Calico Jack

Mary Read

Born: Unknown

Died: 1721 in Jamaica of a fever.

Mary’s mother became pregnant with her whilst her father was at sea, something she found hard to hide until Mary’s older brother died. It seemed like the perfect solution, instead of admitting she had a daughter Mary’s mother simply dressed her in boy’s clothes and pretended she was her son. As Mary grew up she found life was easier as a boy so kept on pretending.

Her first ever job was as a foot-boy to a french Lady, but her second was on a warship as a member of the crew. It was there that she met and fell in love with a Flemish solider, and so, letting him in on her secret she agreed to wear her first dress – a wedding dress. Forced to leave the army the couple bought and worked in a small inn in the Netherlands. Everything was going fine till the war ended, the inn started to make less money and without warning Mary’s husband died.

Suddenly penniless, Mary once again dressed as a man and got a job on a ship sailing to the West Indies. Her next job was a Privateer fighting the Spanish in the West Indies. After that, it didn’t take long before she became a pirate, fighting along side people like Anne Bonny and Calico Jack.

Mary was pregnant when she was captured and found guilty of piracy. Instead of hanging her immediately it was agreed to wait until the baby was born. Sadly Mary became ill in jail and died of a fever before the child was born.

Calico Jack(born Jack Rackham)

Born: December 1682

Died: November 1720

In 1718, Calico Jack (so named because he wore bright coloured, calico clothing) was quartermaster on Charles Vane’s sloop, Ranger, which sailed the Bahamas. But then one day Calico Jack got into an argument with Vane about his orders to retreat from a French man-of-war they were chasing, who’d turned on them and chosen to pursue them instead. Although Vane’s crew continued to retreat, his arguing resulted in Vane being called a coward and Calico Jack replacing him.

Once a captain in charge of his own ship and crew, Calico Jack robbed and captured many ships in the Jamaica and Bermuda area. But he made the mistake of attacking the Kingston while in full view of bounty hunters in Port Royal, causing them to hunt him out. In the end finding the stolen Kingston in a Cuban port.

But, luckily for Calico Jack, he and his crew were ashore. So overnight (before the bigger ship attacked) they stole an already captured English sloop and snuck out of port, choosing to head back to Nassau to ask for a royal pardon and commission. Here Calico Jack claimed Vane had forced him and his crew to become pirates. Not a very believable story, but Governor Rogers didn't like Vane, so he granted the pardons.

It was now, whilst in port, that Calico Jack met Anne Bonny, and (with a new crew) stole a ship and escaped Bonny’s husband. From there they sailed around the Caribbean, until Anne fell pregnant and went to Cuba to have the baby.

But on hearing of their actions, Governor Rogers announced Calico Jack was once again a pirate, which caused pirate hunters to start chasing him again.

Calico Jack was eventually caught (after a bout of drinking) in Bry Harbour Bay, Jamaica. He was hanged at Port Royal and his body displayed on a small islet nearby (now Rackham’s Cay). Anne Bonny and Mary Read were also put on trial with him, but since they each claimed to be pregnant their executions were delayed.

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