Mary Read
Mary Read (a.k.a. Mark)
Come up and fight like men!Dressing as a man for a good portion of her life, Mary Read was known as a fierce and deadly pirate. She made up one of the only recorded female pirate duos with Anne Bonny and they became known as a "brace of hellcats" for their ferocity in battle together.
Mental characteristics
Personal history
Read’s mother was married to a sailor, with whom she had a son. After the man deserted the family, she had an affair that resulted in the birth of Mary. Following the death of her half-brother, Mary was passed off as the deceased boy in order to receive money from his paternal grandmother. Mary was 13 when the elder woman died, but the young girl continued to dress as a boy. She later worked as a servant before journeying to Flanders to serve in the military. During this time she met another soldier, and, after revealing her true sex, they later married. Some of the soldiers even chipped in for Mary's first woman's wardrobe. The couple opened an inn near Breda, Netherlands, but Read’s husband died.
Read went back to living as a man and eventually found work as a sailor. Playing to her strengths, Read reverted to wearing men’s clothing and joined the crew of a Dutch merchant vessel. Her ship was captured by the English pirate Charles Vane (the exact date is unknown), and, as the only English man on board, she was given the option of joining the crew. Read accepted and joined the pirates.
Life at sea was brutal: cramped quarters, minimum hygiene and death always lurking nearby. Keeping her male identity intact took great bravery and cunning. Read had to bind her chest with fabric to flatten her breasts, dress and tend to her feminine needs in secret and constantly train her body to be a match for any man.
When her ship was seized by pirates in the West Indies, Read decided—or was possibly forced—to become a buccaneer. She and her crewmates sailed to Nassau, Bahamas, in about 1717, following the issuance of a royal edict that extended a pardon to any pirate who surrendered. Although some of her crewmates accepted the offer, it is unclear if Read did. It is known, however, that she soon joined a pirate ship captained by Calico Jack Rackham . Among the crew was Anne Bonny , who did not hide her sex—she was having an affair with Rackham—except during battles. Read continued to masquerade as a man, although others realized that she was a woman.
Read and Bonny earned a reputation for ruthlessness and were described as “very profligate, cursing and swearing much, and very ready and willing to do anything on board.”
According to various accounts, Mary fell in love with a carpenter on Rackham’s ship, but his life appeared in danger after a pirate challenged him to a duel. The protective Read allegedly intervened, forcing a duel with the other man and killing him.
When Bonny told Read that she was a woman (apparently because she was attracted to her), Read revealed that she too was a woman. To abate the jealousy of her lover, Rackham, who suspected romantic involvement between the two, Bonny told him that Read was a woman. Speculation over the relationship between Bonny and Read led to images depicting the two in battle together. There are many rumors, but no documentation, that there was a sexual relationship between the two women. It seems likely that they were nothing more than close friends and comrades-at-arms, but, like so much about them, this mystique persists.
Read was captured along with the rest of Rackham's crew by Jonathan Barnet during a drunken revel by Rackham's crew. The male pirates, drunk below deck, left Read and Bonny to defend them. Read reportedly shouted down into the hold, demanding that the others emerge and fight like men. When they didn’t emerge, she fired her guns into the hold, killing one of her own crew and wounding two. It took over an hour for Barnet and his men to subdue the women and the few drunken men who woke up to assist them. Eventually, the ship was overtaken, and the defeated crew was sent to Jamaica to stand trial.
Read apparently died in jail in Jamaica after pleading pregnancy . A quick calculation of months suggests that she died within a week of her due date. If she died of fever, it is quite possible that she died from sepsis, a condition that afflicted women after giving birth in unsanitary conditions such as may have existed in her prison cell. The burial record at the church where she was buried lists “Mary Read, pirate."
Had Read’s baby died with her, it would have been listed.
Social
Contacts & Relations
Family Ties
May have had a child that survived her, born in April 1721.
Ethnicity
Life
1695 AD
1721 AD
26 years old
Circumstances of Birth
Was born out of an affair
Circumstances of Death
Died of a fever in jail
Birthplace
Children
Gender
Female
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