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about pirates without mentioning black Beard. A lot comes to mind when we think of the fierce rogues of the sea, plundering merchant ships, cannon fire, sword fighting, and tossing sailors from targeted ships overboard. And then there's the brogues and vernacular helped along by iconic performances by film actor Robert Newton, who himself portrayed Blackbeard, that inspired talk like a pirate day, And yet for all we know about pirates were still learning.

Blackbeard's origins are a mystery, though most historians agree he was born Edward Teach in Bristol, England, somewhere around Little is known about his youth, but by the time he was a young adult, international trade had grown into a highly profitable business, and with all that trade came plenty of opportunity for wealth. Unfortunately, wealth didn't trickle down to sailors and other ship hands. In fact, the paying conditions were downright deplorable. For most. Working on ships was dangerous

business even without the threat of piracy. There were storms, of course, and illnesses either from rats and fleas, spoiled food, dysentery, or any number of contagious diseases. Bloating merchandise and caring for the ships were labor intensive for many. An injury or about of sickness meant unemployment. Those who joined the British Army didn't fare much better. Meager pay, little chance of advancement, and poor work and living conditions drove some to look for a better way of life at sea,

namely on pirate ships. Those captains knew that a fair wage kept crew members loyal and hard working. Tired of trying to make a good living honestly, teach looked to piracy. There were no shortages of opportunity there, with increased trade to the American colonies and ships laden with valuable goods, Pirates quickly set up base camps along merchant roots. The teach found a job as a crewmate with Captain Benjamin

Hornigold out of the Caribbean in seventeen sixteen. After working his way up to quartermaster, he soon became captain of his own ship, a six gun sloop. In seventeen seventeen, he had two ships and over seventy crew members. British and French vessels made up most of the cruised targets. Blackbeard took their cargo and often released prisoners aboard slaver's

ships or took them on his crew. In November of seventeen seventeen, he took on two ships off the coast of St. Vincent and upgraded his sloop to a forty gun ship. He named the Queen Anne's Revenge and added another two and thirty men to his crew. Teach was not only good at pirrat ng, but he also excelled at marketing. You see, the more fierce and ruthless he appeared to be, the less his crew had to actually fight.

To help establish his reputation, he kidnapped and tortured Captain Henry bow Stock for a night after raiding his ship. Of course, the terrified hostage reported the ordeal to the Governor of what was then St. Christopher Island, a place now known simply as Saint KITT's. The report described to Teach as a tall and slender man with a long, dark black beard, which spurred the nickname Blackbeard. Sometimes he

braided his beard complete with blood red ribbons. He wore boots and long duster length coats, a large hat, and pistols on each hip. Sometimes he hung slow light matches from his tricorn or his beard, letting the sparks and smoke give him an even more menacing appearance. Perception was everything, and in the thick of battle, such an appearance made

others claim he was the devil incarnate. Before long, word about Blackbeard's ferocity traveled all along the coast and American seaboard, since most of the ships he preyed on delivered goods to the colonies, Ocracoke Island, off the coast of North Carolina provided the perfect hideaway. It was here that the

HMS Pearl tracked down the Queen Anne's Revenge. After a brief battle that saw the demise of twenty one crewmen aboard the Pearl, Blackbeard boarded the British ship, believing he had won the battle, he had walked into an ambush. The crew of both ships erupted into hand to hand combat. Blackbeard was killed, though it took five gunshots and sword injuries. The Pearls captain had the pirate's head severed and strung up on the bowsprint of the elongated spar on the

bow of the ship. Recently, historians and archivists uncovered new information on Blackbeard. Sure he had been a cunning strategist, a respected leader, and one of the most profitable and prolific pirates in his day, but he never personally killed anyone outside of battle. It seems his reputation for murder was undeserved. It should have gone to another group of pirates. Women. I'm Lauren Vogelbaum. Welcome to American Shadows. Women were bad

luck to have on board that east. That's what most pirates, including Blackbeard, believed, and Bonnie thought otherwise. Perhaps obviously, though, if she was the woman doing the rating, then for members of the targeted ship the superstition became fact. Her beginnings were as scandalous as her time at sea. She was born an Cormick near Cork, Ireland. Sometime around her father, William, was a lawyer who had married into a great deal of wealth. Any future children between the couple would want

for nothing. It seemed. The same couldn't be said of her father, though he wanted the housemaid Mary Brennan, and so began their affair. Not long afterward, Mrs Cormick discovered the betrayal, mostly because the housemaid was pregnant, and there were two choices in society. Then give the child to a foundling home and keep the maid, or keep the child and dismiss the maid. Her father chose neither. Instead, he chose the young maid over his wife. As you

might imagine, his wife divorced him for infidelity. William responded by suing his wealthy wife for an allowance to keep him and his pregnant mistress in a certain lifestyle, and his lack of decency didn't fare well with his clients, however, and he lost both his wealth and his business. He moved his new family to London, where he tried to

start a new law practice. He often brought his daughter to work with him, and in an attempt to keep his disgraced past from following him, he dressed her as a boy and told clients she belonged to a relative. When Anne's true parentage and story came to light, William's business failed once more. Now flat broke, the family decided to make a fresh start in the colonies. They settled in Charlestown later renamed Charleston in what's now South Carolina.

As part of their new start, William gave up law for the trading business. The career change paid off, and soon he earned his own wealth. The money allowed him to give his daughter the best education and to ensure she very well. He insisted she learned to sing, dance, and sew Anne didn't enjoy having to be very ladylike, much to her father's dismay, and said her temper matched her fiery red hair. When Anne turned thirteen, her mother died from typhoid. The rift between father and daughter grew

increasingly wide. Over the next few years. There were rumors that Anne took a knife to a servant girl during a disagreement. Other stories say that at sixteen, she beat an attempted rapist badly enough that he needed medical attention, and became even more rebellious. In her later teen years. She frequented taverns and didn't abide by society's double standards when it came to relationships, her reputation took a toll

on William's business. In an attempt to save his and his daughter's reputations both, he betrothed her to a local high society man who found her beauty and fiery attitude captivating and didn't like the arrangement much. It's not clear if she tried to set her father's plantation on fire before the betrothment or afterward, or even whether that particular story is true. In any case, Needless to say, the engagement was off in an act of defiance. When she

turned twenty and married James Bonnie. He was not only poor, but held a profession in conflict with her father's trading business. You see, James was a pirate. William disowned his daughter. After that, The newly Wets moved to Nasa on New Province Island in seventeen eighteen. The Bahamas was sanctuary for buccaneers. The English even called it the Republic of Pirates. Ann and James were happy with their marauding lifestyle right up

until a new governor arrived later that year. What's Rogers made it his mission to rid the Bahamas of its seedy reputation. He convinced James to become an informant. His information led to the capture and hanging of several pirate crews, and Bonnie had lived by the pirate code that pirates stuck together. Unable to see passed her husband's disloyalty, she lost all respect for him, while James spent time with

the Governor and spent time in the local taverns. There, she met Captain John Rackham, known as Calico Jack for the clothes he wore. He sailed on the sloop named the Ranger, targeting ships between Jamaica and Cuba. He and his men had once abandoned their ship after stealing a Spanish warship. English troops fired their cannons at the Ranger, believing the pirates were still aboard. Meanwhile, Captain Jack and his men casually sailed past them on the Spanish vessel.

But like her husband, Calico Jack had since given up piracy and had received a party. Unlike her husband, he still held to the code. He didn't work as an informant or turn in his fellow pirates. He was instantly taken by Anne's beauty and disposition He was equally impressed with the name she had made for herself as a capable pirate in her own right. A fierce fighter, she proved as good as any man with a pistol or sword. Chemistry and a similar style in past drew the two together,

and before long they became an item. It didn't take long for James to find out about the affair. Furious, he brought her before the governor, who ordered her wit for adultery. Calico Jack offered James money if he had divorced Anne and free her to marry him instead. That didn't go over well, and James threatened to beat the life out of Jack if he set foot near his wife again, but to do that he would have to catch them first. Since James wouldn't grant Anna divorce, Calico

Jack had a solution. Returned to a life of piracy and take Anne with him, and in August of they hired a crew of their own and stole a sloop with four cannons and two swivel guns. It's not clear if the two renamed the ship or if it was a coincidence, but the sloop bore her father's name, the William, and just like that, Calico Jack and Anne Bonnie slipped out of port and set sail for Jamaica. Yes, it

was breaking the rules, but Calico Jack didn't care. While most pirates agreed that no women were to be allowed aboard, he was more than happy to have Anne Bonnie at his side. She fought as well as any of his men, and beyond that, he loved her deeply. Only one crew member voiced his opinion about having a woman on board. Anne ran a blade through his heart. No one else objected.

From then on, the superstition was prominent in England and elsewhere, but as Anne pointed out, Viking women had often served alongside the men as raiders. Of course, when caught, they also received the same punishment. Just like their Viking counterparts, the same fate awaited women pirates. While the threat of death and ruling work might have scared most women away and thrived on the adventure, word of her courage and ferocity spread, making her one of the most feared on

the seas. She never withheld, but she was a woman, not to the crew, not to the men on the ships they plundered. In battle, Anne kept a sword on one hip, a pistol on the other. She wore a cap to keep her long hair from her eyes, and boots pants, and a loose tunic that didn't hide her chest. She also delighted in letting any man who challenged her in a duel know that they were about to be bested by a woman. Some stories claimed she showed them

her breast before running them through. Others say there's a proof of that. She was more than just a superior fighter, though, and taking a page from Blackbeard's methods of intimidation and came up with an idea to scare targets into instant submission. She took a dressmaker's mannequin and strategically applied fake blood. As the William approached their targeted ship, Anne would hold

an axe above the fake corpse. If the men aboard the other ship thought women were kind and nurturing, the act terrified them into surrendering their cargo without a fight. Such was the case when the crew came across a Dutch merchant ship near the Caribbean. They raided the ship and along with the cargo, they took a prisoner, an Englishman named Mark Read. Anne took a liking to the young prisoner and convinced him to join them as part of the crew. The friendship quickly grew between the two

and one night and attempted to seduce him. That's when Mark announced and proved that he was a she. Her real name, aime was Mary Read, and she had been dressing as a man most all her life. She told Anne how that came to be, and as it turned out, the women shared a similar past. Mary's mother had had an affair and become pregnant with her while her husband was at sea. He died soon after and never learned

his wife had a daughter with another man. He also didn't know that his own young infant son had also died. Desperate for money, Mary's mother passed her off as her deceased half brother to keep money coming in from the husband's mother's family. It didn't take long before the truth was discovered, leaving Mary and her mother on their own. When she was young, her mother continued to dress her as a boy, often renting her out as a child's

servant for extra money. At thirteen, her mother died, leaving her an orphan. Suitable work for women that also paid a living wage was unheard of, and there was nothing for young girls, so she dressed as a an and applied for work at the docks. Her act successfully fooled the crew of a British Man of war, and she began work manning the ship's artillery guns. From there, she joined the military and served in both the infantry and cavalry. Not long after, she fell in love with her bunk mate.

They left the military and the two wet, choosing to open an inn near Breda, a small town in the southwestern Netherlands. Unfortunately, he died and Mary had little choice but to find work elsewhere. Disguised as a man again, she found work on a Dutch merchant ship, as it turned out, the very ship Calico Jack had captured. Anne kept Mary's secret in battle, she was equally as ruthless.

The close relationship between the two sparked jealousy with Calico Jack, and one night he confronted Anne and the young sailor. After threatening to cut her new lover's throat, the women told him the truth. Seeing Mary's worth as a pirate, he agreed to keep her on the crew. Throughout the summer of seventeen twenty, the pirates continued their raids. They plundered seven fishing boats and two sloops. The women were treated as equals, and Anne led arraid against a schooner.

She and Mary fired at the other crew as they boarded, cursing and swearing as they rummaged through the ship. By now, the women had become more famous than their captain. The Boston Globe even ran an article detailing their exploits, and they were merciless and cunning, able to best most men in battle. Instead of feeling threatened, though, Halcojack embraced their fame. Yet A flag created and hung on the William in honor of the two, a skull over two crossed swords.

The swords represented Anne and Mary. Over two hundred and eighty years later, that same flag flew on another pirate ship, the Black Pearl, in the movie Pirates of the Caribbean. Throughout the summer of seventeen any life was good aboard the William. Anne couldn't have been happier. She had a man she loved, pirrat ng and a friend or perhaps more, depending on the source who mirrored her precociousness. Mary also

found love with a carpenter aboard the ship. A while in port, a pirate challenged him to a duel and Mary, ever ready for battle, stepped in and ran the challenger through. In September, Woods Rogers declared the crew aboard the William enemies to the Crown of Great Britain, and while he usually named male pirates, the Nassau Governor specifically called out Anne, Bonnie and Mary read. The crew now had a bounty on their heads and it wouldn't be long before privateers

and warships tried to collect the reward. But for Anne, Mary and the rest of the crew, things were about to go south. They partied all night. On October twenty second, the crew spent most of the evenings celebrating near a sand swept beach in Jamaica. Earlier in the day, they had come across a smaller ship with nine other pirates aboard. The members of both crews drank rum in earnest ironically in dry harbor. After having their fill, the other pirates

moved on Calico. Jack and his crew had had a successful run, and though they had a target on their heads and felt invincible, despite the Nassau Governor's determination to rid the Caribbean of pirates, the process had been slow. There were somewhere between five hundred to a thousand still in the area Anne. Aside from Anne's husband, few had tarned informed. Now, with midnight drawing near, Anne and Mary sat alone on the deck. The men were sleeping off

their over indulgence in the hammocks and beds below. The women didn't think the entire crew getting drun had been the best of ideas. With everyone inebriated, they were vulnerable to attack. Their worst fears were realized when they caught a glimpse of a large sloop approaching in the darkness. They called out for the men, but none replied. Within minutes, Anne and Mary realized the other ship wasn't another pirates or merchant's vessel. The sloop belonged to the Jamaican Governor's fleet.

The women concluded that an informant must have seen them drop Anchor earlier and gone straight to the authorities. Pirates weren't the only ones who knew that ambushing ships at night had a strong advantage. The women shouted down to the men again. This time a few responded, including Calico Jack. By the time they staggered to the deck, the other sloop had pulled alongside them. The captain, Jonathan Barnett hailed them, asking for the name of their leader. Calico Jack told

the truth Captain Rackham from Cuba. Barnett shouted back, ordering the pirates to surrender. There the other sloop was bigger, but in his drunken stupor, Calico Jack might have thought that just made it a larger target. Without a word, he answered Barnett's request by firing a swivel gun at them. Not drunk and with more cannons, Barnett returned fire, taking out the Williams boom. Feeling out gunned, out numbered, and probably still too drunk to fight, Calico Jack signaled his

surrender and called to quarter. Without any resistance. His equally intoxicated men followed orders. There was a problem, though, Anne and Mary refused to go down without a fight. They could die standing as pirates, or die hanging. The women chose to keep on their feet. With the william disabled, Barnett's men boarded. Anne and Mary, drew their swords and stood back to back covering each other. They fought off all attempts to subdue them. The few crewmates on deck,

too drunk to do much, were instantly overtaken. Disgusted with the men's lack of assistance, Mary shouted down into the hold for the rest of the crew, saying that if there was any men among them that had come up and fight like men. When one finally managed to clamber up the stairs to see why there was so much yelling, Mary shot and killed him. Barnett's men overwhelmed the women and arrested them with the rest of the crew. Before daybreak.

The pirates found themselves behind bars at Spanish Town, Jamaica, awaiting trial. The nine other men who had been drinking with the crew of the William had also been caught and were tried. Six were executed. The fate of the remaining three is unknown as for the rest of Anne and Mary's crew. They pled guilty to piracy and were sentenced to hang. The women, however, pleaded not guilty to

the charge of piracy. They claimed that although they had accompanied the crew, they weren't pirates, and by law there plea earned them a trial. British Knight and Jamaican governor Nicholas Laws, who Captain Barnett worked for, would preside as one of the judges. The trial began with testimony from a schooner captain who had had the misfortune of meeting the crew of the William. According to him, the women were not only on board, they had led the men

in raiding his ship. Two frenchmen testified next they had been hunting bore off Hispaniola Island when the pirates kidnapped them. Both identified Anne and Mary as part of that crew. The women weren't passively traveling with the pirates, they said. During their captivity, they had witnessed both women supplied the men with gunpowder and joined them on raids. They told the judges the women weren't forced or detained, and kept the company with the pirates of their own free will.

A third witness said he and his crew were attacked and brought aboard the William. He noted that Anne wore a pistol. Both women, he said, swore as much as any of the crew and appeared willing to do anything asked of them. After robbing them of their personal effects, the pirates had put them back on shore and stolen his ship. Finally, a woman took the stand. She had been in a canoe filled with provisions calico. Jackana's men had stolen everything she owned. She too, identified Anne and

Mary as being part of that crew. The women had worn trousers and bandanas around their heads and carried machetes. She told the court. After the crew had robbed her, the women had sworn at the men, encouraging them to kill her so that she couldn't testify against them. Later, the judges asked Anne and Mary if they had any witnesses. No, they responded. Judge Laws asked if they had anything to say that the court might use to spare their lives. Again,

they answered that they did not. Laws called the trial to a close, announcing that Anne and Mary would be hung by the neck until dead. The women were tossed back into jail to await the gallows, but soon enough the women discovered there was something that might spare them. They were both pregnant. Before his execution, Calico Jack asked for one last thing, to see Anne a final time. The court obliged, and guards led her to his cell. She stood calmly, telling him she was truly sorry that

he was there. She was sorry they were all there, really, and it was his fault. The story goes that she told him, if you'd fought like a man, you wouldn't hang like a doll, before walking off On November eighth, seventeen twenty, Calko Jack hung for his crimes of piracy in Port Royal. After the hanging, his body was enclosed in a cage and placed in public view, called gibbeting.

The practice was meant to discourage others from piracy. Today, the location of his execution is named after him, Rackham's k Within days, the rest of the men of the crew met the same fate. Anne and Mary's announcement that they were quick with child caused a delay in determining the date of their executions. After an examination, the pregnancies were confirmed, the court agreed to delay their executions until they gave birth. The women couldn't leave the jail, though

in conditions for childbirth were less than sterile. Mary Read became ill and died from complications during childbirth on April seventeen, twenty one. Some historians believe that she and her child are buried somewhere in Jamaica, though no official records exist. There's also no record of Anne Bonnie's execution. No records exist of her release either. While it's a mystery what

really happened, there are theories. Some believe she died of disease on December twenty nine, thirty three, while still waiting for her execution. But there's another theory. The merchant ships in Jamaica traveled extensively to South Carolina. A word of her capture and pending execution may have reached her wealthy father, who had plenty of influence in the trade business, or he might have paid to have her smuggled out of

prison and brought back to the colonies. From there, Anne Bonnie may have moved to Virginia and married, and some tales say she had six children and lived a long life, never again returning to the sea and eventually dying an old woman with plenty of tales to tell. There's an old saying that goes something like this, you are in death as you are in life, and for Anne Bonnie, it couldn't have been more true, because she was a

legend in both. There's more to this story. Stick around after this brief sponsor break to hear all about it. In seventeen sixty, Rachel Schmidt was born in Pennsylvania to devout Presbyterians. Her parents were farmers, and like most others in the trade, they barely made enough money to make ends. Meet. Open fields, crops and livestock didn't interest Rachel, though, according to her journal, she left home at sixteen in search

of a more exciting life. Rachel soon fell in love with the water and spent much of her time around Lake Erie Harbor. But a group of local girls didn't like the farm girl newcomer and attacked her. A young man named George Wall saw the assault and rescued her, and so began their romance. Ray Chill became smitten with the young fisherman, and despite her family's concerns, the two soon married. They left Pennsylvania and traveled to New York

for a while before settling down in Boston. There, George took a job on a fishing schooner. While he was out at sea, Rachel earned money working as a mate on Beacon Hill. Her husband became friends with his crewmates, and she became friends with their wives. Though she missed him during his fishing trips, she wrote in her journal that she lived a contented life. After one of his trips, George convinced her to leave her job and come with him and five other sailors. He could make more money

raiding ships than working on them. He explained. She agreed, and the group stole a ship named the Essex. In such a small ship and crew would hardly intimidate anyone, so they needed a different plan. What they came up with was simple, yet brilliant. The crew sailed around the shoals just after bad weather. There they would disguise the Essex to appear as though it had been damaged in the store. Rachel would stand on the deck all alone

and call to passing ships for help. Seeing a young pretty damsel in distress worked flawlessly, sailors were more than happy to come to a rescue. Once the other ship would dock to the Essex, the men would rush up from below deck and subdue the would be rescuers. The ploy was so successful that the small band of pirates brobbed twelve ships and netted over six thousand dollars worth of merchandise. That's about a hundred and fifteen thousand today.

And if you're wondering how only five men could overpower a larger ship's crew, they didn't. After taking the men by surprise, they killed them. If the ship appeared to have too many men aboard, the pirates pretended to be passengers on the ill fated Essex and waited until night to raid the ship and dispatch the crew members. During a storm in seventeen eighty two, George made a poor navigation error and the Essex capsized. Only a couple of

the crew survived, Rachel being one of them. George wasn't so lucky, He drowned without a ship or captain. The survivors went back to Boston. Rachel returned to work as a maid. She struggled to earn enough to live on and so returned to a life of crime. She stole from doctor ships in the harbor and their sailors. She was arrested several times for petty theft, once after stealing from Perez Morton, a revolutionary patriot and good friend of John Adams. She wrote that during the spring she snuff

on board a ship at Long Wharf. While the captain and mate slept, she hunted for items of value. She found a black silk handkerchief under the captain's head, plus several crowns and other coins, as well as gold. Her reputation for theft at the docks grew, making it harder to get away undetected. One incident turned deadly, and Rachel decided to steer clear of the harbor for a while.

On March eighteenth of seventy nine, she was arrested for a crime she claimed to have never committed, the stealing from a seventeen year old woman during a highway robbery. Margaret. The young victim, claimed that Rachel stole her bonnet, shoes, and buckles before beating her and trying to rip out her tongue. She pleaded innocent to that crime, but finally admitted to her acts of piracy, though she insisted she

had never killed anyone. It's unclear how the court tied her to piracy unless they read her journal, of course. She was found guilty of her crimes and sentenced to death by hanging. On Thursday, October eight seventy nine. Rachel stood at the gallows on Boston Common before a crowd of thousands who had come to watch a female pirate hang. She issued a word of warning, don't follow in my footsteps, she said. In her final words, Rachel committed her soul

to God and asked for his mercy. As the executioner placed the noose over her head, she told the crowd she would die an unworthy member of the Presbyterian Church. Aside from being one of the few American women to become a pirate, Rachel Ward was also the last woman to be hanged in Massachusetts. American Shadows as hosted by

Lauren Vogelbaum. This episode was written by Michelle Muto, researched by Ali Steed, and produced by Miranda Hawkins and Trevor Young, with executive producers Aaron Mackey, Alex Williams, and Matt Frederick. To learn more about the show, visit Grim and Mild dot com. From more podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. H