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Anne Bonny

Also recorded as: Ann Bonny; Ann Bonn / alias Bonn (1721 trial print, body); Anne Bonny, alias Bonn (1721 trial print, title leaf); Ann Fulford alias Bonny (Rogers' proclamation, 1720); Sarah Bonny (London Post-Boy, likely conflation); Anne Cormac (modern, invented in Carlova 1964)

Born: unknown (Johnson's c. 1698 Cork birth is uncorroborated) Died: undocumented (candidate burial "Ann Bonny", 29 December 1733, St Catherine, Jamaica)

Documented member of John Rackham's crew, 1720; tried and convicted at Spanish Town, reprieved on pleading pregnancy; later life undocumented.

Engraved plate showing two women standing on a shore, each in a jacket and long loose trousers, long hair falling over their shoulders. The figure on the left holds a drawn sword in one hand and an axe in the other; the figure on the right carries an axe over her shoulder and a sword at her side. Anchored sailing ships lie on the water behind them, the corner is marked Pag 157, and the engraver's signature B. Cole sculp sits at the foot.
"Ann Bonny and Mary Read convicted of Piracy Novr. 28th. 1720" Engraved plate from Johnson's General History (London, 1724), signed "B. Cole sculp"; the title above is the book's own caption. An artefact of the legend, not a likeness of either woman. From Johnson's General History, London, 1724.

The earliest datable trace of Anne Bonny is a governor's proclamation declaring her a pirate. Woodes Rogers issued it in September 1720, and the Boston Gazette reprinted it in the issue of 10 to 17 October 1720, naming "Ann Fulford alias Bonny" among John Rackham's company. The surname Fulford is otherwise unexplained. Two months later she stood trial for her life.

She was taken with the rest of Rackham's company off western Jamaica in late October 1720 and tried at St Jago de la Vega on 28 November 1720, with Mary Read. The title leaf of the printed trial reads "Mary Read and Anne Bonny, alias Bonn"; the body spells her "Ann Bonny, alias Bonn" throughout. Both women pleaded not guilty. The witnesses fixed what they did aboard. Dorothy Thomas, robbed in her canoe, deposed that the two wore "Mens Jackets, and long Trouzers, and Handkerchiefs tied about their Heads", that each "had a Machet and Pistol in their Hands", and that they "cursed and swore at the Men, to murther the Deponent"; she knew them for women "by the largeness of their Breasts". The French prisoners John Besneck and Peter Cornelian testified that the women were "very active on Board, and willing to do any Thing", that Bonny "handed Gun-powder to the Men", and that they acted "of their own Free-Will and Consent". No witness described either woman firing a gun or fighting hand to hand.

Page 18 of the pamphlet. Dense letterpress text records the depositions: Dorothy Thomas on the two women in men's jackets and long trousers, then Thomas Spenlow, then the two French witnesses John Besneck and Peter Cornelian sworn through the interpreter Simon Clarke, then Thomas Dillon.
Page 18: the witnesses The evidence against the two women, given in a single sitting. Every deposition that describes Bonny and Read at first hand sits on this page. Facsimile page, National Library of Jamaica copy, Public Domain Mark.

Both were found guilty on the third and fourth articles and sentenced to death. After sentence, as the print records, "both the Prisoners inform'd the Court, that they were both quick with Child", and the court ordered execution respited "and that an Inspection should be made". The pamphlet never returns to them. It records no result of the inspection, no reprieve and no later hearing. Anne Bonny was not among the eleven men executed in November 1720, and there the contemporary record of her lets go.

What became of her

Her fate is unknown. Johnson closed his own account by admitting he could not say what became of her, only that she was not executed. No burial or death record has been confirmed. The strongest candidate is a St Catherine parish burial of an "Ann Bonny" on 29 December 1733, in the same Spanish Town parish that holds Mary Read's 1721 burial. The identification rests on the name, the spelling and the parish, nothing more. The entry gives no age, no family and no reference to the trial, and a separate Bonny family appears in the same registers. It is a candidate, not an ending.

The invented biography

Almost everything usually told about Anne Bonny's life before 1720 comes from one book, Johnson, General History, Vol. 1 (1724): a birth near Cork, an attorney father, a maidservant mother, emigration to Carolina, a first marriage to a sailor named James Bonny, the move to Nassau, the romance with Rackham. None of it is corroborated by a document. Irish births were not civilly registered until 1864, and no baptism has been found. The parental names now repeated as fact, "William Cormac" and "Peg Brennan", are not in Johnson at all. They were invented for John Carlova's 1964 novel Mistress of the Seas. The same novel is the source of the story that she lived to old age in America and died about 1782, a claim traced to genealogy that has been shown to be false.

The famous parting line, that had Rackham fought like a man he need not have hanged like a dog, is Johnson's, not the court's. So is the scene in which the two women alone stand and fight the boarders while the men hide below. The trial print carries neither. What it carries is enough: a woman armed, willing and unforced, condemned and then reprieved by a pregnancy the court never resolved on paper.

Connections

Evidence behind this record

  • Rackham's company stole the sloop William, about twelve tons, owner John Ham, out of Nassau harbour on 22 August 1720, with Anne Bonny and Mary Read aboard. Highly Probable Proclamation (via contemporary reprint): Woodes Rogers' proclamation, reprinted in the Boston Gazette 10-17 October 1720; known from later carriers; the original issue is not in evidence
  • The proclamation named the company pirates, including "Ann Fulford alias Bonny" and Mary Read (no alias); the Boston Gazette reprint of 10-17 October 1720 is the earliest datable naming of the two women. Highly Probable Proclamation (via contemporary reprint): Boston Gazette 10-17 October 1720; the original issue is not in evidence
  • Barnet's sloop took the William off western Jamaica near Negril Point in late October 1720. Governor Lawes' letter of 13 November 1720 suggests a capture around 30 October; the frequently cited 22 October is the date the Negril men are charged with going over to Rackham, not a capture date, and the print does not date the seizure. Highly Probable Correspondence and trial record: Lawes to London, 13 November 1720, CSP Colonial vol 32 item 288; The Tryals (1721) marked p32
  • Mary Read and Anne Bonny were tried at St Jago de la Vega on 28 November 1720, pleaded not guilty, and were found guilty on the third and fourth articles and sentenced to death. Trial record: The Tryals (1721), women's trial
  • Dorothy Thomas deposed that the two women wore "Mens Jackets, and long Trouzers, and Handkerchiefs tied about their Heads", that each "had a Machet and Pistol in their Hands", and that they "cursed and swore at the Men, to murther the Deponent"; she knew them for women "by the largeness of their Breasts". Trial testimony: The Tryals (1721), Dorothy Thomas deposition, marked p18
  • The French prisoners John Besneck and Peter Cornelian testified that the women were "very active on Board, and willing to do any Thing", that Ann Bonny "handed Gun-powder to the Men", and that they did not seem detained by force "but of their own Free-Will and Consent". No witness reported either woman firing a gun or fighting hand to hand. Trial testimony: The Tryals (1721), Besneck and Cornelian, marked p18
  • After sentence both women informed the court "that they were both quick with Child", and the court ordered execution respited "and that an Inspection should be made". The print records the order but no outcome: no inspection result, no reprieve and no later hearing of the two women. Trial record: The Tryals (1721), marked p19
  • Anne Bonny was not among those executed and her fate after the 1720 reprieve is undocumented; Johnson himself wrote only that she was not executed and that he could not say what became of her. Highly Probable Correspondence, trial record and narrative: Lawes, 28 December 1720 (women unnamed among the executed); Johnson, General History, Vol. 1 (1724)
  • The strongest candidate for Bonny's death is a St Catherine parish burial of an "Ann Bonny" on 29 December 1733, in the parish that also holds Mary Read's 1721 burial. The identification is inferential (name, spelling and parish only); the entry gives no age, family or reference to the trial, and a separate Bonny family appears in the same registers. Possible Parish register (reported): St Catherine burial register, Spanish Town, 29 December 1733
  • Bonny's pre-1720 biography (a Cork birth, an attorney father, the Carolina years, a first marriage to James Bonny) is Johnson-only. The parental names "William Cormac" and "Peg Brennan", and the story that she lived to about 1782 in America, originate in John Carlova's 1964 novel Mistress of the Seas and are not in Johnson. Possible Near-contemporary narrative and modern fiction: Johnson, General History, Vol. 1 (1724); John Carlova, Mistress of the Seas (1964)
  • The tradition that Read and Bonny alone fought the boarders while the men hid below, and Bonny's parting rebuke that Rackham should have fought like a man, are Johnson-only and absent from the trial print. Possible Near-contemporary narrative: Johnson, General History, Vol. 1 (1724); not in The Tryals (1721)

Open research

Everything before the August to November 1720 window is Johnson-only (Possible) or later invention: the Cork birth, the attorney father, the Carolina years and the James Bonny marriage. The parental names "William Cormac" and "Peg Brennan" and the death about 1782 originate in John Carlova's 1964 novel Mistress of the Seas. Her fate after the 1720 reprieve is unknown; the 29 December 1733 St Catherine burial is the strongest candidate but is inferential (name, spelling and parish only; a separate Bonny family appears in the same registers).