Cheng I Sao
History’s most influential raiders, she began her career in a Chinese brothel &married a powerful corsair named Cheng I in 1801. The duo soon raised one of China’s most formidable pirate armies. Upon her husband’s death in 1807, Mrs. Cheng partnered with a trusted lieutenant and lover named Chang Pao. Over the next few years, she plundered her way across Southeast Asia and assembled a fleet that rivaled many countries’ navies. She penned a rigorous code of conduct for her pirates. Rape of female prisoners was punishable by beheading, and deserters had their ears lopped off. Mrs. Cheng’s bloody reign made her public enemy number one of the Chinese government, and in 1810, the British and Portuguese navies were enlisted to bring her to justice. Rather than duking it out at sea, she shrewdly agreed to surrender her fleet and lay down her cutlass in exchange for the right to keep her ill-gotten riches.
Anne Bonny:
Anne Bonny was the illegitimate daughter of a wealthy Irish lawyer and her father had her dress a boy and pose as his law clerk for part of her youth. She later moved to America, where she married a sailor in 1718 and journeyed to the pirate-infested island of New Providence in the Bahamas. There, she abandoned her husband and fell under the spell of “Calico” Jack Rackam, a flamboyant buccaneer who plied his trade in the Caribbean.She later forged a friendship with fellow female pirate Mary Read, and the pair played a leading role in a spree of raids against small fishing boats and trading sloops in the summer and fall of 1720. Bonny’s stint on the high seas was cut short that October, when Calico Jack’s ship was captured by a band of pirate-hunters. Calico Jack and several other men were executed, but Bonny and Read dodged the nose after they were both found to be pregnant.
Mary Read:
Mary Read spent most of her youth disguised as her deceased half-brother so that her penniless mother could scam the boy’s grandmother. Hoping to quench her thirst for adventure, she later adopted the name Mark Read and took on a succession of traditionally male jobs, first as a soldier and later as a merchant sailor. Read turned pirate in the late-1710s, after buccaneers attacked the ship she was working on and impressed her into their ranks. She later found her way aboard Calico Jack Rackam’s boat, where she met and befriended Anne Bonny and revealed herself to be a woman.Read only sailed with Calico Jack for a few months, but during that time she won a fearsome reputation. One of her most famous exploits came in October 1720, when she and Bonny fought like banshees during an attack by pirate-hunters. “If there’s a man among ye,” she supposedly screamed at the male buccaneers cowering below decks, “ye’ll come up and fight like the man ye are to be!” Despite Read’s heroics, she and the rest of Calico Jack’s crew were captured and charged with piracy. Read avoided execution by admitting she was “quick with child,” but she later came down with a fever and died in prison.
Grace O’Malley:
O’Malley was born into a powerful clan that lorded over the coastlines of western Ireland. After taking the reigns in the 1560s, she continued a family tradition of piracy by plundering English and Spanish shipping vessels and attacking rival chieftains. Her escapades were legendary—one tale claims she did battle at sea only a day after giving birth—but they also drew the ire of the authorities. She was forced to repel a siege against her stronghold at Rockfleet Castle in 1574, and later did 18 months behind bars after she was captured during one of her raids.During a famous royal audience in London, O’Malley portrayed herself as a tired and broken old woman and begged the Queen to return her ships, release one of her captured sons and allow her to retire in peace
Rachel Wall:
She was one of the first and only American women to try her hand at piracy- A Pennsylvania native who ran away from home as a teen and married a fisherman named George Wall. The couple settled in Boston and tried to scrape out a living, but constant money problems eventually led them to turn to a life of crime. In 1781, the Walls procured a small boat, teamed with a few low-life mariners and began preying on ships off the coast of New England. Their strategy was as ingenious as it was brutal. Whenever a storm passed through the region, the buccaneers would dress their boat up to look like it had been ravaged by rough seas. The comely Rachel would then stand on the deck and plead for aid from passing ships. When the unsuspecting rescuers came near, they were promptly boarded, robbed and murdered.While in prison, she penned a confession admitting to “Sabbath-breaking, stealing, lying, disobedience to parents, and almost every other sin a person could commit, except murder.” Unfortunately for Wall, the mea culpa was not enough to sway the authorities. On October 8, she became the last woman ever executed in Massachusetts when she was hanged to death in Boston
By: Archa Dave
