Female Pirates of the Caribbean: A Swashbuckling History

Pirates of the Caribbean - the mere mention conjures up images of rugged men, billowy sails, and hidden treasure. But, me hearties, there be a lesser-known tale of female buccaneers who sailed the same waters, seeking fortune, freedom, and revenge!

Anne Bonny
Public Domain

Meet Anne Bonny, Mary Read, and Ching Shih - the most feared female pirates to ever hoist the Jolly Roger. These women defied convention, donning breeches, brandishing cutlasses, and commanding crews with a ferocity that rivaled their male counterparts.

Anne Bonny, considered to be an Irish lass, sailed the Caribbean seas with her lover, Calico Jack Rackham. There is very little known about her origin and no birth records found in Ireland for the name she used, but she is believed to be Irish. She disguised herself as a man to join his crew, but soon revealed her true identity, earning the respect of her shipmates. Bonny's fiery spirit and fighting prowess made her a force to be reckoned with. Captured in 1720, Bonny disappeared from historical records, with some speculating she escaped and returned to her father's plantation, while others believe she died in prison.

Mary Read
Public Domain

Mary Read, an Englishwoman, also disguised herself as a man to join the British military. She fell in love with a Finnish soldier and paused her seafaring life to settled down and start a business in the Netherlands. However, her husband died prematurely, which sent her back to work. She boarded a ship bound for the West Indies, however that ship was attacked by pirates. She ended up joining the pirate crew. She fought alongside Anne Bonny and Calico Jack, becoming a trusted member of their gang. Read's bravery and sword-fighting skills earned her a place in pirate legend. She died in prison in 1721, reportedly due to a fever or childbirth complications.

Both Anne and Mary are written about in the 1724 book, A General History of the Pyrates by Captain Charles Johnson, which was one of the first books on the topic and one of the main influences that shaped the perception of pirates. 

A General History of Pyrates by Captain Charles Johnson
Public Domain

Ching Shih, a Chinese pirate queen, commanded a fleet of over 1,500 ships and more than 60,000 pirates! She rose from humble beginnings as a prostitute to become one of the most powerful pirates in history, negotiating with Chinese officials and amassing a vast fortune. She married a prominent pirate, and upon his death, took over his enterprise. Ching Shih retired from piracy in 1810, taking a deal offered by the Chinese government, and opened a brothel and gambling house. She died peacefully in 1844, at the age of 69.

These women pirates lived by their own rules, rebelling against societal norms and gender expectations. They sought adventure, riches, and a sense of freedom that eluded them on land.

So, hoist the sails and raise a toast to these swashbuckling sisters of the Seven Seas! Their tales of bravery, cunning, and defiance continue to intrigue us to this day, reminding us that even in the most unexpected places, women have always been making waves.

*****

Two-time winner of the Christian Indie Award, Amber Lemus writes enthralling non-fiction for children and adults alike. She has a passion for travel, history, books and her Savior, so her writing is centered around faith, family and history.

She lives near the Ozarks in her "casita" with her prince charming. Between enjoying life as a new mom, and spinning stories out of soap bubbles, Amber loves to connect with readers and hang out on Goodreads with other bookish peoples.

Amber is a proud member of the American Christian Fiction Writers Association. Visit her online at www.AmberLemus.com/ and download a FREE story by subscribing to her Newsletter!

The Wreck of the Whydah Galley

by Denise Weimer

My February post explored the tale of star-crossed lovers, Samuel Bellamy, an English navy recruit-turned-pirate, and Maria (“Goody”) Hallett, the Cape Cod beauty he leaves pregnant as he sails away to seek sunken Spanish treasure in Florida. By the time Bellamy heads back toward Massachusetts, he’s leading a fleet of ships he’s captured as the “Prince of Pirates, Black Sam Bellamy.” Her baby dead and her reputation in tatters, Maria lives in a hut on the very beach where her lover’s flagship, the Whydah, founders in a Nor’easter, April 26, 1717. Stuck on a sandbank, the former slaver is dismasted by thirty- to forty-foot waves. Cannons fall from their mounts, smashing through overturned decks. The back of the ship breaks, and the Whydah splits in two, sinking within a quarter hour.

The Mary Anne, another ship in Bellamy’s fleet, also runs ashore. The terrified prize crew reads from The Common Book of Prayer in the hold. Come morning, they discover one side of the ship is beached, and they can walk to a small island. They’re rescued by locals but soon captured at an Eastham tavern and taken to the Barnstable Gaol in Wellfleet. 

Meanwhile, a hundred and twenty bodies wash up on shore. Maria examines them all but never finds Sam. Only two from the Whydah survive. The prisoners are transported to stand trial in Boston, where Reverend Cotton Mather of Salem witch trial fame comes to minister to them. An attempted rescue by Blackbeard, under whom Bellamy once served, is foiled by a harbor blockade.

On September 5, 1717, King George I issues a proclamation for the suppression of piracy that includes a pardon, but the trials proceeded. Later, debate arises as to whether the Boston authorities were aware of the proclamation and rushed the trial. All of the men interrogated state that they were pressed into duty when Bellamy captured their ships, but only two are acquitted. After making repentance to Mather, the others hang at the Charleston Ferry on November 15.

Over four tons of silver, gold, gold dust, and jewelry, including Akan gold from West Africa, divided into 180 fifty-pound bags and stored in chests on the Whydah, now lay at the bottom of the ocean. In 1984, Barry Clifford finds the wreck under just fourteen feet of water and five feet of sand. Since then, over four hundred million in coins, precious metals, and artifacts have been recovered and can be viewed at the Whydah Pirate Museum in West Yarmouth.

And Maria? Many legends grew up around her, but by all accounts, she lived a broken, bitter life on Marconi Beach, suspected by some of witchcraft. People also talked of a strange figure who walked up and down the Cape every fall and spring, a man who had a cabin in a nearby town from which cries of anguish could be heard at night.

Represented by Hartline Literary Agency, Denise Weimer holds a journalism degree with a minor in history from Asbury University. She’s a managing editor for the historical imprints of Lighthouse Publishing of the Carolinas and the author of eleven published novels and a number of novellas. A wife and mother of two daughters, she always pauses for coffee, chocolate, and old houses. https://deniseweimerbooks.webs.com

To learn more/sources: Expedition Whydah by Barry Clifford; “The Wreck of the Whydah Gally,” The History Guy, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GZgf1j1n78

Barnstable Gaol, Kenneth C. Zirkel: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Old_Jail_Barnstable_MA_2014.jpg

Whydah Silver, Grolltech: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whydah_Gally#/media/File:Whydah-gold.jpg

"Black Sam" Bellamy - Pirate, Star-Crossed Lover

Samuel Bellamy

by Denise Weimer

If you’re from New England, especially Massachusetts, you’ve probably heard of “Black Sam” Bellamy and his ill-fated romance with Maria Hallett. If not, you’ll likely agree with the slack-jawed conclusion I came to when I uncovered their story whilst researching for a novella collection—this pirate romance has all the makings of a big screen movie.

Today, we’ll look at the bright-eyed beginnings of this young couple. In my March post, I’ll tell you the briny tale (har-har, *chews on pipe*) of their tragic end.

The youngest of six, Samuel Bellamy grows up in the late 1600s in Plymouth, England. His mother dies when he’s born, and he joins the queen’s merchant fleet as a teen, but the royal navy is cut back when war with Spain ends. In the seventeen-teens, Sam visits his uncle, Israel Cole, on Cape Cod and meets Maria Hallett, called “Goody.” The blonde, blue-eyed daughter of a wealthy farm family turns her ear to Sam’s plans of joining treasure hunters, seeking sunken Spanish gold ships.

Indeed, Sam convinces local jeweler Paulsgrave Williams to lend him money to buy a ship, with Williams signing on as quartermaster who’ll be in charge of divvying finds among a crew of thirty. But when they arrive in Florida, they learn that the Spanish had hired native divers, and only tiny bits of treasure remain. They fall in with an English privateer who decides to relieve a nearby Spanish fort of its booty, making off with a quarter million. Sam explains to his crew that they can either spend their lives working off their debts for the ship or “go to the account” … become pirates. A crew member sews the infamous black flag.

Meanwhile, a pregnant Maria suffers the rejection of her family and community. She moves into a hut near Eastham on Marconi Beach, only coming out at night, and by all accounts, gives birth in the barn of a neighbor. When the baby dies, she’s taken to jail for pregnancy out of wedlock and neglect of the child. The jailer pities her and leaves the door open, not once but twice. Eventually, people leave her to her lonely life. Many speculate she becomes a witch. 

 

Is Sam coming back to save her? He’s fallen in with pirate Benjamin Hornigold and his first mate, none but Edward Teach, who is known for lighting his beard on fire during fights. But Hornigold won’t attack British ships, so the men of the ten-gun sloop Mary Ann mutiny and select Sam as their captain. Tall, spurning any wig to cover his dark hair, clad in a dark coat with four dueling pistols in his sash, he becomes known as “Black Sam, Prince of Pirates.” The band goes on to capture more than fifty vessels in the Caribbean and Atlantic. By February 1717, they had taken the twenty-six-gun Sultana and the Whydah, a 102-foot English slaver. Black Sam gives the captain of the Whydah the Sultana and twenty-five pounds of silver for surrendering without a fight. His motto: “I scorn to do anyone mischief when it is not to my advantage.” He makes the Whydah his flagship.

By April, Sam, now twenty-eight years old, is sailing north along the Atlantic coast. Along the way, his crew captures the pink Mary Anne and the sloop Fisher. The trio of ships press toward Cape Cod in dense fog, then a storm descends. Despite the danger, Sam stays close to land. Seeking port. Seeking Maria? But soon the clash of Arctic cold and Caribbean warmth make it impossible to return to sea, pushing them west. Seventy-mile-per-hour winds create swells of thirty feet. The dreaded cry rings out: “Breakers, breakers!”

Some people say they saw Maria Hallett standing on Marconi cliffs, calling curses down on the foundering Whydah. Or were they prayers? Learn more in March …
 

Model of the Whydah

Represented by Hartline Literary Agency, Denise Weimer holds a journalism degree with a minor in history from Asbury University. She’s a managing editor for the historical imprints of Lighthouse Publishing of the Carolinas and the author of almost a dozen published novels and a number of novellas. A wife and mother of two daughters, she always pauses for coffee, chocolate, and old houses. Denise's Website
 
To learn more/sources: Expedition Whydah by Barry Clifford; “The Wreck of the Whydah Gally,” The History Guy, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GZgf1j1n78

Islands of the Mississippi River

While writing my latest novel, I discovered my story needed an island on the Mississippi River big enough for a group of river pirates to hide out.

Are there any islands on the Mississippi River large enough live on permanently? Turns out the answer is yes. (I’m guessing some of you already knew this, but color me clueless!) Some islands have a history of providing safety, security, and trading opportunities for travelers while others harbored danger to all who drew near. And like the pirates in my story and the mist along the river, over long periods of time, these land masses come and go at will … and sometimes with a little help from the Army Corp of Engineers.

Bloody Island appeared in 1798. Situated opposite St. Louis, MO, the densely wooded island became the preferred meeting spot for duelists since it was not under Missouri or Illinois jurisdiction. After a few years, the growth of the island threatened the harbor of St. Louis. In 1837, the U.S. Army Engineers established a system of dikes and dams to wash out the western channel and join the island to the Illinois shore.

Farmland on Grand Tower Island in Missouri
By Nyttend - Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=29413915

Davis Island, located 20 miles southwest of Vicksburg, MS consists of 30,000 acres. Formerly a peninsula bounded on three sides by the Mississippi River, a shift in the river cut it off from the mainland in 1867. Owned by Jefferson Davis’ brother, the Davis family built two sprawling plantations on the island. After the Civil War, former plantation overseer Ben Montgomery and other freedmen leased the island and continued to operate a successful farming operation on the island before losing the lease in 1876 when crops failed due to catastrophic floods. Today, Davis Island is owned by the Brierfield Hunting Club, with access only by water.

Rock Island, (Arsenal Island) comprises 946 acres and is located on the Mississippi River between the cities of Davenport, Iowa, and Rock Island, Illinois. The Rock Island Arsenal is home of First Army headquarters. The island was originally established as a government site in 1816, with the building of Fort Armstrong. It is now the largest government-owned weapons manufacturing arsenal in the United States. 

The House-In-the-Woods, Campbell's Island, Illinois

At the turn-of-the last century, Campbell’s Island in Illinois was bought by a street-car company with the intentions of turning it into an amusement park. There were many summer cottages and The House-In-the-Woods, built in 1904, offered dining and concerts. Today, Campbell’s Island is home to a suburban community with many of the island homes built on stilts to withstand seasonal flooding.

Grand Tower Island is known for its prime farming land. Kaskaskia Island, with a population of 14 at the last census has seen its numbers swell to SEVEN THOUSAND in the past. Pike Island was an internment camp for more than 1600 Dakotas in 1862.

Kaskaskia Church, Kaskaskia, Illinois
By Charles Houchin - Own work, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3726290

And then there is Stack Island, located in north Mississippi, the island I based my fictional Cottonmouth Island on. Sometimes called the Crow’s Nest, Stack Island was notorious as a hideout for horse thieves, robbers, counterfeiters, and murderers. Samuel Mason and the Harpe brothers (Micaiah Jones from The Crossing at Cypress Creek is loosely modeled on the villainous Micajah Harpe) were among the vicious outlaws who frequented the Crow’s Nest.

Cave-In-Rock, Illinois
By Karl Bodmer - Maximilian, Prince of Wied’s Travels in the Interior of North America, during the years 1832–1834http://www.gallery.oldbookart.com/main.php?g2_itemId=30172, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=26707096

This is just a sampling of the twenty-four or so land masses on the Mississippi River that qualify as islands. I find the idea of island life on the Mississippi River fascinating! So, have you ever visited an island on the river? Or, be still my heart, lived on one?

Don't miss The Crossing at Cypress Creek, the third and final book in Pam Hillman's
The Natchez Trace Novel Series

CBA Bestselling author PAM HILLMAN was born and raised on a dairy farm in Mississippi and spent her teenage years perched on the seat of a tractor raking hay. In those days, her daddy couldn't afford two cab tractors with air conditioning and a radio, so Pam drove an Allis Chalmers 110. Even when her daddy asked her if she wanted to bale hay, she told him she didn't mind raking. Raking hay doesn't take much thought so Pam spent her time working on her tan and making up stories in her head. Now, that's the kind of life every girl should dream of. www.pamhillman.com

Smuggling in Cornwall, England

 by Laurie Alice Eakes

Smuggling in Cornwall, England

For some reason, since I've been reading romance novels, smugglers, like pirates, have been romanticized and are usually the hero of said romance novels. I think it’s the bad boy phenomenon. Contrary to these stories, however, smugglers, like pirates, were rarely good people. Usually, they were quite awful.

Any country with a lot of coast and a lot of taxes on imports is going to foster smuggling. England is no exception. England during the Napoleonic wars, saw an inordinate amount of smuggling because of so many goods simply not being available from continental Europe because of the war. People still wanted silk and brandy, lace and leather and wine. On the French side, English wool was heavily prized, along with some manufactured goods. The British might hate the French, but patriotism ceased when their luxury goods were denied to those who'd been able to afford them and lured those who couldn’t afford but wanted them. Therefore, smugglers enjoyed a lucrative trade from one side of the Channel to the other.

Carnglaze Caverns in Cornwall

Cornwall was no exception to this rule. In fact, Cornwall has more coast than other English counties. It sticks out between the Irish Sea and the English Channel, pointing its way into the Atlantic ocean with sea on three sides. Added to that, these coasts boast numerous creeks and inlets in which smuggling boats can hide. Best of all, the north coast of the county is riddled with caves. These caves are a rabbit warren of corridors and rooms, some carved by millennium of sea water eroding the granite, limestone, and other materials forming the rock, but also man-made passages from centuries of mining tin and copper.

Between a rather inhospitable coastline and a sea too immense to police with any effectiveness before radar and other technologies, smugglers could operate with impunity for years, decades, and sometimes a lifetime. They operated small, fast vessels they could run close to shore, sometimes even close enough to run right into a cave at high tide. Goods were offloaded and then hidden away in the caves before light. Morning found these men, women, and sometimes children, tucked up in their beds and nothing to show for a night’s work save a packet of duty-free tea on the back stoop of the landowner who allowed his beach to be used for landing.

In the Poldark series by Winston Graham (and filmed for PB
S) he makes out the smugglers to be mostly harmless locals trying to survive in hard times. In many ways, he was right. But the smugglers in Jamaica Inn by Daphne DuMaurier are more likely a correct interpretation, at least when it came to the leaders–dangerous and somewhat evil men with greed on their minds.

Because the penalty of smuggling was anywhere from jail, to transportation to a penal colony like Australia, to hanging, smugglers kept their illegal activity secret. They carried a code of don’t ask and tell at your own risk of death. If you snitched, you, or more likely, your family would suffer things like having one’s house burned down or even your family and/or yourself murdered. Yet it was a risk most inhabitants of poor areas took in order to feed their families or enjoy a little comfort in the lean months of winter. When mines closed, which was happening far too much in the Regency era, other jobs didn’t exist. Cornwall is a harsh and inhospitable land for farming. Fishing helped, but that, too, dried up at times.

In the lean times, authorities often turned a blind eye to smugglers. Sometimes the promise of free brandy, perhaps a length of silk for their lady, and cold, hard cash encouraged the “riding officers” (revenue or excise officers) to ignore the smuggling in their districts. At other times, however, an ambitious officer determined to catch the local gang and make a name for himself. Rarely did these encounters end well, and the smugglers weren’t always the losers.

Against this background of secrecy, murder, and greed along the north coast of Cornwall with all its cliffs and caves, rocky beaches and pounding surf, I set my next book, A Lady’s Honor, Zondervan/HCCP, April 22, 2014.

A Lady's Honor by Laurie Alice Eakes

So what do you think? Was smuggling to feed one’s family ever justifiable?

Barataria and the Louisiana Bayou

by Kathleen Y'Barbo

"Never approach, harass, or feed alligators. Remember they are wild animals and can move very quickly." This warning begins the Important Facts section of the National Historic Park and Preserve website for Louisiana's Barataria Preserve. Two hundred years ago, the same could be said for another group of residents of this southernmost stretch of Louisiana marshland and waterways, Jean Lafitte and his band of cohorts.

Were they pirates, these men who made their homes in the narrow channels and marshes where the Mississippi River emptied into the Gulf of Mexico? History says yes, although Lafitte often argued he and the others known as the Baratarians were merely sailing men with Letters of Marque from the Venezuelan government entitling them to call themselves privateers.

This license to hunt vessels from certain countries at odds with Venezuela meant nothing in the bayou, and yet it did provide at least some measure of excuse for these men to ply the brown waters of the Gulf. In league with such men as the Bowie brothers, one of whom--James--would die a hero at the Alamo, the Baratarians found success in providing citizens of New Orleans and points north with goods that otherwise might not be available. Where these goods originated, and whether their import was legal, were questions that were neither asked nor answered.

Any questions on how these Baratarians managed their exploits is easily answered with one view of the land where they carried on their activities. Where exactly is this place that hid pirates and Englishmen alike during the days leading up to the Battle of new Orleans in 1814?

Follow the Mississippi River past Baton Rouge and New Orleans, and the muddy water widens and rolls southward. Just before it empties into the Gulf of Mexico, it wraps around land that disappears with the tide only to reappear again when the water drains away. Before the advent of helicopters and speedboats, the only access many of the dwellers of the outer reaches of Barataria had was through ships sailing into the deeper channels and, failing that, the flat-bottomed boats called pirogues that could ply the narrowest and shallowest of streams. Even today, two hundred years after the Baratarians fled, or managed to hide deeper in the marshes as some legends go, there are places in these southernmost parishes that rarely see an outside visitor.


The Barataria Preserve offers a glimpse into these untouched places where alligators outnumber residents and pirates once roamed. Or were they merely businessmen in the employ of a foreign government? That depends on who you ask. What is true, however, is that a trip to the Barataria Region of Louisiana will leave the visitor with a greater appreciation of what life must have been like for these hardy settles two hundred years ago. If you believe the rumors, you may even stumble across some of Jean Lafitte's bounty. After all, stories abound of treasure left behind by the Baratarians in their haste to flee. Stories including my new novel Millie's Treasure, that is.

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Bestselling author Kathleen Y’Barbo is a Carol Award and RITA nominee of forty-nine novels with over one million copies of her books in print in the US and abroad and nominations including a Career Achievement Award, Reader’s Choice Awards, Romantic Times Book of the Year, and several Romantic Times Top Picks. A proud military wife and tenth-generation Texan, she now cheers on her beloved Aggies from north of the Red River. Find out more at www.kathleenybarbo.com.