Mary Read(e)

Mary Read(e) (we’ll use Read) was the other known female Caribbean pirate. She was born in England in 1685. Her mother married a sailor and had a son. But the sailor disappeared at sea and Mary’s mother had an extramarital affair and ended up pregnant. She hid in the country where her son died and Mary was born. Being in tough financial straits, the mother dressed Mary as a boy and claimed that he was the deceased son so she could get support from the sailor’s mother. It worked.

When Mary was a teenager, she got work on a ship, still dressed as a boy. Then she joined the British army and was sent to the War of Spanish Succession to support the Dutch. There she fought impressively but fell in love with a Flemish soldier. The gifts from intrigued colleagues on their marriage allowed Mary to buy an inn near Breda Castle in the Netherlands.

When her husband died, Mary again donned men’s garb and again enlisted. But when the war ended, with no future in sight, she sailed for the West Indies – aka the Caribbean. When pirates took her ship, she joined them.

After taking the King’s Pardon in 1718-19, Mary signed on with a privateer but joined a mutiny on the ship. In 1720 she signed on with Calico Jack Rackham whose crew included Anne Bonny. Both Jack and Anne thought Mary was a man. The three of them stole an armed sloop called The William.

Anne told Mary that she found her attractive at which point, Mary revealed her true sex. There has been much speculation about the nature of Anne and Mary’s relationship.

When Jonathan Barnet caught up with the William while the drunken men fled below, Mary and Anne held the deck the best they could. At one point, Mary fired into the cowardly crew, killing one man. Like Anne, she “pleaded her belly” due to pregnancy. Unlike Anne, there is a record of Mary’s death of fever. On April 28, 1721, she was buried at St. Catherine’s church in Jamaica. No mention was made of her child. She may still have been pregnant. No one knows who the father was, either.