Bonny, Anne (1698?-1782?), 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 . Bonny and the English pirate Mary Read formed a notorious duo among Rackham’s crew.
According to Charles Johnson’s A General History of the Pyrates (1724), Bonny was born in Ireland to unwed parents. Her father disguised her as a male relative. He took her and his mistress to what is now South Carolina , where he started a new life as a merchant. Bonny married a poor sailor who took her to New Providence, an island in the Bahamas . There, she caught the eye of Calico Jack Rackham, who convinced her to join his crew disguised as a man. Bonny became pregnant with Rackham’s child. She stayed with Rackham’s friends in Cuba until she gave birth, then rejoined his crew. Along with Mary Read , she was considered one of the fiercest pirates in Rackham’s crew.
In early November 1720, the pirate hunter Jonathan Barnet captured Rackham’s ship off the coast of Jamaica . Only Bonny, Read, and possibly one other pirate resisted capture. The British authorities who ruled Jamaica convicted Bonny and her crewmates of piracy and sentenced them to death by hanging. Later in prison, Bonny reportedly scorned Rackham, saying that if he had fought like a man, he need not hang like a dog. The authorities spared the lives of Bonny and Read after learning that both women were pregnant. Historians know little about Bonny’s life after her sentence was commuted (reduced in severity).
