Read, Mary (1695?-1721), was one of two women pirates who sailed with John “Calico Jack” Rackham (sometimes spelled Rackam). Rackham was an English pirate who operated in the North Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean Sea . Read and the Irish pirate Anne Bonny formed a notorious duo among Rackham’s crew.
According to Charles Johnson’s A General History of the Pyrates (1724), Read was born in England out of wedlock (to parents who were not married). Read’s mother disguised her as her dead half-brother, who had been born in wedlock. Disguised as a male, Read joined the army to fight in mainland Europe . She fell in love with a fellow soldier and married him after leaving the military. Following her husband’s death, Read again disguised herself as a man. She became a soldier in the Netherlands , then later shipped out for the Caribbean. Her vessel was captured by pirates, and she was taken to the Bahamas . Eventually, Read became part of the crew of Calico Jack Rackham. She revealed her identity to fellow crew member Anne Bonny, then to Rackham.
The pirate hunter Jonathan Barnet captured Rackham’s ship off the coast of Jamaica in early November 1720. The British authorities who ruled Jamaica convicted Read and her crewmates of piracy and sentenced them to death by hanging. They spared the lives of Bonny and Read after learning that both women were pregnant. Read died in prison of a fever before giving birth. She was buried in Jamaica on April 28, 1721.
