The Queen of Illyria named Teuta sailed
the ocean blue in 232 B.C. When her spouse sailed out of our known world, Teuta
decided her flotilla of small, swift vessels (Lembi) would combat then ransack
the picturesque and thriving towns along the Adriatic. Teuta
was a hands-on pirate and could often be found joining her sailors in the
pillaging. That motivated the towns to trek inland abandoning the coast to Illyria
until Rome decided enough was
enough and brought Teuta to heel—her fleet was disbanded.
Halfway through the 9th
century, Alfhild of the Valkyries was born. Daughter of King
Siward of the Goths, she commanded her own fleet of longships, with crews of
female buccaneers who plundered towns long the coasts of the Baltic
Sea. Alfhild’s chamber is said to have been protected by a lizard
and a snake which kept her suitors at bay. A Danish prince named Alf crushed
Alfhild’s guards but the lady scorned his marriage proposal and decided to
remain a pirate and dressed as a man in chain mail accessorized by a sword and
the fashionable horned helmet. Alf and Alfhid were destined to meet again—he searched
and found her fleet off the coast of Finland.
After a bloody battle Alfhild lost her helmet and was recognized. The fighting
came to an end and Alf embraced Alfhild who had sailed her last sea as a
Valkyrie. Dear reader—she married Alf.
Anne McCormac came into this world around
1697 in Kinsale, Ireland—the
daughter of a lawyer, William McCormac and a housemaid Mary Brennan. McCormac
left his wife and Ireland
for London bringing Mary and Anne
with him. He began dressing Anne as a boy and calling her “Andy”—guess he
wanted a son. When his family discovered their whereabouts, they moved to a
plantation near Charleston, South Carolina where McCormac changed his name to
Cormac and after a rough start joined a mercantile business and made a good
deal of money. Poor Mary passed on when Anne was twelve.
Anne had a temper to match her red hair
and at thirteen she is thought to have stabbed a servant girl. She married a
sailor and pirate named James Bonney who did poorly at both jobs. Her father
disowned her. The couple moved to Nassau on New Providence Island—a haven for
pirates where Anne began socializing with pirates in taverns and met John
“Calico Jack” Rackham, a colorful dresser and Captain of the pirate sloop
Vanity with its notorious skull and bones flag—Rackham and Bonney fell in love.
Farewell to James Bonney—Anne considered him a coward for accepting the pardon
of Bahamian Governor Woods Rogers and becoming his informant. Anne, once again,
disguised herself as a man, joined Rackham’s pirate crew and married the
scoundrel.
Mary Read’s mother was married to a seaman
who went on a long voyage and disappeared from their lives. After waiting many
years for his return and becoming destitute she took Mary to London
to request financial help from her mother-in-law. Knowing the lady preferred boys;
she dressed Mary in a boy’s clothes, told her act like a young lad and informed
her in-law she had a grandson. Promised a crown a week, Mary continued to dress
as a boy.
Her first job was a footboy; she enlisted
on-board a man-of-war for awhile then still wearing her disguise joined a foot
regiment in Flanders and then a horse regiment. There
she met and fell in love with another soldier, admitted to being a woman and
changed her mode of dress. The couple opened an inn called The Three Horseshoes
in Holland. Her husband died while
still in the prime of youth and her finances soon shrank.
Mary knew that life as a man was much
easier so she raided her husband’s trunk and went to sea on a Dutch merchant
ship sailing toward the Caribbean. Eventually the ship
was commandeered by Captain Jack Rackham’s Vanity and tired of her “legitimate
job,” she once again turned pirate. Anne Bonney and Mary quickly discovered
each other’s cross-dressing and became good friends. The two shared a
reputation as fierce, ruthless, bloodthirsty pirates.
Ching Shih, before becoming a pirate,
worked as a prostitute in one of Canton’s
floating brothels in 1801. That same year she married a legendary and infamous
pirate named Zhung Yi who descended from a pirate family of renown. Yi brought
together competing pirate fleets and brokered an alliance know as the Red flag
Fleet. After Yi passed on in 1807, Ching Shih took over her husband’s
leadership position and commanded over 1,500 ships and 60,000 pirates.
Those ladies knew how to crack a glass
ceiling.
Bests,
Elise
