Mary Read

Mary Read (unknown – 28 April 1721), fictionally known as Mark Read, was an actual English pirate about whom there is very little factual documentation. She and Anne Bonny were two famous female pirates from the 18th century, and among the few women known to have been convicted of piracy at the height of the "Golden Age of Piracy". Read was born in England between 1680 and 1693. Lore has it she began dressing as a boy at a young age, at first at her mother's urging in order to receive inheritance money and then as a teenager in order to join the British military. She then married and upon her husband's death moved to the West Indies around 1715. Circa 1720, she met Jack Rackham and joined his crew, dressing as a man alongside Anne Bonny. Her time as a pirate was successful but short lived, as she, Bonny and Rackham were arrested in November 1720. Rackham was executed, but Read and Bonny both claimed to be pregnant and received delayed sentences. Read died while imprisoned in April 1721. Early life Mary's mother had married a sailor, with whom she had a son. The husband then disappeared at sea. His mother then began to send her financial support for the boy. She soon became pregnant again by another man, hiding the shameful second pregnancy. Her son died, then she gave birth to a girl, Mary. To hide the shame, her mother passed young Mary off as her first and only child, the boy, to continue receiving support from the boy's grandmother. The grandmother was fooled, and they lived on her money as long as possible.