This series of trading cards was distributed in Allen & Ginter cigarette packs in 1888. Included in the series were cards for Anne Bonny, Jack Rackam, and Mary Read. According to the biographies on the back, which seem to be based on John SC Abbott, Anne married Jack and disguised herself as his cabin boy.… Continue reading Pirates of the Spanish Main
Category: 1880s
The Naval History of the United States by Willis J. Abbot
The first chapter of this book covers buccaneers and pirates of the 17th and 18th centuries. Right in the middle of a story about Captain Kidd, Abbot takes a hard turn out of nowhere to mention that Anne Bonny and Mary Read "often" hung out in Madagascar. He says that the gender bending crush was… Continue reading The Naval History of the United States by Willis J. Abbot
Mary Read, the Pirate.
This article appeared in All the Year Round on October 4, 1884. The uncredited writer immediately invokes Joan of Arc and insists that Mary was "far removed from ordinary malefactors". On the other hand, Anne Bonny was "unredeemed by a spark of the nobility and self-devotion which lift Mary Read out of the ranks of… Continue reading Mary Read, the Pirate.
Depictions of John Rackam, Anne Bonny, and Mary Read 