Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, Hey there, I don't know why that. That
Speaker 1: was just in my heart. You got a song in
Speaker 1: your heart, got you gotta share it. You owe that.
Speaker 1: That goes for everyone. There's a song in your heart,
Speaker 1: you owe it to the world to share it. Let
Speaker 1: us have it. I was laughing at myself because I
Speaker 1: listened to Zoe Deschanelle talking about her character from New
Speaker 1: Girl and she was like, you know, I'm not the
Speaker 1: type of person who just sings randomly, but like, I
Speaker 1: know people like that. And I was just like, I
Speaker 1: think she's like that type of person, you know. And
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, that's me, that's you. And sometimes
Speaker 1: me um not as sporadically like I'll sing to the dog. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: I'll sing what I'm doing sometimes, but you definitely will
Speaker 1: just bust out. It's great. I love it. It's like
Speaker 1: having a bird just always being by some random ship.
Speaker 1: Any day now I'll shut on some newspaper and let
Speaker 1: you clean it up. Oh god, no, I hope we
Speaker 1: don't get to that. That's why I prefer you to
Speaker 1: a bird, among the reasons. That's the reason I said, quickly,
Speaker 1: correct course, correct. Welcome back to the show, everybody. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so happy to have you here. Thank you for being here, Diana,
Speaker 1: I'm eli. We're so bad at interviewing. Your terrible. Just
Speaker 1: assume that everybody knows who we are. Come on, don't
Speaker 1: you know? But no, hopefully we got brand new listeners today.
Speaker 1: Hopefully you're here for the first time tuning in, Welcome
Speaker 1: to Ridiculous Romance. We're back on Pirates Today, episode about
Speaker 1: William Cormick and Mary Brennan, who are not pirates tally related.
Speaker 1: They birthed a pirate, the pirates would be and pirates
Speaker 1: sprang from their loins. Yes, I don't know. Would you
Speaker 1: ever if you fell in love with me, a broke sailor,
Speaker 1: would you leave your comfortable, wealthy life to come live
Speaker 1: on the high seas? Oh? Ummm, let's see do you
Speaker 1: feel that strongly about me? I've got I've got a
Speaker 1: you know, a kind of a weird father. Um. I'm
Speaker 1: living in a plantation house in the Caribbean or no,
Speaker 1: South Carolina. Um, and things are pretty sweet. And then
Speaker 1: I decide to fall in love with a broke sailor.
Speaker 1: Do I go off with you? Yeah? What the hell
Speaker 1: sounds boring on the mainland, So yeah, sure, let's do it,
Speaker 1: and because I love you so much, obviously you're more
Speaker 1: devoted than me. I'm not sure I can do it.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure. I've been on a cruise before, much
Speaker 1: more comfortable than a pirate ship, and I still was
Speaker 1: pretty ready for it to be over. I mean, to
Speaker 1: some degree a cruise sounds worse than a pirate ship.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, agree with that. But look, you
Speaker 1: got it's a very rigid schedule. You know, you don't
Speaker 1: get to play under anything except the buffet you plunder.
Speaker 1: You plunder the tourist traps, yeah, the gift shops at
Speaker 1: the place you stop. Place did you stop? Like we
Speaker 1: went to the Cayman Islands? And shirts all right, and
Speaker 1: you know a little wraps like a like rap sounds
Speaker 1: like a sandwich, did not sandwich? Like yeah, the wrong
Speaker 1: like cover ups or whatever? Okayt yeah, and hats you know,
Speaker 1: and some people would get their hair with beads quite
Speaker 1: the hall. Did you bury it anywhere on a desert?
Speaker 1: Pay for it? But it felt like plunder because you
Speaker 1: pay so little? Yeah, well, and then eventually you bring
Speaker 1: it home and it becomes trash. So yeah, it's buried
Speaker 1: somewhere now and it lent felt, so I have a
Speaker 1: very long, drawn out pirate. If you've ever been on
Speaker 1: a cruise ship, you basically know what pirate life was
Speaker 1: like exactly. That's what we're here to let you know.
Speaker 1: Carnival cruises be a pirate today, especially if you were
Speaker 1: ever on a cruise ship and got horribly sick and
Speaker 1: yelled at by someone. Well, cruise ships aside. We're here
Speaker 1: with the really exciting story today. Like we said, we're
Speaker 1: back in the pirate land, back on the high seas
Speaker 1: of the r R Ridiculous romance are Today we'll be
Speaker 1: spinning your yarn of more swashbuckling scaliwags and masked raisin
Speaker 1: marauders and busty buccaneers. Or here be the tale of
Speaker 1: Captain Calico Jack, Mary Reid and and Bonnie, three of
Speaker 1: the most dangerous, deceptive, and duplicitous pickaroons ever to cross
Speaker 1: the Caribbean. Many sailors thought that having a woman on
Speaker 1: board the ship was bad luck, but Calico Jack sailed
Speaker 1: with two and they proved to be more brave, cunning,
Speaker 1: and ruthless than any of the men they were on
Speaker 1: board with. So let's hear all about the adventure the danger,
Speaker 1: and of course the romance with these three professional pirates
Speaker 1: Hank hers away, Hey, their friends come listen. Well, Elia
Speaker 1: and Diana got some stories to tell. There's no match
Speaker 1: making a romantic tips. It's just about pridiculous relationships. A
Speaker 1: lover might be any type of person at all, an
Speaker 1: abstract concept, are a concrete wall. But if there's a
Speaker 1: story were the second glance, we'll put show Ridiculous Role.
Speaker 1: That's a production off I Heart Radio. So the golden
Speaker 1: Age of piracy was this period from around the sixteen
Speaker 1: fifties until sometime in the seventeen thirties where piracy was
Speaker 1: rampant in the Caribbean Islands. This was the time of
Speaker 1: Black Sam Bellamy, Captain Kidd Long, Ben every and of course,
Speaker 1: as we talked about in the last episode, Everybody's New
Speaker 1: best Friends, Edward Blackbeard, Teach and Steede Bonnet, the Gentleman pirate.
Speaker 1: I love them still, well, I'm still even though in
Speaker 1: Rey they were terrible, horrible people, but on the show
Speaker 1: they're a delight. Okay. Now, we talked in our previous
Speaker 1: Pirate episode about John Swan and Robert Culifford about how
Speaker 1: being a pirate is not all sea shanties and swashbuckling
Speaker 1: and cool outfits and talking parrots and all that. Of course,
Speaker 1: a lot of that was invented in the book we
Speaker 1: started in the last episode by Captain Johnson. It was
Speaker 1: actually pretty grueling to be a pirate. It was often
Speaker 1: very dull, just long stretches at sea, was waiting for
Speaker 1: the next thing to happen, and full of painful deaths.
Speaker 1: I mean, there was people hunting you down, There were
Speaker 1: abusive captains. There was disease and starvation and dehydration, the
Speaker 1: tie to the bottom of the ship. Yeah. Yeah, things
Speaker 1: could go pretty badly. But pirate ships were run pretty democratically.
Speaker 1: Crew Members usually voted on where to go next. There
Speaker 1: was no uniform, and they had a contract when they
Speaker 1: boarded a ship that predetermined their share of any plunder
Speaker 1: whenever they did a raid on another ship. So it
Speaker 1: still seemed like a better option for a lot of
Speaker 1: people than the Navy, which had a lot of the
Speaker 1: same problems as piracy, but way stricter command. But merchants,
Speaker 1: the Navy and pirates alike all shared the very same,
Speaker 1: very rational idea that there was one big no no
Speaker 1: on the high seas. Women could not be on ships.
Speaker 1: This was thought to be terrible luck and to invite
Speaker 1: nasty storms that could capsize and sink even the strongest ship.
Speaker 1: I mean, come on, guys, Chinese has got something to
Speaker 1: say about that. I'm saying, right, they're out here like,
Speaker 1: oh there's a woman on ship. Oh but Poseidon, he's
Speaker 1: losing his aquatic ship. Can't handle it. He's gonna send
Speaker 1: a starm after us. Maybe it's just a big wet
Speaker 1: T shirt contest for It's like I'm just trying to
Speaker 1: splush and water on those big billowy shirts. And I mean,
Speaker 1: I guess that's kind of true. Because the same superstition
Speaker 1: held that naked women could actually calm the sea. What
Speaker 1: a justification, right, That's why some ships had a mermaid
Speaker 1: with their tits out on the bow of the ship.
Speaker 1: It was like the main way they were like, hills, Yeah,
Speaker 1: this this will calm, give us calm weather. Nips out,
Speaker 1: soun's out, funds out, boobs out, show me the bees
Speaker 1: and you'll have calm seas. That's the old the old
Speaker 1: pirates saying. I love to imagine the pirate It was like, oh, sorry,
Speaker 1: ladies would love for you to stay about their seas
Speaker 1: don't take kindly to ladies on boardy unless unless you
Speaker 1: show me the boobies and then average things actually better.
Speaker 1: This hurts me as much as hurt you. Look the
Speaker 1: sea God's demanded. I mean, I don't make the rule.
Speaker 1: But honestly, the origins of this whole superstition are a
Speaker 1: bit dubious. The Vice Admiral of the Royal Navy, Cuthbert
Speaker 1: Collingwood once wrote, quote, I never knew a woman wrote
Speaker 1: to sea in a ship that some mischief did not
Speaker 1: befall the vessel. And this is often cited as the
Speaker 1: source for this whole belief. But David Accordingly writes in
Speaker 1: his book Women Sailors and Sailors Women on Untold Maritime
Speaker 1: History quote, as with so many sailors superstitions, it's hard
Speaker 1: to discover the origins of this one, and even harder
Speaker 1: to find factual basis for it. He points out that
Speaker 1: Pilgrim ships and many of the ships that followed were
Speaker 1: loaded with women, and the British Navy even allowed officers
Speaker 1: wives often to live on board, and he says, quote
Speaker 1: those naval officers who did object to the presence of
Speaker 1: a woman on their ship seemed to have regarded them
Speaker 1: as a nuisance rather than a source of bad luck,
Speaker 1: and that's probably where a lot of this history really
Speaker 1: comes from. It's not so much that women were bad luck,
Speaker 1: but that captains and officers thought that women on board
Speaker 1: would be a distraction to their crews, and there's definitely
Speaker 1: rampant misogyny and sailing culture. Historian Kyle Dalton writes that
Speaker 1: Collingwood's quote about women bringing mischief onto ships is more
Speaker 1: likely about an officer being concerned that as boys were
Speaker 1: going to act foolish. So it's like a elementary school
Speaker 1: dress code something over here, just another time in history
Speaker 1: when men couldn't control themselves and women were blamed for it.
Speaker 1: But still there were a few women who found their
Speaker 1: way onto merchant, navy and pirate ships alike, but very
Speaker 1: cleverly wearing pants so brilliant my genius disguise. And that
Speaker 1: brings us to today's heroes and heroin's. In our last episode,
Speaker 1: we told you the story of Anne Bonnie's birth as
Speaker 1: it was told in Captain Charles Johnson's book A General
Speaker 1: History of the Pirates, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. And you've got
Speaker 1: to go back and hear that full story in all
Speaker 1: of its insanity. But it ends with Anne at about
Speaker 1: eighteen years old, living with her wealthy merchant father, William Cormick,
Speaker 1: and she fell in love with a broke sailor named
Speaker 1: James Bonnie. Now this really piste off her father, William,
Speaker 1: because he'd wanted Anne to marry a rich guy like
Speaker 1: you do, and was a real firecracker. I mean, she
Speaker 1: had a serious temper and she was prone to violent reactions,
Speaker 1: but James wooed her with adventurous stories from his life
Speaker 1: at sea. William got so angry when they got married
Speaker 1: that he kicked Anne out of his house and cut
Speaker 1: her off entirely. Now this really threw a wrench in
Speaker 1: James Bonnie's plans, who was kind of hoping to inherit
Speaker 1: his father in law's big fortune. So he turns to
Speaker 1: Anne and says, I'll just go be the greatest pirate
Speaker 1: to sail the Seven Seas. And it's rumored but unproven, that,
Speaker 1: in response to her father cutting her off, and Bonnie
Speaker 1: burned his plantation to the ground. Ye that was Anne,
Speaker 1: So whether or not that's true, the next thing they
Speaker 1: did was happa ship and make their way to New
Speaker 1: Providence and the city of Nassau in the Bahamas. New
Speaker 1: Providence was poorly defended. It had become a haven for pirates,
Speaker 1: and by seventeen thirteen, over a thousand pirates lived in Nasa,
Speaker 1: way out numbering the four to five hundred English citizens
Speaker 1: who lived there too. And Anne, it was all about
Speaker 1: that pirate life, salt life. Baby. He thought this sounded
Speaker 1: way better than inheriting some su meliol fortune anyway. And yeah,
Speaker 1: it's the golden age of piracy, right, this romanticized notion
Speaker 1: if a pirates life was already a trending topic, you know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she's definitely fallen for that. Yeah, she's fallen for the hype, right,
Speaker 1: I mean this is the you know, seventeen teens and
Speaker 1: um Captain Johnson's book came out in seventeen twenty four,
Speaker 1: Like this is still the arrow where everybody's talking about pirates,
Speaker 1: Like they were talking about it while it was happening.
Speaker 1: It wasn't just history that looked back on it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: pirates were cool. Yeah. So Ann and James show up
Speaker 1: in NASA, are ready to cut throats and swash buckles
Speaker 1: and all that stuff. And she's like ready at a rumble.
Speaker 1: She starts urging James to go into local taverns and
Speaker 1: find a good captain who needed a cruise, like, let's
Speaker 1: get this going. I don't want to hang out in
Speaker 1: this island forever. Get out there. And for whatever reason,
Speaker 1: James Bonnie did not find himself on a pirate crew.
Speaker 1: We don't know why. I'm thinking, uh the world speculation,
Speaker 1: port speculation. Uh you know, maybe he was just like
Speaker 1: super lazy, Like he shows up like I should to
Speaker 1: be talking to those people, but I don't want to,
Speaker 1: you know, Or he's like just maybe he's just bad
Speaker 1: at introducing himself, like me, Like he shows up to
Speaker 1: a party and he's like, I don't know anyone here,
Speaker 1: so I'm just gonna sit and wait for someone to
Speaker 1: come talk to me, you know. For the opposite, he's
Speaker 1: like super extrouted eight And then he gets home and
Speaker 1: as like, who'd you meet And he's like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: you know what, I never got their name. I was stupid,
Speaker 1: Like we had a great time four hours talking about stuff, like,
Speaker 1: oh man, that guy was fun. That's name. They all
Speaker 1: said they were leaving in the morning to damn it cute.
Speaker 1: Yeah right, well whatever happened. He would come back night
Speaker 1: after night and say, no work today, honey, maybe tomorrow
Speaker 1: until later that summer. In seventeen eighteen, Governor Woods Rogers
Speaker 1: was sent by King George himself with a big old
Speaker 1: document called the Proclamation for Suppressing of Pirates, also called
Speaker 1: the Acts of Grace. So Governor Rogers shows up with
Speaker 1: three warships and he lands in Nasaw and he unrolls
Speaker 1: this scroll and says here, yeah, here, yeah, listen up,
Speaker 1: are you stinking, rotten, lousy, cheating pirates? We love you?
Speaker 1: Why didn't come surrender and agree to work for us?
Speaker 1: And then you'll get a full pardon for literally anything
Speaker 1: you've ever done, including actual murder and plus b Also,
Speaker 1: if you turn in other pirates who aren't going to surrender,
Speaker 1: we'll give you cash money. Hundred pounds for a captain,
Speaker 1: forty pounds for lieutenant or a gunner, and twenty pounds
Speaker 1: for just a nobody crew member. Twenty pounds for nobody.
Speaker 1: Yeah right, well, of nobodies, I'm digging up bodies again.
Speaker 1: List well. James Bonnie, whose recent get rich quick scheme
Speaker 1: of Mary, a rich man's daughter, didn't exactly work out,
Speaker 1: and decided this is a chance for some nice, safe,
Speaker 1: easy money, and he starts informing on pirates. You could
Speaker 1: probably guess how that narking went over with Ann. She's like, snitches,
Speaker 1: get stitches, James, haven't you heard? And she got really
Speaker 1: irritated with him. She starts hanging out at the pubs
Speaker 1: herself and having a super fun time with all these
Speaker 1: partying pirates. Captain Johnson writes in his book that Anne
Speaker 1: was quote not altogether so reserved in point of chastity.
Speaker 1: We can surmise that sometimes a pirate would find his
Speaker 1: hand up her skirts. She had no qualms about getting busy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: She'd be like, sure, I mean I'm here to live
Speaker 1: that pirate life. I'm here for a good time, not
Speaker 1: a long time that seems to be and whole here, Yeah,
Speaker 1: whereas James Bonnie is more like, um, what's the safest
Speaker 1: version of a pirate life I can live? I'd like
Speaker 1: a good time and a lot. One colorful fellow in
Speaker 1: particular started paying an extra attention. His name was John Rackham,
Speaker 1: otherwise known as Calico Jack, and we'll get to know
Speaker 1: him right after these merchants pitch you. They're wares and
Speaker 1: welcome back to the show me hearties. That's such an
Speaker 1: easy joke. Sorry, but actually be hardies works for Yeah,
Speaker 1: you all our hearties and hers. Where's that bath towel
Speaker 1: her hearties, his heartiest alright. Little is known about John
Speaker 1: Rackham's early life. He was born sometime in the sixteen eighties.
Speaker 1: The first recorded fact about him is that he was
Speaker 1: the quartermaster for a pirate named Charles Vane. Charles Vane
Speaker 1: was terrible news. He was known for his cruelty to
Speaker 1: prisoners and his crew alike, including torture and murder. In
Speaker 1: seventeen eighteen, he actually took the King's pardon. He used
Speaker 1: this act of grace, only to go back on his
Speaker 1: word a few months later when he and Calico Jack
Speaker 1: returned to pirracy. God, that must have been such a
Speaker 1: problem for the acts of grace, right, okay, pirate, let
Speaker 1: me just trust that when you sign this document you'll
Speaker 1: go with it on your word. Pirates are very good
Speaker 1: at the words. Yeah. If there's one thing a pirate
Speaker 1: won't do, it's sign anything to save their own asses
Speaker 1: and then keep on doing whatever they want to do. Yeah.
Speaker 1: You know what led me to a life of piracy
Speaker 1: was surely my honor, and my word as a gentleman, integrity,
Speaker 1: the bye word of a pirate. Well, so yeah, they
Speaker 1: said forget your actor grace by and went back to
Speaker 1: looting and plundering. And they spent a few days partying
Speaker 1: with Blackbeard off the coast of North Carolina. Probably a
Speaker 1: good time, imagine, And then they went back to plundering ships. So,
Speaker 1: after Captain Vane and Calico Jack and their crew rated
Speaker 1: a few ships outside New York City. In that area,
Speaker 1: this huge French man of wars, this ship at least
Speaker 1: twice the size of Captain Vain's ship, chased them down.
Speaker 1: Now Vain ordered a retreat, but Calico Jack said they
Speaker 1: should fight. He figured they'd not only get like a
Speaker 1: ton of French riches if they won, but they would
Speaker 1: also get this huge ass ship. Of the nine crew members,
Speaker 1: only fifteen supported the captain, but he said, no, my
Speaker 1: word is vital, and they ran escaping the French warship.
Speaker 1: But in November of that year, remember these pirate ships
Speaker 1: are pretty democratic, so for him to go against almost
Speaker 1: everyone on board is not going to earn him many points.
Speaker 1: And John Rackham called a vote and the crew overwhelmingly
Speaker 1: went in his favor and branded Vain coward and removed
Speaker 1: him as captain. Calico Jack was put in his place,
Speaker 1: and he kept their flagship. But he gave Vain a
Speaker 1: second ship that they had commandeered, and he sent him
Speaker 1: and the fifteen men who supported him off with a
Speaker 1: healthy supply of rations and ammunitions. I really appreciate eight
Speaker 1: that it was so like that was handled better than
Speaker 1: our most recent election. Vain was like, I respect the
Speaker 1: results and I'll take this stuff and go bye bye.
Speaker 1: So there is some honor among these. Yeah. Yeah. Jack
Speaker 1: himself wore bright garish colors and patterns. This guy was
Speaker 1: a stunning site, even for the pirates of the day,
Speaker 1: and that gave him his nickname Calico Jack. But now
Speaker 1: finally he was Captain Calico Jack. And Jack had some
Speaker 1: ups and downs as a pirate after that. So he
Speaker 1: captured a large ship called the Kingston and made that
Speaker 1: their flagship, and it was full of treasure and food,
Speaker 1: just an awesome hall for a bunch of hungry pirates.
Speaker 1: But a bunch of merchants saw him capture this ship,
Speaker 1: and so they hired bounty hunters to get it back.
Speaker 1: And when Jack and his crew were on shore near Cuba,
Speaker 1: the bounty hunters snuck up, boarded his ship and sailed
Speaker 1: away with it. Man, he woke up like, dude, with
Speaker 1: my ship, my ship, What a night, the insane night.
Speaker 1: I was going to remake Dudos my car, but it's
Speaker 1: just a pirate version, same like Aliens. Yet my sister
Speaker 1: will like it. She loves that movie. So he probably
Speaker 1: felt a little sheepish about all that. He and his
Speaker 1: men are in Cuba. They have just this tiny little boat.
Speaker 1: They're trying to figure out what in the world they're
Speaker 1: supposed to do next. And then a Spanish warship arrived
Speaker 1: with a smaller English sloop that it had captured standing
Speaker 1: behind it. And the Spanish saw the pirates small ship
Speaker 1: and they're like, oh, we can take these guys. Let's
Speaker 1: capture all these pirates. Good for us, go Spain. But
Speaker 1: it was low tide so they couldn't attack it yet
Speaker 1: they had to wait. Their big ship couldn't get close
Speaker 1: enough to him, so the warship waited until the morning.
Speaker 1: But that night Calico Jack and his men took a
Speaker 1: row boat out to the English sloop, snuck on board
Speaker 1: quietly overpowered the few Spanish guards that were there, and
Speaker 1: at dawn the Spanish worship moved towards land and started
Speaker 1: attacking the pirates old empty ship, having no idea that
Speaker 1: behind them Calico Jack was sailing away in their English sloop.
Speaker 1: It's like waving like Princess Diana. Surely good try fellows.
Speaker 1: It's such a classic pirate move. Pastos for the ship
Speaker 1: right totally, um it's it's It is said that Calico
Speaker 1: Jack is one of the big inspirations for Captain Jack
Speaker 1: Sparrow in the Paris Caribbean movies, all his colors and
Speaker 1: everything like that. So this definitely feels like a beat
Speaker 1: from one of those movies. Definitely speaks in it just
Speaker 1: takes it while they're not looking. They're all like, bloody pirate. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like bloody pirates. I hate pirates. So after this new
Speaker 1: ship in hand, Calico Jack sailed to NASA and the
Speaker 1: first person he went to find Governor Woods Rogers what
Speaker 1: the old boy? And Rogers is like, excuse me, aren't
Speaker 1: you one of those pirates who signed the Acts of
Speaker 1: Grace and then went right back to piracy? You know?
Speaker 1: And Jack is like, oh yo, that was me, that
Speaker 1: was me. That was definitely me. But you know what,
Speaker 1: it weren't me fault. Captain Vane was a real piece
Speaker 1: of shite and he forced us to be pirates, you know,
Speaker 1: That's all it was what Wren up to me. I
Speaker 1: was just a chor maaster. You know. We voted, we
Speaker 1: said no, but he might just do it anyway. Fortunately,
Speaker 1: Governor Rogers absolutely hated Captain Vane and he totally bought it.
Speaker 1: He was like, all right, very well, you can sign
Speaker 1: it again, but this time takes the back seas. So
Speaker 1: Calico Jack and his crew were allowed to stay in
Speaker 1: NASA and received a full pardon as long as they
Speaker 1: just agreed to, you know, work for King George and
Speaker 1: not be pirates anymore. And around this time Jack started
Speaker 1: hanging around the pubs, getting friendly with the locals, basically
Speaker 1: doing zero work to actually turn in any pirates. And
Speaker 1: this is when he met and Bonnie. Oh what do
Speaker 1: you think that they're meeting? Was like, mm, I can't
Speaker 1: decide if she like threw a beer in his face
Speaker 1: or if someone just laid off shot off a gun
Speaker 1: and she laughed and he was like hot, yeah, No,
Speaker 1: do you think it was that or do you think
Speaker 1: it was like more more of a cute. She ordered
Speaker 1: him an ale from across the bar send it to him. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Like she she walks over, she sees him talking to
Speaker 1: another you know, some some some winch, and she just
Speaker 1: like reaches down and like just picks up the stool
Speaker 1: with the woman on it and just moves it to
Speaker 1: the side and places her down. It was like, how
Speaker 1: about you talk to me instead there, big boy? Well
Speaker 1: do you seem very interesting? Yeah? They were totally smitten
Speaker 1: with each other. This is exactly the kind of pirate
Speaker 1: that Anne had always idolized, one who actually does stuff right,
Speaker 1: exactly like James ain't doing anothering washed up pirate or
Speaker 1: never even went out, went out to see how do
Speaker 1: you washed up without ever going out, and she left
Speaker 1: his garish clothing. She's like, this guy parties and Jack
Speaker 1: was amazed by this woman who was as sturdy as
Speaker 1: a Spanish frigate and packed twice the punch. So they
Speaker 1: would sneak off together, plunder some booty, very a little
Speaker 1: treasure sail the old man award to a Carolinian port.
Speaker 1: How many more pirate sexual you know? You do get
Speaker 1: what you know? She would hoist his main sail and
Speaker 1: he would he would guide him, even aavigate himself into her.
Speaker 1: All right, all right, plunky little rough waters on that
Speaker 1: one pirate's life. Okay, he'd roll out the cannon. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he'd roll out the cannon. He'd fire a shot across
Speaker 1: her main bow. She's like, Hi, give me one of
Speaker 1: those colorful rags. He got, gross, bro. And it wasn't
Speaker 1: long before word of all these puns and what they
Speaker 1: meant got back to the narc of NASA James Bonnie himself. James,
Speaker 1: James is pretty upset, and understandably so, that his wife
Speaker 1: is sleeping with this gaudy pirate. So you know, James
Speaker 1: like he's he's going to take care of business himself, right,
Speaker 1: So what does he do. He goes straight to Governor
Speaker 1: Rogers and tells on them. He tattles about it. He
Speaker 1: did his thing he loves doing the most. He's now.
Speaker 1: Governor Rodgers was furious because James Bonnie was his favorite narc.
Speaker 1: You know, this is my boy. You can't just disrespect
Speaker 1: my boy. So he would not stand for adultery, not
Speaker 1: on his watch. So he ordered an Bonnie to be
Speaker 1: captured and whipped for infidelity. Now Jack is a grown up,
Speaker 1: so he decides to do the grown up thing, and
Speaker 1: he went straight to James Bonnie to speak with him directly.
Speaker 1: He's like, look, I know we go off on the
Speaker 1: wrong peg there, maybe, but uh I do love Anne,
Speaker 1: and I think maybe you kind of don't. So what
Speaker 1: do you say? We worked this out and he offered
Speaker 1: James a big, fat stack of money to divorce her
Speaker 1: fat stacks and maybe for the first time in James
Speaker 1: Bonnie's life, he looked at the cash offer right in
Speaker 1: front of him and said no, and he threatened to
Speaker 1: beat up Jack instead speculation station. Jack stifled a laugh
Speaker 1: at this point, because okay, buddy, So it looked like
Speaker 1: there was no easy way out of this, and Jack
Speaker 1: thought about his contract. He thought about working for the
Speaker 1: English crown, and then he thought about Anne and a
Speaker 1: life at sea, and he knew what he had to
Speaker 1: do to protect her. But he knew there would be
Speaker 1: no more pardons this time. They said no take sea back,
Speaker 1: no take sea back seas, but he loved An too
Speaker 1: much to care, so he assembled a small crew and
Speaker 1: together with An, they stole a ship and escaped NASA,
Speaker 1: violating the terms of his pardon, and they were pirates
Speaker 1: once again. Governor Rogers almost certainly shook his fist in
Speaker 1: the air and pirates the things we do for love.
Speaker 1: Oh fun fact, the small ship that they stole in
Speaker 1: NASA was captained by none other than John ham I love.
Speaker 1: This guy's name was Captain John ham It was like
Speaker 1: and John Hamm probably would play a great version of him.
Speaker 1: I'd love to see John Hamm as the captain of
Speaker 1: a pirate ship of pirate sounds like somebody seems more
Speaker 1: like an admiral to me. I mean, it's a classically
Speaker 1: handsome face that he has that keeps doing like anything.
Speaker 1: John Hamm and we bumped into John ham actually recently
Speaker 1: when we were in Los Angeles, so I had to
Speaker 1: take your word for it. We were walking in the
Speaker 1: park and like I do, was both of everyone's dog. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we saw this dog and we're like, oh, cute baby baby,
Speaker 1: and I turned away once the dog was I was,
Speaker 1: I lost interest and I never looked at the owner.
Speaker 1: Just as they passed, I glanced up and was like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, that's John Hamm. And we looked up
Speaker 1: John Hamm's dog and sure enough that was the dog
Speaker 1: we saw. And I'm like, if only I looked up.
Speaker 1: We could have ruined that man's day by bothering him
Speaker 1: all he's trying to walk his dog. We could really
Speaker 1: inconvenience the ship out of John Hammon. But anyway, enough
Speaker 1: about John Hammon, the other job and Captain John Hamm Remember, okay,
Speaker 1: that life on a pirate ship is no place for
Speaker 1: a woman, right and again, you know, whether they thought
Speaker 1: it was bad luck or just bad form, some pirates
Speaker 1: were really uncomfortable with Jack bringing Ann in as part
Speaker 1: of the crew. And so poor little Anne Bonnie, you
Speaker 1: know this, we last surrounded by all these big, strong men.
Speaker 1: I mean, what's she gonna do? One ship made outright
Speaker 1: refused to sail with a woman on board, so she
Speaker 1: handled it. Yeah. This guy's like, I'll be a dead
Speaker 1: man before I work on a ship that's got some
Speaker 1: disgusting woman on it. It ain't right, it ain't natural. Pretty,
Speaker 1: Will I challenge you to a fight to the death.
Speaker 1: Winner gets to stay on board, Loser gets to be dead. Okay,
Speaker 1: a little lady, I don't want to hurt you too bad,
Speaker 1: So she's so three. Yeah, legend says Anne stabbed this
Speaker 1: guy through the heart and tossed him overboard. And then
Speaker 1: she was like, if anyone else has anything to say,
Speaker 1: now's the fucking time channeling or Lucy Lou. And you know,
Speaker 1: no shipmate ever challenged her. Again. Effective management, That's what
Speaker 1: Anne's all about, because she's like, I'll make you an example.
Speaker 1: We won't have this problem again. Exactly. So, with Anne's
Speaker 1: newfound respect amongst the crew, Captain Calico Jack set sail
Speaker 1: and spent the next two months sailing the Caribbean and
Speaker 1: capturing other ships. Now, Anne usually lived on the ship
Speaker 1: as a woman. Generally, the consensus is that she typically
Speaker 1: dressed as a woman on the ship. All the crew
Speaker 1: members new um, but when they would engage with other
Speaker 1: ships to avoid I think too much focused directly at
Speaker 1: her and like raising her risk of being captured or
Speaker 1: kidnapped or whatever, and would dress as a man. She'd
Speaker 1: have a loose tunic on and uh like a bandana
Speaker 1: covering her hair. But after a few months at sea
Speaker 1: and got pregnant, and she continued to wear men's clothes
Speaker 1: and raid ships with Jack and his crew until at
Speaker 1: a certain point it was just too difficult to hide
Speaker 1: that baby bump. You know, she was getting on two
Speaker 1: ships and trying to stand behind a chair every time.
Speaker 1: She's always carrying a big bag in front of her.
Speaker 1: She's like carrying a water bottle. She's just always got
Speaker 1: a big box something like she has a barrel. That's
Speaker 1: what it is, a barrel, carrying wrist, hiding her stomach,
Speaker 1: always in her arms. Well, eventually they sailed to Cuba,
Speaker 1: where Jack took her ashore. He was a very attentive partner,
Speaker 1: and he helped her safely deliver their son. Unfortunately, nobody
Speaker 1: really knows what happened to the baby after this. It's
Speaker 1: probably a good thing, regardless that they didn't take him
Speaker 1: with them back to see hard to have a baby
Speaker 1: on board? I would say that I think it's pretty
Speaker 1: easy to say that pirate's life is no place for
Speaker 1: a baby, right, although we can argue about women, but babies. Although,
Speaker 1: wouldn't it be great if they hoisted a flag that
Speaker 1: said baby on board. You know, they were less likely
Speaker 1: to get attacked, right, Like the English would be like, oh,
Speaker 1: there's I guess we have to go gentle into that ship.
Speaker 1: That's a pretty good idea for pirates. I want to
Speaker 1: go back and give him that idea again, Chinese, I
Speaker 1: would disagree as she raised pirates son and then married him. Well,
Speaker 1: they did not bring the baby with them anyway. Unsure
Speaker 1: exactly what happened. Revailing theories are that he was either
Speaker 1: adopted out or maybe even left on a wealthy person's doorstep,
Speaker 1: or possibly Jack himself had family in Cuba, some other Rackham's,
Speaker 1: and he left the baby with them. Whatever happened, Calico
Speaker 1: Jack and a Bonnie returned to See to continue their
Speaker 1: pie a life. For a while, they were really successful pirates.
Speaker 1: Governor Rogers published a list of wanted pirates. It was
Speaker 1: published in the Boston Newsletter, which was the New world
Speaker 1: only continuously published newspaper up until seventy six, when the
Speaker 1: Boston Gazette started. In the publication, it listed John Rackham,
Speaker 1: a k A. Calico Jack, as well as Anne Bonnie.
Speaker 1: So their fame was growing. Okay, do you think that's
Speaker 1: like street cred? Like I got my name in the newspaper.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, they want me. Well, whenever there's like an outlaw,
Speaker 1: they're always like, yeah, here's my wanted poster. And then
Speaker 1: they get mad about how much the ransom is. Yeah,
Speaker 1: should be more, don't they know I took John Hamm's
Speaker 1: Come on, he's an American treasure. He's a madman. I
Speaker 1: wish it was Captain Madman John Hamms Speculation Station. John
Speaker 1: Hamm's nickname was Madman's Please. So yeah, Eddie, Eddie rate.
Speaker 1: Their fame is really growing. Um. But this caught the
Speaker 1: attention of the privateer and pirate hunter Jonathan Barnett. And
Speaker 1: this is a little bit of a side story. But
Speaker 1: it is just too hot to let it walk on
Speaker 1: by with at least saying hello. So let's take a
Speaker 1: quick fling with history, slow them on down. Jonathan Barnett
Speaker 1: had been commissioned by the Governor of Jamaica, Lord Archibald
Speaker 1: Hamilton's very Jamaican name is British Jamaica. He brought the
Speaker 1: jerk to the chickens anyway, So Old Archie had brought
Speaker 1: him to Jamaica to hunt down pirates and bring back
Speaker 1: as many alive as possible. And his contract came with
Speaker 1: the condition that he quote not, on any pretense, commit
Speaker 1: any acts of hostility on any of his Majesty's allies, neutrals, friends,
Speaker 1: or subjects. Okay, so like stay in your lane. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Like we're hiring you to hunt pirates, don't you go
Speaker 1: out there and start stealing stuff or beating anybody else
Speaker 1: because he's a privateer, like he doesn't really work for anyone. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well Captain Kidd had this problem. He was a pirate hunter.
Speaker 1: But hunting a pirate looks a lot like being a pirate,
Speaker 1: and often your crew is made of pirates. So then
Speaker 1: they democratically decided to become pirates again, and then you're fucked.
Speaker 1: So it's so very Yeah, they're sure, they were like, well,
Speaker 1: at least write it down. So they're gone up, but
Speaker 1: at least we have some presidents to be had. But
Speaker 1: in seventeen fifteen, a really tempting opportunity came up. The
Speaker 1: seventeen fifteen Treasure Fleet was a fleet of eleven Spanish
Speaker 1: ships that were returning to Spain from the New World,
Speaker 1: loaded with silver, gold, and artifacts. But they sailed straight
Speaker 1: into a hurricane and all eleven ships were destroyed. Records
Speaker 1: state that nearly fift hundred sailors died, while a handful
Speaker 1: survived in lifeboats. I'm imagining that the indigenous people that
Speaker 1: Spain just took all this treasure from we're pretty excited
Speaker 1: that a hurricane came through, and they're like, yeah, our
Speaker 1: prayers were answered. Think very much like we still lost
Speaker 1: all our treasure. Would be nice if we had that,
Speaker 1: but at least we sunk those ships. Let that be
Speaker 1: a lesson to you. And the Spanish never bothered the
Speaker 1: indigenous people again. Wrong, Well, all this treasure being flattened
Speaker 1: out in the sea really attracted the attention of well
Speaker 1: basically everybody. Sure. A bunch of pirates and privateers went
Speaker 1: straight for the wreckage as soon as they got word
Speaker 1: and started attacking the survivors and snatching up treasure. This
Speaker 1: of course included Jonathan Barnett, who was totally violating the
Speaker 1: terms of his contract here. But Governor Hamilton's initially blamed
Speaker 1: Barnett's raid on another privateer entirely named Henry Jennings, like
Speaker 1: maybe he was trying to protect his guy, his asset
Speaker 1: um and blamed it on somebody else. And when the
Speaker 1: Spanish discovered that it was actually Barnett, and they presumed
Speaker 1: that the Jamaican governor was covering for him, they accused
Speaker 1: Governor Hamilton's of consorting with pirates, and Barnett turned right
Speaker 1: around and testified to that exactly. He totally threw Hamilton's
Speaker 1: under the bus basically saying, oh, yes, he totally covered
Speaker 1: for us pirates. We sure are pirates out here steal
Speaker 1: the treasure and he definitely lied to get us out
Speaker 1: of it and that, but that got him a pardon
Speaker 1: for turning on him. So Governor Hamilton's was sent back
Speaker 1: to England and replaced by Peter Heywood, who said, quote,
Speaker 1: had not commissions been granted, which were given out on
Speaker 1: the pretext of suppressing piracy, these unhappy disorders would not
Speaker 1: have been committed. So he's He's like, if we hadn't
Speaker 1: be He's like, don't don't hire pirates and then expect
Speaker 1: them not to be pirates. Come on, guys. Heywood was
Speaker 1: replaced by a new governor who reinstated Barnett's contract and
Speaker 1: he was back at sea hunting pirates again. I guess
Speaker 1: they're not very good at background check, said this. He's like,
Speaker 1: this guy sounds good. His resume is full of experience.
Speaker 1: Apparently works for this other governor. I'm a governor. This
Speaker 1: is going to work out great. Just sign right here, trustworthy.
Speaker 1: So Barnett was at sea tracking down the notorious Calico
Speaker 1: Jack and a Bonnie, but the two of them were
Speaker 1: about to make a new friend who would prove to
Speaker 1: be just as cunning and ruthless as the best of
Speaker 1: their crew. And we will find out more about that
Speaker 1: right after this and welcome back to the show. Matie's
Speaker 1: throw something in there. So Calico Jack and a Bonnie
Speaker 1: continued to sail, plunder and grow their pirate crew, and
Speaker 1: one night they captured a ship. As was customary in
Speaker 1: the pirate code of conduct, Calico Jack offered those who
Speaker 1: survived a position on his ship. Only a couple of
Speaker 1: the crew spoke English, so Jack kept them. He sent
Speaker 1: the others on their way after looting their ship, of course,
Speaker 1: also part of the pirate code of con I will
Speaker 1: Calico Jack very much a guy who was like I
Speaker 1: will happy. I'm not going to kill anyone who doesn't
Speaker 1: put up a fight. If you don't want to join
Speaker 1: my crew, you do not have to. I will, however,
Speaker 1: be taking everything you have. Um, I'll leave you a
Speaker 1: barrel of apples and you guys can go on your
Speaker 1: marry way, good luck, Thanks for everything. One of these
Speaker 1: news ship mates was a young man named Mark, and
Speaker 1: he caught Anne's attention despite Jack's devotion to her. You know,
Speaker 1: Anne's got a history of a bit of a wandering eye.
Speaker 1: She likes variety in her bedroom, and this Mark guy
Speaker 1: is like really giving her vibes. He's boyish but tough,
Speaker 1: quiet but a strong sailor, and even caught him glancing
Speaker 1: at her a few times once he integrated into the
Speaker 1: crew and she revealed herself to be a woman. So
Speaker 1: she's like, I think Mark is picking up whatever I'm putting,
Speaker 1: so let me go ahead and put them down. So
Speaker 1: Anne found Mark alone one night and started coming on
Speaker 1: to him, but Mark was resistant. He kept mumbling that
Speaker 1: Anne and the captain had like a thing going on.
Speaker 1: Everybody knows it, so he didn't want to get in trouble.
Speaker 1: Hands like, don't worry about him, don't you want me? Yeah,
Speaker 1: And Mark says like, oh, well, you know you're you're
Speaker 1: very pretty, but you know I'm you know, I'm just
Speaker 1: I'm saving myself for someone. You know, they'll never know
Speaker 1: we pirates do this kind of thing all the time.
Speaker 1: Is totally cool. Oh boy, Okay, well you know you
Speaker 1: know what, Actually I just had sex, so I don't
Speaker 1: think I can get it up actually, so you know,
Speaker 1: maybe another time you let me worry about that. And
Speaker 1: then so Anne gets real close to Mark, and she
Speaker 1: starts putting her hands on him, and Mark gets all anxious,
Speaker 1: and finally he pushes her away and he blurts out, no,
Speaker 1: I'm a lady. And she ripped open her loose shirt
Speaker 1: and revealed two big old honking boobies, and couldn't believe
Speaker 1: that she fell for the very disguise that she herself
Speaker 1: had been wearing this whole time. You know, a loose shirt,
Speaker 1: pants right, foiled again by pants. She's like, wow, people
Speaker 1: really do see what they want to see. True true.
Speaker 1: Mark's real name was Mary Reid, and she and Anne
Speaker 1: actually had a lot in common. Mary Reid's mother had
Speaker 1: married a sailor and gave birth to a son, but
Speaker 1: her husband, the sailor, vanished at sea shortly after the
Speaker 1: boy was born. The mother was getting financial support from
Speaker 1: her late husband's mother to help raise the child, but
Speaker 1: soon after that the woman became pregnant again, and her
Speaker 1: young son died of illness while she was pregnant with
Speaker 1: her second child. So the woman was now worried that
Speaker 1: her mother in law was going to stop sending her
Speaker 1: money now that her grandson was dead. Right, So the
Speaker 1: woman kept her second pregnancy a secret, and when she
Speaker 1: gave birth to her daughter, Mary, she raised her as
Speaker 1: a boy in boy's clothes, and the mother in law
Speaker 1: totally bought it. She thought that it was the same kit,
Speaker 1: you're a bit shorter than her. So Mary and her
Speaker 1: mother lived on this inheritance well into Mary's teen years.
Speaker 1: But you know, when she had a teenager, it was
Speaker 1: a little harder to disguise. The mother in law figured
Speaker 1: it out that this was not her grandson, that her
Speaker 1: grandson had in fact died many years earlier, and she
Speaker 1: had been supporting her unrelated daughter, you know, all these
Speaker 1: many years, and so she completely cut them off financially.
Speaker 1: I'm sure she was so. I mean, would you not
Speaker 1: be humiliated that somebody had perpetuated an insane con like
Speaker 1: that over years? Like that is a crazy game. For
Speaker 1: Mary's mom was bland. She kept that story more air
Speaker 1: tight than William Cormick did. Very true. He was not
Speaker 1: good at hiding, you know, the identity. He was very
Speaker 1: brash about being open about like, no, this is my
Speaker 1: maid and this is our kid, that's true, or his
Speaker 1: dumb story he came up, but it's my relative son. Yeah,
Speaker 1: for no reason, I know, your family. I'm not Come on, man,
Speaker 1: give me a little credit. Mary's mother a bit more savvy. Yeah. Sure,
Speaker 1: so their con got busted wide open. You know, they
Speaker 1: didn't have the mother in law's money coming in anymore.
Speaker 1: But Mary and her mother both found life easier if
Speaker 1: she continued to pretend to be a boy. She managed
Speaker 1: to find work as a footboy opening carriage doors for
Speaker 1: rich people. What a job, man, You know, nobody wants
Speaker 1: to work anymore jobs that have been lost, you know,
Speaker 1: because we got ready Aristotle automation. You know, used to
Speaker 1: be somebody's job to open your door for you. There's
Speaker 1: a handle, comple yourself, get out of here. Eventually, still disguised,
Speaker 1: Mary Reid found her way into the British military. She
Speaker 1: was a strong and capable soldier, and eventually she met
Speaker 1: and fell in love with a Flemish soldier. Revealed to
Speaker 1: him that she was a woman, and he said, great.
Speaker 1: That means we can do it in secret a lot,
Speaker 1: but it is, Karen Abbott writes in Smithsonian Magazine. Quote,
Speaker 1: Mary replied, with no apparent irony, that she was a
Speaker 1: reserved and proper lady. That for the fact that I'm
Speaker 1: dressing like a man and pretending to be a sailor
Speaker 1: in the army. I mean, I'm a proper lady. So
Speaker 1: he agreed to marry her. She quit the army. She
Speaker 1: revealed her true identity to their regiment and they were wed.
Speaker 1: And when they're fellow soldiers saw that she'd been a
Speaker 1: woman this whole time. They we're so happy for that,
Speaker 1: like amazing, How this is the best story I've ever heard.
Speaker 1: I always thought you two were perfect for each other,
Speaker 1: and now that I know you're a woman, it's like
Speaker 1: even better, Like, oh my god. Cool. The gifts come
Speaker 1: rolling in. Mary and her husband are able to buy
Speaker 1: a small inn called the Three Horse Shoes in the Netherlands,
Speaker 1: and they did well for themselves, pretty good. Mary sadly, though,
Speaker 1: her husband passed away shortly after, and Mary decided that
Speaker 1: she was going to re enter the military. But the
Speaker 1: problem was there was no war going on, so she
Speaker 1: was kind of bored and there was no room for
Speaker 1: advancement because you know, officers weren't getting killed off, nobody
Speaker 1: had an opportunity to get themselves promoted, so it's like
Speaker 1: you're pretty much stuck where you're at. So she decided
Speaker 1: to hop a ship for the West Indies to make
Speaker 1: her life there as a sailor. But it was the
Speaker 1: golden age of piracy, and it wasn't long before her
Speaker 1: ship was raided by pirates. Boarded, and likely still disguised
Speaker 1: as a boy. She was probably given the choice to
Speaker 1: either die or join. They weren't all as friendly as
Speaker 1: Calico Jack, so she joined the pirate crew, and she
Speaker 1: sailed with them for a short while before she was
Speaker 1: rated by none other than Calico Jack and eventually found
Speaker 1: herself watching and Bonnie try to seduce her in the
Speaker 1: middle of the night, and that catches us up to
Speaker 1: where we were. Abbott suggests that the stress and poor
Speaker 1: diet Mary endured while working with the army may have
Speaker 1: interrupted or paused her menstrual cycle, which is very common.
Speaker 1: This is one of the ways women at sea had
Speaker 1: an easier time hiding their identities. So of course it's
Speaker 1: hard to hide once a month's like bloody rags, right right,
Speaker 1: I guess maybe not on pirate just like you hide
Speaker 1: it like in your boobs, and then you go on
Speaker 1: a raid, you just like throw it like, oh, this
Speaker 1: guy died on top of these rags. I guess. Also,
Speaker 1: like most of the men on these ships were actually pretty.
Speaker 1: They were like in their teens early twenties. It wasn't
Speaker 1: uncommon for them to have no facial hair, so that
Speaker 1: was another thing helped keep the secret. And of course
Speaker 1: the loose clothing and baggy pants neutralize everyone's anatomy, so
Speaker 1: not not hard. I guess that's not too bad. So
Speaker 1: Anne and Mary became like best friends immediately. Obviously they
Speaker 1: kindred spirits, right, but Mary continued to hide her identity
Speaker 1: as Mark. Then Calico Jack starts seeing Anne hanging around
Speaker 1: with his Mark guy all the time, and they seem
Speaker 1: to be getting along or real well, and he starts
Speaker 1: to get a little jealous. One day, he busts in
Speaker 1: on them and he's like, listen, here on the captain,
Speaker 1: here's don't you be sleeping with my lover or all.
Speaker 1: Rip your gouts out, slit your throat and feed at
Speaker 1: a kracking. And Anne and Mary just like stare at
Speaker 1: him for a second and then bust out laughing. Mary
Speaker 1: pops open her shirt again showed her boobies, and you know, Jack,
Speaker 1: I imagine, Jack, I imagine it's got to be like, Okay,
Speaker 1: how many of my sailors are actually women? Every one,
Speaker 1: line up and take your clothes off. Now I'm looking
Speaker 1: at everything this time, but neutralized as jealousy. I guess.
Speaker 1: The three of them became besties, and it has been
Speaker 1: rumored that there was another relationship going on with Anne
Speaker 1: and Mary, um that they had, you know, a physical
Speaker 1: relationship with each other, but there's zero evidence anywhere to
Speaker 1: suggest that that is true. In fact, Mary started checking
Speaker 1: up with another male pirate on the ship who wasn't
Speaker 1: nearly as tough as she was. How how do they
Speaker 1: step down, you know, from themselves? Oh yeah, well, you know,
Speaker 1: they probably didn't have many options because they were so
Speaker 1: damned tough. Everyone with him a treat Yeah exactly. So yeah,
Speaker 1: So she's with this dude. He's a bit weaker than her.
Speaker 1: One day, he's challenged to a duel, but Mary knew
Speaker 1: her lover would lose, so and she picked a fight
Speaker 1: with his duellist herself and kicked his ass. Don't be
Speaker 1: She's like, don't be picking on my boyfriend. The ship
Speaker 1: out of here. I mean, that'd be pretty cool for
Speaker 1: that pirate too. He's like, don't you take another step
Speaker 1: near me, or I'll tell my girlfriend she'll kick your
Speaker 1: rests she's very scary. So Mary and Anne were two
Speaker 1: of the most ruthless pirates on the ship, and Calico
Speaker 1: Jack and his crew went on a two month spree.
Speaker 1: They captured a ship in October seventeen twenty called the
Speaker 1: Revenge and made that their flagship. It's rumored that Calico
Speaker 1: Jack himself designed the skull and crossbones flag that we
Speaker 1: know today as the Jolly Roger. That's probably untrue, but
Speaker 1: it's more fun this way, so go with me. They
Speaker 1: say that was probably written by this German poet in
Speaker 1: like ninete um, and it's just kind of spawned the
Speaker 1: rumor and now everybody thinks so and there's a bunch
Speaker 1: of storians and they're like, that's so ridiculous because nothing
Speaker 1: ever just and I'm like, shut up, come on, Yeah,
Speaker 1: let's say he invented it. Same with the same with
Speaker 1: Anne and Mary's romance, you know, so true. It's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: come on. They probably had a little atlay. They had
Speaker 1: a polycule like at least one time, because we know
Speaker 1: anything goes at sea is the rule from our Coliford
Speaker 1: and John Swanna. The men were often getting their sexual
Speaker 1: gratification from other men on board right, and they did
Speaker 1: not consider it to be a homosexual thing at all.
Speaker 1: It was just like, what's available, Okay, that's what I'm doing. Um,
Speaker 1: it's totally cool. So I feel like, I mean, at
Speaker 1: least and you get bored, right chilling, you get drunk
Speaker 1: from and you're like, I don't know, let's try it
Speaker 1: one time. Why not speculation station, They tried to at
Speaker 1: least one time. Let's take it all wrapped up in
Speaker 1: the jolly Roger Yeah exactly. He's like, that's actually my
Speaker 1: sex flag. I wonder if he named the flag after
Speaker 1: Governor Rogers. He's like, this is your skull, asshole. He
Speaker 1: would not like that. So anyway, they're crushing this pirate game.
Speaker 1: And soon they captured the ship of Captain Thomas Spendlow
Speaker 1: and took in one of their best hauls to date.
Speaker 1: A ton of stuff off that ship, tobacco and food
Speaker 1: and gold and all kinds of fun ship. And shortly
Speaker 1: after that, they I guess, took a step down. They
Speaker 1: seized a canoe. Look you gotta. I mean, the truth
Speaker 1: of the matter is most of who they were raiding
Speaker 1: were like small fishing boats, right, Like they were not
Speaker 1: always going up against these big you know, treasure ships,
Speaker 1: like more often than not, they were just stealing food
Speaker 1: and supplies off of fishing boats. And then not to
Speaker 1: last like another day, yea, And they found this canoe
Speaker 1: and captured a woman on board who was named Dorothy Thomas.
Speaker 1: Now Anne and Mary were both pretty ruthless about killing hostages,
Speaker 1: and you know, Jack, like we said, it was more
Speaker 1: of the kind of guy would be like if you
Speaker 1: can either join us or get the hell out of here.
Speaker 1: And Mary and Anne insisted that the crew killed Dorothy Thomas,
Speaker 1: but Calico Jack overruled them and let her go. Well
Speaker 1: sure enough, a few days later, our old friend, the
Speaker 1: pirate hunter Jonathan Barnett, was skulking around Jamaica trying to
Speaker 1: pick up leads as to where Calico Jack could be,
Speaker 1: and he bumped into a woman who claimed to have
Speaker 1: been captured by him. This was Dorothy Thomas, and she
Speaker 1: gave him a lead and Barnett headed out in pursuit.
Speaker 1: Jack and his crew had gotten kind of cocky with
Speaker 1: all these recent wins they were having, and they decided
Speaker 1: that night they were going to hang out in Negril Bay,
Speaker 1: which is now known as Bloody Bay. And they just
Speaker 1: partied all night. They had all this wine that they
Speaker 1: had stolen off a ship recently, and they were just
Speaker 1: jugging it by the bottle, acting crazy and foolish. Oh
Speaker 1: yeah right. They raised the Jolly Roger and just a
Speaker 1: bunch of bad decisions. While Anne and Mary saw these
Speaker 1: pirates acting like drunken idiots, and they decided, you know what,
Speaker 1: we're going to keep our wits about us, and they
Speaker 1: handled their liquor and they stayed pretty uh, pretty conscious
Speaker 1: of what was going on around them. They warned the
Speaker 1: pirates to stay savvy and keep a lookout, but all
Speaker 1: the men didn't listen. Late that night, Barnett's ships sailed
Speaker 1: into the bay, heard the pirates revelry, and waited until morning.
Speaker 1: Around ten am, Barnett sailed close to the Revenge and
Speaker 1: raised a British flag, demanding that Jack and his crew
Speaker 1: surrender a calico. Jack woke up with a miserable hangover.
Speaker 1: His crew starts rising with him, and they're grumbling. They're
Speaker 1: probably swearing they'll never drink again my kingdom for a
Speaker 1: raw egg or whatever, Right, yeah, a bloody Mary and
Speaker 1: Mary's like not yet. But even with their thick heads,
Speaker 1: Jack went to the side of the ship and shouted
Speaker 1: back they would never surrender, so Barnett fired a warning
Speaker 1: shot across the ship's bow, and Jack said, Okay, I'm
Speaker 1: too hungover for this. Everybody down into the hold. We're
Speaker 1: gonna hide. That's my big plane. We'll never surrender. Never mind,
Speaker 1: Oh you have cannons. Sorry, you know, I'm really not
Speaker 1: in the mood for this today. Can break up? Ready
Speaker 1: to party? All right? Yeah? Of course, Anna Marry are
Speaker 1: like fucking hide. This is a ship man. There's a
Speaker 1: limited number of places for them to search, just like
Speaker 1: dozens of people here. I think that Barnett's gonna get
Speaker 1: over here and be like, oh, don't look under that
Speaker 1: pile of sails that's moving around mumbling softly, and I
Speaker 1: think it just vomited underneath. I see a foot, but
Speaker 1: probably unrelated. Yeah, Like they're just gonna get on board
Speaker 1: and be like, I guess nobody's here. Well let's leave.
Speaker 1: Then that's so weird. Someone would leave this boat here
Speaker 1: all by itself. Must be a ghost ship. Well we
Speaker 1: better leave. Don't want to disturb the ghosts after all.
Speaker 1: But no, Mary and Anne decide they're going to have
Speaker 1: to defend the ship. Themselves. Mary allegedly stood over the
Speaker 1: hold and shouted down, if there's a man among you,
Speaker 1: you'll come up and fight like the mania to be.
Speaker 1: When they refused to come up, Pps writes that she shouted,
Speaker 1: quote dogs if instead of these weaklings, I only had
Speaker 1: some women with me, and she fired a single shot
Speaker 1: into the hold, killing one of the crewmen. Damn, she's
Speaker 1: like a better and dead pirate, one who won't fight.
Speaker 1: You're useless. Bang. With machetes in one hand and pistols
Speaker 1: in the other, Mary, Reid and and Bonnie stood their
Speaker 1: ground and defended the ship as Barnett's men boarded, they
Speaker 1: thought viciously, but eventually, of course they were overpowered. No
Speaker 1: one else was fighting with them, right, yeah, just the
Speaker 1: two of them. Now, the two women, Calico Jack, and
Speaker 1: all the crew were, you know, uncovered from their hiding spots.
Speaker 1: They opened all the barrels, come on out. Kind of here.
Speaker 1: They were all arrested and sent to trial in Jamaica.
Speaker 1: Now with plenty of witnesses and having twice violated the
Speaker 1: Acts of Grace Pardon. At this point, Calico Jack's trial
Speaker 1: was quick and simple. You know, they're basically Calico Jack guilty,
Speaker 1: You're done, goodbye. He was sentenced to be executed by hanging,
Speaker 1: and his final request was to see his love and
Speaker 1: one more time, and the judge allowed it. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean Jack, you know, he he really went out of
Speaker 1: his way for an a lot. Yeah, he violated the
Speaker 1: acts of Grace for her. He took her a Cuba
Speaker 1: and helped her deliver her baby. You know, like this
Speaker 1: guy really looked out for her. So he was brought
Speaker 1: to the cell where she and Mary Reid were being held.
Speaker 1: He walked up to the bars, tearful but happy to
Speaker 1: see his love again. She approached her lover and Captain
Speaker 1: took his hands through the bars, looked him in the
Speaker 1: eyes and said, quote, if you had fought like a man,
Speaker 1: you need not have been hanged like a dog. Damn
Speaker 1: damn girl. Ice coll probably then did like a take
Speaker 1: him away, get him out of my sight, which is
Speaker 1: a bit of a blow for old Jack. Yeah. But
Speaker 1: you know, but breaking and was very clear that's like
Speaker 1: you're either a pirate or you're not. That's right. You know,
Speaker 1: I wonder if you know it hurt, But he was
Speaker 1: secretly like, that's my girl, that's my girl. Girl. Take
Speaker 1: the girl out of the pirate ship. But I can't
Speaker 1: take the pirate at the girl, right, So that was
Speaker 1: their final words to each other. The guards hauled him
Speaker 1: off to be hanged. John Calico Jack Rackham was executed
Speaker 1: on November seventy and his body was hanged on a
Speaker 1: gibbet near the entrance to Port Royal as a warning
Speaker 1: to other pirates. The island is now called Rackham's Key
Speaker 1: after the Dread Pirates. Ten days later, Mary and Anne
Speaker 1: went to trial and they immediately pled not guilty to
Speaker 1: all charges. I'm thinking they were probably just like, you know, oh,
Speaker 1: we're doll We're just two ladies who got caught up
Speaker 1: with these pirates. You know, what can we do. We're
Speaker 1: just feeble women, like we couldn't handle. Then we had
Speaker 1: to do whatever they said. We were just hanging out
Speaker 1: trying to bring bad luck. Actually, then you're welcome, welcome
Speaker 1: that we were there because we made the water really
Speaker 1: like upset for whatever. So it seemed like a reasonable
Speaker 1: enough excuse to the judge. But then the star Wness
Speaker 1: came in and Mary and Anne were like so pissed,
Speaker 1: their shagging their heads because they knew this was coming.
Speaker 1: The Star witness was Dorothy Thomas, the woman from the canoe,
Speaker 1: the one they said they should execute. I knew I
Speaker 1: should have killed that bit. While Dorothy Thomas testified that quote,
Speaker 1: they each wall men's jackets and long trousers and handkerchiefs
Speaker 1: tied about their heads. Each of them had a machette
Speaker 1: and a pistol in their hands, and they cursed and
Speaker 1: swore at the men to murder me, which they did.
Speaker 1: She also said that she knew that they were two women,
Speaker 1: quote from the largeness of their breasts. Oh my god,
Speaker 1: thank you. They are pretty big. But Dorothy's testimony pretty
Speaker 1: much got Marry and Ann their guilty sentence, and they
Speaker 1: were sentenced to be hanged. But wait. Anne cried to
Speaker 1: the judge, I the belly, which sounds crazy, but it
Speaker 1: meant that she was pregnant, and Mary stood up to like,
Speaker 1: oh me too, I'm almost so pregnant. I've got the belly.
Speaker 1: And it turned out to be true. Both of them
Speaker 1: actually were pregnant. I mean, they were doing everything that
Speaker 1: you needed to do, so their executions were stayed and
Speaker 1: they were kept in prison so that they could have,
Speaker 1: you know, their baby. Tragically, Mary Read died in April
Speaker 1: the following year of a terrible fever, possibly related to
Speaker 1: her pregnancy, and there's no record of whether or not
Speaker 1: she had given birth before she died, or she died
Speaker 1: while she was pregnant, or any We don't really have
Speaker 1: any information about that. As for Anne, her fate is
Speaker 1: a mystery to this day. Captain Johnson writes, quote, she
Speaker 1: was continued in prison and reprieved from time to time.
Speaker 1: But what has become of her since we cannot tell
Speaker 1: only this we know that she was not executed. Some
Speaker 1: believe that her wealthy father, Old Williams Silver Spoons Cormick,
Speaker 1: stepped in and got her released from prison, which says
Speaker 1: to me that maybe she did not burn his plantation
Speaker 1: to the ground. Maybe father, we love Maybe it's like
Speaker 1: like a succession thing, like I'll save you from this
Speaker 1: and now I own you forever. Very true. Now that's
Speaker 1: that's a controlling thing too, You're right, or he was
Speaker 1: just like you're my daughter, I love you. Encyclopedia Britannica
Speaker 1: says that she returned to the Carolina's, married, had children,
Speaker 1: and lived to the ripe old age of eighty two.
Speaker 1: Probably wanted to tell James Bonnie see I got a
Speaker 1: good time and a long time. You gotta do it
Speaker 1: Anne's way, and Ways sang that after they raided a ship,
Speaker 1: you gotta do it An's way, Ann's way. If we
Speaker 1: killed the canoe lady, I'd be okay, amazing, Oh, Dorothy Thomas,
Speaker 1: damn real, Karen, I'm just kidding. I'm she was really
Speaker 1: scary to be raided in a canoe, like you like,
Speaker 1: you can't even get on this ship without capsizing me. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she just gets almost executed, like threatened with a knife
Speaker 1: to worth throat probably, and then goes and tells on
Speaker 1: them for it, Like, come on, this story is full
Speaker 1: of tattle tales. Well you know there was a lot
Speaker 1: of money in it at the time. True. True. Oh man, Wow,
Speaker 1: what an adventure. I love it. I love this story. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Nothing like drama on the high seas, seriously, And you
Speaker 1: know you cut out the months, well weeks in between
Speaker 1: where there's just nothing going on. You know, they always
Speaker 1: talk about like and then the next over the next
Speaker 1: two months, they rated a ton of ships. They're really
Speaker 1: successful pirates, And I'm like, so they were probably like
Speaker 1: you know, two months span like four raids right right,
Speaker 1: like with each with like two weeks of quiet sailing
Speaker 1: where they're just having orgies. Oh yeah, exactly, that's when
Speaker 1: they try the polycue out smelly stinky orgies hard pass.
Speaker 1: But I have been really wanting to get into reading
Speaker 1: about black Beard because it's such a renowned pirate. But
Speaker 1: apparently it was only a pirate like two years. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you don't have a very long career. Um, so you
Speaker 1: must have done a lot to get so infamous in
Speaker 1: a short period of time, especially when your life consists
Speaker 1: of a lot of inactivity, right, Um, so that the
Speaker 1: activity must be your royal insane. Yeah, it's very just
Speaker 1: like it's like, uh, oh weird. I'm gonna make a
Speaker 1: sports metaphor. It's like football where it's just like really
Speaker 1: high intensity and then stop and we're quiet for a while,
Speaker 1: and then really high intensity and then we stop work
Speaker 1: quiet for a while. But that's probably why you know,
Speaker 1: black Beard met up with Calico, Jack and Vain and
Speaker 1: they just like partied for a few nights. Um, They're
Speaker 1: like I'm not doing anything, which is nothing great. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And also black Beard, I don't I don't think we'll
Speaker 1: end up with a story of his on this show,
Speaker 1: but I did read under this that you know, look,
Speaker 1: we love black Beard on our flag means death, but
Speaker 1: black Beard was actually one of the people allegedly who
Speaker 1: was notorious for if there was a woman on his ship,
Speaker 1: he would strangle her and throw her overboard. Damn. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so not not a fun guy. That That version is
Speaker 1: much more fun than the real life version. Tega is
Speaker 1: great at playing the worst people in the most lovable way.
Speaker 1: I know, because he was Hitler and Jojo Rabbit, you know, yeah,
Speaker 1: at least he was like an imaginary version that helped.
Speaker 1: I think it was like an actual Hitler, it would
Speaker 1: have been way less. Yeah, that movie is so good though. Anyway,
Speaker 1: we're here for Pirates. UM, super fun story and I
Speaker 1: just I love this these kind of adventures these guys
Speaker 1: lived again. We cannot totally claim this story as total
Speaker 1: nonfiction because it's definitely been embellished. There's a lot of
Speaker 1: conflicting accounts about how this went down. These people all
Speaker 1: definitely existed. Um, A lot of these adventures probably really
Speaker 1: happened in terms of the ships they rated, the success
Speaker 1: that they had and uh and their romance. Um. But
Speaker 1: obviously it colored up a bit by Captain Johnson and
Speaker 1: many other authors through history, but the legal rectord records
Speaker 1: do exist. There's a whole published book called the Trial
Speaker 1: of John Rackham. Um that is the notes from the trial.
Speaker 1: Uh so you know it was. It was the seventeen hundred.
Speaker 1: It's not like they weren't writing stuff down at this time.
Speaker 1: So as embellished as it is, this is still we
Speaker 1: would say a true story. Yeah, when you're such a
Speaker 1: colorful characters like pirates, Yeah, your stories are going to
Speaker 1: get embellished, right right, But but they don't need that
Speaker 1: much embellishing either, because you just are doing crazy stuff. Yeah. Anyway,
Speaker 1: so it's like, well I threw an an extra murder
Speaker 1: or two, most of it is. Yeah, I was gonna say,
Speaker 1: it's like, um, in terms of pirate stories, this one
Speaker 1: feels like probably had the most of the actual romanticized
Speaker 1: pirate stuff we think of today in it. I mean,
Speaker 1: the colorful characters, all the fun partying, you know, the
Speaker 1: successful raids. You know, not too many people murdered disguised ladies. Yeah,
Speaker 1: not too many people, right enough. Yeah, and a bunch
Speaker 1: of a bunch of angry British governors shaking their fists
Speaker 1: at pirates for like just giving them the old slip
Speaker 1: damn it. Yeah, I love it. I love it. I
Speaker 1: hope you loved it too. Yeah, it's really too bad
Speaker 1: that we couldn't come to you with a story about
Speaker 1: the lesbian pirates Mary Read and a Bunny. I was
Speaker 1: really looking forward to that. Yeah, um, but there's just
Speaker 1: not enough evidence to support it. Not that they were
Speaker 1: writing down like last night, you know what I did
Speaker 1: with Mary. But as I say, I think it's pretty
Speaker 1: safe to assume that at least one time they were
Speaker 1: a little curious and they were like, let's give it
Speaker 1: a work, and if they liked it at all, then
Speaker 1: they at least had some threesome scours through in another
Speaker 1: pirate here and there, just fun, right, I can see it, right,
Speaker 1: I would see it. What I'm saying is I would
Speaker 1: watch that. Yeah, they would call in other pirates sometimes,
Speaker 1: you know. It'd be like Mary Ann, Mary's boyfriend and
Speaker 1: Calico Jack and they're having a good time and Anne
Speaker 1: looks up and she's like, get get get all long
Speaker 1: bones Johnson, Get all long Johnson, Johnson in here some
Speaker 1: fun long Johnson Johnson's pirate name. Mary. I'm gonna lay
Speaker 1: on top of you. Let's see if he can do
Speaker 1: us both at the same time. No, for that one,
Speaker 1: we need old Peter to Johnson's Johnson called the wrong Johnson.
Speaker 1: Oh well, I guess you can both come if I'm
Speaker 1: doing my job right, you can. Oh boy, we get it.
Speaker 1: Better get out of here before it gets too hot
Speaker 1: board this vessel. Oh man, Well, thank you so much
Speaker 1: for tuning in. Everybody. If you like this show, please
Speaker 1: say ahoy. Yeah. We have many ways for you to
Speaker 1: get in touch with us, including our email, which is
Speaker 1: ridic Romance at gmail dot com. That's right. You can
Speaker 1: stand on the bow of the ship and wave some
Speaker 1: semaphore flags or flash one of those lanterns and we
Speaker 1: will respond in kind. Or you can find us on
Speaker 1: Twitter and Instagram. I'm at Oh great, it's Eli. I'm
Speaker 1: at Dynamite Boom, And of course the show is at
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Speaker 1: let them know what you think. Tell him the unvarnished truth. Good.
Speaker 1: Thanks for tuning in, y'all, and we will catch you
Speaker 1: later this week. I Love you by so long friends,
Speaker 1: it's time to go. Thanks so listening to our show.
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