to James Bonny, her move to the Bahamas, her love affair with Calico Jack Rackham, her life as a pirate, and her capture and trial. The account of her life concludes with what happened to her after she vanished from her gaol cell until her death in 1782. The narrative ends with a conclusion and endnotes. Maps and other blank-and-white illustrations are included throughout the book.

This book has a number of weaknesses. The absence of an actual bibliography and index make it difficult to locate information within the narrative. The format of the endnotes causes confusion as to which part of the narrative provided either the subject discussed or the quotation. Also, a few of the source materials cited here fall under the category of primary documentation. The majority are either secondary or tertiary resources; a few, such as Wikipedia and Answers.com, are questionable resources. Dr. Tucker incorporates source citations within the endnotes, but only the first usage includes the author, full title, and publication date. If the resource is a website, a URL is never provided and trying to locate it using a search engine is nearly impossible from the limited information that is provided.

Equally frustrating is the frequent use of language conveying hypothetical conclusions, such as likely, might, possibly, perhaps, maybe. In a non-fiction book that purports to set the record straight and to fill in the gaps, how can this be achieved without providing definitive historical evidence to back-up these claims? A subsection of chapter two is “Dynamic Irish Women”, yet the first woman role model discussed is Joan of Arc, who was French. If Anne knew of Grace O’Malley, who was Irish, her story may have inspired Anne as Dr. Tucker claims.

Several of his points also raise red flags. On page 49, Anne was “unaware that piracy was a most dangerous profession.” Captain William Kidd’s imprisonment, trial, and execution in 1701 were big news back then and Anne was not illiterate. Newspapers and broadsheets often carried tales of pirate attacks. The zenith of bringing pirates to justice and executing them may not have been reached at the time Anne became a pirate, but she was associating with them in the taverns of New Providence when Woodes Rogers was tasked with the job of ridding the pirates from the Caribbean. How could she not have known piracy was dangerous?

Two other examples pertain to Edward Teach or Blackbeard. On page 56, Dr. Tucker writes, “Some scant evidence exists that even Edward Teach . . . was of mixed black and white ancestry.” Ten pages later this becomes a rumor and that he was “a light-skinned mulatto,” yet no evidence is provided to support or discount this – why include a rumor in the first place? As to Dr. Tucker’s claim that Anne “might well have seen Blackbeard on the sandy streets” of Nassau, this is highly improbable. Anne didn’t arrive there until November 1718 and in November Blackbeard was in the environs of the Carolinas and was slain on 22 November.

On the other hand, this book provides an interesting perspective of Anne and how cultural influences and societal attitudes may have influenced her life and her decisions. It also shows her as a typical teenager, experiencing the angst of growing up and living in patriarchal societies where religion and on which side of the tracks you were born played a role in who and what you could be, especially if you were female. Dr. Trucker also does a commendable job expressing why society feared Anne and what she represented.

[Eduardo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Do you ever think about how no matter how famous pirates were in the Golden Age of Piracy, almost none of them managed to live very long? Very few of them died of old age. Anne Bonny is one of the rare pirates of the Golden Age that survived it and didn’t die in battle or by the noose.

I thought it would be interesting to pick up a biography again, and why not Anne Bonny? She’s a popular figure in pirate fiction and folklore. I think overall this book is good, but not excellent. Very often the book will veer into making statements about motives of the historical figures involved based on guesswork. There are also quite a few times where the author will talk about what Charles Johnson wrote in his book (the main source for the Golden Age of Piracy from the time period), and dismiss it as nonsense because “Johnson is often wrong and sensationalizing things.” Which would be more effective if held told us *what* Johnson got wrong, or used qualifiers like “probably.”

So you’ll get things like saying, “Since French Huguenots often went to the southern colonies for sanctuary, maybe Anne had a French tutor! And maybe that French tutor taught her about Joan of Arc! And so Anne Bonny was inspired by Joan of Arc, and we’ll keep saying this as a true fact without solid evidence!”

Tucker often ascribes more idealistic intentions to historical figures (read: pirates) than they probably had? He talks about fighting against the capitalistic enterprises of slavery, for instance, when, uh, I’m not sure I’m comfortable using ‘capitalism’ to describe a pre-industrial society. He also, towards the end, acts like the only reason that anyone wanted to hang Anne was because she was a woman, pointing out that we don’t have any evidence of her actually killing anyone. Fine and dandy, but that doesn’t change she was a pirate, an armed robber of the seas, and most definitely worked alongside people who DID kill others.

[Also he describes Blackbeard’s death at two points, the later one in more detail than the former. What’s weird is that he describes the actual death itself differently in both cases and I’m scratching my head about that.]

There are also some nitpicks here and there that go without citations, mostly on small tangents he gives for context. For instance, he says something like, “The Catholic Church told Spain to vanquish the Aztecs,” which is kind of true but also massively simplifies the relationship between Spain, the Catholic Church, and all of the different indigenous groups in Mesoamerica. These tangents are not directly on topic, though, and I think while it’s a big problem, it doesn’t ruin the book.

The parts of the book that are related to Anne’s life, and aren’t sentimentalized takes on history, are pretty stolid. Tucker has a butt ton of citations throughout on random details about Anne Bonny’s life, about piracy in the period, and about life in the British colonies. I had a vague notion that Anne Bonny was Irish (“Assassins of the Caribbean” helped there), and that she’d spent time in southern colonies. I did not know she had lived in Charles Towne, which is actually really cool to know??

And I like that the book shoots back on a lot of notions about Anne Bonny. Tucker calls out people in the colonial era who characterized her as a hysterical, bloodthirsty psychopath, a “woman gone wild” type. But he also shoots back at some who try to make her, in order to fit with more modern ideals, a highly sexualized figure who used sex as empowerment. It feels good to read that after seeing the Netflix pirate docudrama series, which quite egregiously portrayed Anne Bonny as sleeping with every major pirate in Nassau during the Golden Age.

Gosh, that series was garbage.

And maybe, just maybe, it romanticizes its view of pirates, and makes Anne sound like more of an innocent victim than she was. Still, sexism definitely WAS (and is!) a problem for women who wanted life options at this point in history. And it's not like the empires of the world were any more moral than the pirates they condemned, as Tucker points out.

This book is a mixed bag, then. It’s not the best it could possibly be, but it’s not bad for the most part. Just… idealized in its view of history, and I think less informed on topics that don’t directly relate to the matter at hand. I think you should pick it up if you’re interested in pirate history, or Anne Bonny in particular, but I also think that maybe you should see if you can find something a bit more scholarly if you want to get a more accurate picture of things.

[Kelly · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a terrific summertime read with all the elements of a true adventure. I absolutely enjoyed every page of it! Pirates are an enduring popular subject, depicted often in songs, stories, and Halloween costumes. Yet the truth about pirate women--who they were, why they went to sea, and what their lives were really like--is seldom a part of the conversation. And finally, here's one about probably one of the most notorious women to ever sail the seas. Anne Bonny is a character so easy to fall in love with. Cheers to women who took control of their own destinies in a world where the odds were against them, empowering young women of today to reach for their own dreams.

The author, Dr. Philip Thomas Tucker has crafted a history of the high seas that carries the reader through many parts of the world at a time that seems like a perfect escape from todays challenges. Dont pass up the journey!

[Diana Suddreth · Rating 3 out of 5]

Anne Bonny captures the imagination and it's no wonder that authors have chosen to characterize her in many ways from bloodthirsty to courageous. Tucker takes a more historical approach and relies on historical records other than contemporary tales to share the non-traditional life of an 18th century pirate. While I enjoyed the story, I found Tucker's writing to be in need of editing. First he tells us what Bonny might think about what will happen, then he tells us what she thinks will happen, then he tells us what happens, then he tells us what she thinks about what happened and what she thinks will happen next and the cycle continues until every event has been thoroughly foreshadowed, told, and retold. Perhaps this was necessary to fill the pages with something other than speculation, but it did make the book a bit tedious in the end. Still, it was a fun and easy read.

[Yasmin]

Didn't finish reading. This book struck me as being vicitm to an author with rosy tinted glasses on. There is nothing to say that Anne Bonny's parents loved each other. Rather circumstances kept them together. Anne's father likely groomed her mother for sexual activity made her reliant on him as a man that cared for her. He likely didn't but to save a bit of face he stayed with her when all options were finished with. The likelihood then is he felt familiarity with Mary and Anne to take them with him to the United States. The biggest issue I have is the author's creating piracy as a kind of democratic/egalitarian utopia for everyone regardless of class and race. While situations threw people together that normally wouldn't associate with each other I find it difficult to believe it was as plain sailing as the author makes out.

[Apriel · Rating 2 out of 5]

I am certainly no expert on pirates but after reading several books about pirates before this I feel I know a few basic facts. After finding several places where this book contradicted those books, I am left questioning its accuracy and exactly how much research the author actually did. Add to that the awful writing that was full of typos and repetition and an author who continually stated that other authors, even one contemporary to Bonny, were wrong about her without presenting any evidence to back himself up and you have a book that definitely should be taken with a grain of salt.

[Patri · Rating 2 out of 5]

More like 2.5

It was good and I enjoyed it quite a bit, even though it was repetitive at times and some other times I felt like I didn't trust the author's sources that much, especially when he talked about other pirates.

He almost lost me when Mary Read first appeared and he really needed to specify that ~she and Anne weren't lovers, like maybe they were, but absolutely not, they probably shared a bond of sisterhood or even a MATERNAL bond!!!~

Philip, my dude, let people be gay.

[Kayla Tornello · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was really interesting. All I knew about Anne Bonny was that she was a pirate. This book tells the story of her life. I appreciated that the author was honest about holes in the knowledge of Anne's life. Instead, he used information about other people from the time period to explain common practices and attitudes.

I received this book as a Goodreads giveaway. Yay!

[Christel Van Gemeren · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book gives you a good overall inside look on the battles between pirates and England and Spain in the 18th century. In a captivating way of writing, you get drawn in in the story of Anne Bonny's life, before, during and after her pirate years. A very recommandable book for anyone who is interrested in the Pirate-England battle during the Golden Age of Piracy.

[Anet · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interesting, but the author can’t see past their own moral system.

[Beth]

2018

Did not finish for two reasons:
1. I was trying to read it on my phone. The text was too small and couldn't be changed.
2. The author sounded like he was writing a dissertation and although the story was interesting, there were too many footnotes and asides to be really enjoyable.

Therefore, I am giving up.