Anything a man can do, a woman can do just as well, sometimes even better...and sometimes, first.
Take piracy on the high seas, for instance.
Yup...there were women pirates, too. And some were even better than men at their chosen profession.
Check out some of these terrors of the high seas for yourself. Just sail past the sinking orange rowboat and be prepared for some tough and enterprising ladies.
Anne Bonny (1700-?)
Born Anne Cormac, daughter of a servant girl and her employer, William Cormac of Kinsale, County Cork, Ireland, she moved to North America with her parents while she was very young. Her mother, Mary Brennan, died shortly after arriving in the new world. Her father, William tried to make it as a lawyer, but after failing in that enterprise, moved on to the merchant business and was quite successful. Anne was reported to have red hair and a bad temper (the story goes, she stabbed a servant girl when she was 13).
Against her father's wishes, Anne married James Bonny, a near destitute sailor and part-time pirate...obviously not a very good one. Her father was appalled and disowned her. There are stories of her burning her father's plantation for revenge. Just stories, mind you.
Sometime between 1714 and 1717, Anne and James moved to Nassau, New providence Island, a haven for pirates. Soon, James became a stool-pigeon for the Governor, Woodes Rogers. Anne took to hanging out in the local taverns where she met Jack" Calico Jack" Rackham who quickly became her lover. Rackham was the captain of a pirate sloop named Revenge. Within a year, Anne divorced her husband and married Rackham at sea. Shortly after having met Mary Read (another woman pirate), they all stole the Revenge and hightailed it to Jamaica.
The three of them did fairly well as real pirates. They captured several vessels and took their loot. Anne had no qualms about using a sword or a pistol, and in fact was well respected by the crew for fighting alongside her new husband. Unfortunately all good things come to an end. In 1720, they were all captured, thanks to Rackham and the rest of the crew being drunk when a pirate hunter happened on them. Rackham was sentenced to hang, but both the women pleaded pregnancy and were given a stay of execution.
There is no record of Anne after this. Was she executed after giving birth? Was she released? Did her father ransom her? Did she die in childbirth?
Mary Read (1690-1721)
Mary Read was born the illegitimate child of a sea captain's widow. In order to continue to get funding from the sea captain's mother, Mary's mother dressed Mary as a boy. Mary was passed off as her dead half brother Mark. The disguise worked well, and Mary and her mother were provided for until Mary decided to leave home. Still dressed as a boy, she found work as a footman (a menial servant in a rich household) and then on a ship. Eventually, Mary joined the British military and fought along with the troops, calling herself Mark Read.
Nobody had any idea she wasn't a man, until she fell in love with a Flemish soldier and married him. She and her new husband cashed in their commissions and used the money plus the wedding gifts from still bemused fellow soldiers, to help purchase an inn in Holland. Unfortunately Mary's husband died young. Mary decided to go back into the military again, so she donned male garb and applied to the Flemish military. But peacetime afforded no career advancement, so she left Holland for the West Indies.
By some strange stroke of fate, the ship she was on was captured by pirates, who forced her to join them. She stayed with them for a while and took the King's Pardon when the opportunity arose in 1718. After that she took a commission aboard a privateer and ultimately joined the mutiny onboard. Reading between the lines here..the officers aboard the privateer must have been pretty bad to cause the crew to mutiny.
In 1720, she met up with John"Calico Jack" Rackham and Anne Bonny. She was still dressed as a man, which caused a bit of a problem. Anne became sexually interested in Mary,thinking she was a handsome man, so Mary was forced to reveal herself to Anne. Rackham became jealous over the closeness between what he thought was another man, and his wife, so he was let in on the secret, too. And so, for a short time, the three of them worked together as pirates.
During this time, Mary fell in love with one of their captives. She even went so far as to prevent her lover's death by killing a man who had challenged her lover to a duel. She secretly arranged to meet the challenger to a duel, two hours before the duel scheduled between her lover and the man. She won the duel.
Rackham, Mary and Anne were captured in late 1720. The ship was anchored and the crew was partying. When a pirate hunter came alongside, the crew was too drunk to fight, including Rackham. Mary and Anne were forced to fight alone, and eventually lost. Rackham was hanged. Mary and Anne both pleaded pregnancy and won a temporary stay of execution. Mary died in prison around the time of her child's birth. There is no record of the burial of her child.
Sadie the Goat (birthdate unknown)
Sadie was an American, living on the streets of New York in the late 1800's. Her real name was Sadie Farrell, but she gained her nickname (or street name) for her penchant for headbutting her mugging victims in the stomach while her male partner zonked them using a slingshot. Naturally they helped themselves to the money and jewellry of the victim.
Life on the street was rough and Sadie wasn't the only tough female in the neighbourhood. She and a female bouncer, Gallus Mag, fought and Sadie's ear was bitten off in the ruckus. Sadie moved out of the neighbourhood and one day, saw the Charlton Street Gang trying unsuccessfully to hijack a small sloop. She offered her help, and a few days later, Sadie and the gang had possession of a sloop. She hung the Jolly Roger up and the pirating began.
They raided small villages, farms, homes and mansions along the waterfront of the Hudson and Harlem rivers in 1869, but didn't stop there. They kidnapped several people from the wealthy households and ransomed them, making quite a pile of loot. Some of the unfortunate male victims were made to "walk the plank". Too bad for Sadie and her gang, the homeowners resented being fleeced and began firing on the sloop whenever it was spotted. That ended her career as pirate.
Sadie decided to go back to the old neighbourhood. She made a truce with Gallus Mag who gave Sadie back her ear. Gallus had had it pickled in a jar and she kept it on display in her bar. Sadie had it put into a large locket and wore it round her neck. Sadie became known as "Queen of the Waterfront".
Nothing more is known of Sadie.
Queen Teuta of Illyria (248 BC - ?)
Queen Teuta is the earliest recorded pirate. A woman!!
In 231 BC, Teuta husband Agron, King of Illyria died, she became the regent Queen for her stepson Pinnes, who was too young to rule. She ruled the Ardiaei tribe who lived in the area around the western Balkans (modern Montenegro). Surrounded by aggressive neighbours, Teuta decided to encourage piracy as a means of gaining riches and protecting her kingdom. And her pirates were very good at their jobs.
They plundered the Romans, Phoenicians and the Dyrrachiums and anybody else who sailed the Adriatic Sea. Not content with their booty, Teuta's pirates moved into the Ionian Sea to the south and began terrorizing those ships doing trade with the Greeks and Italy. They managed to capture the island of Corcyra and use it for a base to launch their depredations on the Greeks.
Eventually Rome became pissed off enough with losing ships and tribute as well as trade to Teuta and her gangs of pirates, that they sent a couple of ambassadors to tell her to cease and desist. She replied that piracy was a lawful trade and her government had no right to interfere with a private enterprise. She then had one of the ambassadors killed and the other captured. That didn't sit well with Rome, who declared war on her and after two years, in 227 BC, Rome won. They quickly divested Teuta of much of her power and ordered her to pay tribute to them. In the next few years, Illyria became a Roman run country and Teuta completely lost her crown.
The Lioness of Brittany (1300-1359)
Born a French noblewoman , Jeanne de Clisson, was first married to Geoffrey de Chateaubriant with whom she had two children. After his death, she married Olivier de Clisson, an important Breton nobleman. It was a love match, and the couple had four children together. During the Hundred Years war between the French and English, Olivier fought for the French king, Phillip VI. But the French King abetted by Charles de Blois, accused Olivier of treason and had him beheaded after a kangaroo trial.
Jeanne, grieving and angry, swore vengeance on Phillip and Charles. At first she sold all her lands and hired an army to fight on the side of the English, but her position became precarious, so she purchased three ships, ordered them painted completely black and the sails dyed red. After hiring a rather merciless crew, she set sail for the English Channel.
For the next 13 years(1343-1356) she and her crew went after French ships, decimating the crews. She always left just one or two survivors to take the tale of defeat back to King Phillip. She was considered so ferocious, she earned the title "Lioness of Brittany". There are tales that Jeanne personally beheaded with an axe, any French nobility she found on the captured ships...but that's just rumor, mind. Even after King Phillip's death in 1350, Jeanne continued to capture French ships and put the crew to the sword.
Eventually, Jeanne grew older and wearier, besides, she had met and fallen in love with an English captain. She married him and settled down in England. It seems the marriage soured and Jeanne ended up going back to live in France at the Castle of Hennebank, territories owned by her allies the Montforts. Jeanne died in 1359, and rumor has it that she now haunts the battlements and some of the interior of Castle Clisson
Ching Shih (1775 - 1844)
As a very young woman, Ching Shih was a contracted prostitute working on the junks in the harbour of Canton. Realizing the short and miserable life she was destined for, she looked for a way out. It offered itself in the form of Cheng Yi, the family head of a pirate confederation. How exactly she managed it is unknown, likely she met him through her work and persuaded him to marry her eventually, and, as was normal in China, joined him on his ship. Whole families lived their entire lives on junks in coastal China. For several years, she helped him run his business which consisted mainly of looting captured ships and extorting protection money from coastal villages. Cheng's fleet grew to 50,000 seamen ( the amount of junks numbered in the hundreds) during that period and he was doing very well for himself and his extended family.
In 1807, Cheng drowned off the coast of Vietnam in a typhoon. Ching Shih made her move. She declared her right to take control of the family business, appealing to family members to support her in their loyalty to Cheng and her right as his widow to take control the of fleet in an emergency. She was smart enough to consolidate her control by marrying Cheng's right hand man (and adopted son), Chang Pao. Ching Shih appointed him commander of the pirate fleet. And the fleet under Shih's command continued to prosper.
She also instituted some new rules for her fleet. Harsh ones:
- insubordination or theft --- beheading
- desertion or going AWOL --- lose your ears
- keeping the loot --- flogging --- second offence ---- beheading
- assaulting women captives --- death
- both parties consent to sex --- death to both ( woman drowned, man beheaded)
After all, a "soiled" woman is no good to her. She nets far less on the market.
In 1808, the Qing government realized they had to do something about the piracy on the China Sea. The British and other nations were beginning to trade with the Chinese government and merchants, and the pirates were more than a nuisance, they were hurting business. The Chinese government sent General Li Ch'ang-keng to deal with the pirates. The pirates won and the Qing navy lost 63 ships in a string of defeats. The Chinese government now considered Shih to be a threat.
By 1810, the British and Portuguese were appealed to for help by the Qing government. The British deployed their ships from the East India Trading Company, but before a battle could commence, Quing decided he'd rather save face than be beholden to a foreign country. He offered amnesty to all pirates.
Shih decided to take him up on his offer and surrendered all their ships and weapons, but kept the loot. The couple came out well in the deal; Pao got a lieutenancy and was allowed to keep 20 junks. other pirates did not fare so well. They lost ships, weapons, loot and sometimes their lives. Some others were banished.
Pao died in 1822, a colonel. Shih lived to the age of 69 and died a wealthy woman, the operator of a gambling house.
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There are another three of these intrepid, tough, ambitious, and yes, hard women's stories in the original article. Read them if you wish.
One has to remember what the world was like for women before our age of "enlightenment". A single woman had to find employment. And employment opportunities offered very little: servant, seamstress, laundress or prostitute. A woman had NO protection under the law, even from her own husband. The world was a brutal place for women.
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