Pirates by Franklin Clarkin

This was published in the 1916 edition of The Reade Record, an annual publication of the Reade Society for Genealogical Research. Clarkin writes about being in correspondence with Civil War veteran Henry Clay Wood, who had “come to assume” he was descended from Anne Bonney. The basis of the assumption is not provided, and it isn’t clear if the research is Wood’s or Clarkin’s own, but Clarkin writes that Wood had collected information from “the Groller Club’s recent assembling of old pirate records” (the Grolier Club?).

Clarkin writes that Anne’s parents got married in Carolina and grew tobacco. Anne’s father required her to grow up well-mannered, although she was a tomboy. Clarkin leaves out James and says that Anne’s father disapproved of her relationship with John Rackam, whom he calls her husband, and he says that Bonney was her maiden name. Clarkin’s obscure description of Jack is “English, rather casual, measurably good-humored and sociable”, and Anne continues pursuing him to annoy her father. They build a cabin in the Bahamas and have a baby. Jack’s work at sea results in periods of separation, so Anne moves into his ship, leaving the baby behind. Clarkin says that Anne did not swear but invented her own expletives. Ok.

Clarkin says that the story of Anne Bonney and Mary Read is too outrageous for fiction and “Even the movies would hesitate” to adapt it, because “There are some things readers of fiction won’t stand for.” He doesn’t specify exactly what. Mary goes by the name Frank (and for some reason, Charles Vane becomes William Vane). Her mother had been getting a crown a week for her son from the grandma before Mary was born. Mary works for the French lady until the French lady dies. She fights at Malplaquet and Mons. She and Anne are on Jack’s ship when he argues with and splits from Charles/William, and they are with him when his crew comes in for pardons. Clarkin acknowledges that this timeline is contradicted by Johnson’s statement that Jack and Anne meet in Providence after he is pardoned.

This article takes a somewhat critical view of Anne whom Clarkin describes as “a wispy, whirlwind of a woman” who, having been raised on a plantation worked by slaves, continues to believe “the well born should be nourished by the fruits of lesser people”–that is in quotations but is not attributed to anyone. Anne and Mary are both pardoned, but only Mary’s reprieve is for being pregnant. Anne is let off for being a woman and because of her dad’s friends’ interventions.