Mary Read: Kicking Booty

The early history of Mary Read is vague despite her trailblazing the oceans under the name Mark Read.  Research shows she was born in England around 1695 until her entombment on April 28, 1721 in St. Catherine, Jamaica.  Eighteenth century England is notoriously famous for its restrictions on the roles of women, but Mary Read paved her way onto the crew of infamous John "Calico Jack" Rackham to become one of the few female pirates history recognizes.  Most information about Read's early years comes from A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pyrates.  Although not a highly reputable book, it gives insight into Read's childhood and the origins of her cross-dressing ways. 

Mary Read's mother was abandoned by her husband after the arrival of a son.  Mary was born from her mother's affair with a sailor after her step-father left.  When her half-brother died, she was dressed in men's clothing in order to receive financial support from the brother's paternal grandmother.  While the ruse was successful, Mary continued to dress as a male even after the grandmother's death. 

Read, still dressed as a man, eventually served in the British military and fought in the War of the Spanish Succession.  She later married another soldier after revealing her sex, and she returned to wearing feminine clothes until her husband's death.  Donning men's clothes once more, she left for the military, setting sail on a ship headed for the West Indies.  Under siege of pirates, Mary was forced to join the crew until a royal edict pardoned pirates who willingly surrendered. 

Read spent a small portion of her life in the role of a female.  She avoided all the typical duties of women in the eighteenth century and instead spent her time fighting and pirating the seas.  According to "The Proceedings of the Old Bailey," a website focused on London's Central Criminal Court from 1674 to 1913, "Women's public roles were generally confined to the exercise of their moral and domestic virtues through participation in religion and charity."  Women were limited in both personal and public realms of life, and Read defied her expectations by taking the reigns of her life and steering it into the world of male freedoms. 

Volunteering aboard Calico Jack's pirate ship signaled Read's departure from her now-mundane, pardoned life.  Alongside one of the other most famous female pirates, Anne Bonny, they embraced the masculine role in battle and resorted to reverting to female roles when in danger.  When their ship was overtaken, the male crew members were tried and hanged, but Read and Bonny's pregnancy protected them from execution. 

Christine Mae Hernandez, published in the Vanderbilt Undergraduate Research Journal, discusses the significance of Read's actions through the lens of sexual equality.  The male sailors accompanying Read and Bonny held no qualm with their female crew members.  Hernandez says in "Forging an Iron Woman," "Pirates fought more for freedom and equality than they did for treasure" (1).  Read found the male freedoms she desired in the company of a crew who paid no heed to the prescribed gender and race limitations associated with the time period.  Read's actions gave her credibility, and her ability to match wits with male counterparts shows a significant historical moment when women were able to be treated equally, hundreds of years before society gave in to feminist desires for equality.


Works Cited

Emsley, Clive, et al. “The Proceedings of the Old Bailey.” Historical Background - Gender in the Proceedings - Central Criminal Court, www.oldbaileyonline.org/static/Gender.jsp#genderroles.

Hernandez, Christine Mae. “Forging an Iron Woman: On the Effects of Piracy on Gender in the 18th Century Caribbean.” Vanderbilt Undergraduate Research Journal, vol. 5, 2009, doi:10.15695/vurj.v5i0.2812.

“Mary Read.” Crime Museum, Crime Museum LLC, www.crimemuseum.org/crime-library/international-crimes/mary-read/.

Tikkanen, Amy. “Mary Read.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 15 Sept. 2017, www.britannica.com/biography/Mary-Read.