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Speaker 1: Hey, history fans, if you want a double dose of history,

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Speaker 1: here's a rerun for today, brought to you by Tracy v. Wilson.

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Speaker 1: We hope it makes previous episodes for this date easier

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Speaker 1: to find in the feed. Welcome to this Day in

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Speaker 1: History Class from how Stuff Works dot Com and from

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Speaker 1: the desk of Stuff you missed in History Class. It's

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Speaker 1: the show where we explore the past one day at

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Speaker 1: a time with a quick look at what happened today

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Speaker 1: in history. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy

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Speaker 1: Vie Wilson, and it's November. On this day in seventeen

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Speaker 1: twenty and Bonnie and Mary Reid were convicted of piracy.

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Speaker 1: As is often the case with pirates, their early life

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Speaker 1: is something of a fog. They each though, wound up

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Speaker 1: aboard the ship of Calico Jack Rackham. The story generally

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Speaker 1: goes that Anne's husband, John Bonnie, had been working in

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Speaker 1: the Bahamas for Governor Woods Rogers, and he had been

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Speaker 1: a pirate informant. But then Anne fell in love with

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Speaker 1: one of the targets of her husband's informant activity, which

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Speaker 1: was Jack Rackham, joined his pirate crew. Mary, on the

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Speaker 1: other hand, was disguising herself as a man to join

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Speaker 1: the crew, and earlier on in her life she had

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Speaker 1: similarly disguised herself to be a footboy and a soldier,

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Speaker 1: basically occupations that weren't open to women. On August seventy,

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Speaker 1: Jack Rackham and Bonnie and the rest of a party

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Speaker 1: stole a ship called the William, which belonged to a

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Speaker 1: man named John Hamm. They took on a crew of

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Speaker 1: twelve and started sailing the William around the Bahamas, plundering

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Speaker 1: as they went. They mostly went after small boats, especially

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Speaker 1: fishing boats. They would basically take all the fish in

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Speaker 1: the tackle and then be on their way. Sources disagree

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Speaker 1: about whether Bonnie and Red say disguised as men this

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Speaker 1: whole time. In some versions, when they had a raid

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Speaker 1: like this, they would be dressed as men, but they

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Speaker 1: were in women's clothes the rest of the time, and

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Speaker 1: others they were just dressed as women. Whatever. It's really

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Speaker 1: all over the map and October of seventeen twenty though,

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Speaker 1: one of the boats they encountered was a canoe that

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Speaker 1: was being helmed by a woman named Dorothy Thomas, and

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Speaker 1: Rackham let her go over. Bonnie and reads objections that

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Speaker 1: she might notify the authorities of where they were. The

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Speaker 1: authorities already knew though Governor Woods Rogers had already heard

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Speaker 1: about Rackham's piratical activities off the coast of Jamaica. He

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Speaker 1: had already dispatched the privateer captain Jonathan Barnett to take

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Speaker 1: care of it. Bonnie and Read were the ones on

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Speaker 1: deck when Barnett's ship found an approached them on October

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Speaker 1: two of seventeen twenty. Most of the rest of the crew, though,

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Speaker 1: were below decks. They were intoxicated, so Bonnie and Read

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Speaker 1: stayed above decks. They were fighting back to back with

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Speaker 1: both pistols and cutlasses and shouting below to the men

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Speaker 1: to come up and help. At one point, Read reportedly

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Speaker 1: fired her pistol below deck to try to get their

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Speaker 1: attention and wind up hitting one of them. Ultimately, though

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Speaker 1: they were all captured, trials for Rackham and his crew

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Speaker 1: started on November sixteen, seventy. They were all found guilty

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Speaker 1: and hanged. Rackham's last request was supposedly to see and

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Speaker 1: Bonnie again, and she had no patience for that, saying quote,

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Speaker 1: if you had fought like a man, you need not

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Speaker 1: have been hanged like a dog, and Bonnie and Mary

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Speaker 1: Reid were tried on November and according to the general

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Speaker 1: History of the Pirates quote to other pirates were tried

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Speaker 1: that belonged to Rackham's crew, that was Ann and Mary

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Speaker 1: being convicted. They were brought up and asked if either

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Speaker 1: of them had anything to say, why the sentence of

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Speaker 1: death should not pass upon them in like manner as

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Speaker 1: had been done to all the rest. And both of

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Speaker 1: them pleaded their bellies, being quick with child and prayed

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Speaker 1: that execution might be stayed, whereupon the court passed sentence

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Speaker 1: as in cases of piracy, but ordered them back till

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Speaker 1: a proper jury could be appointed to inquire into the matter.

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Speaker 1: So they basically both argued that they should be spared

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Speaker 1: hanging because they were pregnant. They were sent to prison

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Speaker 1: and and Bonnie apparently survived her time in prison, but

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Speaker 1: it's unclear what happened to her after that. Mary Read

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Speaker 1: died of a fever or possibly due to complications of

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Speaker 1: childbirth before she was released. She's probably the same Mary

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Speaker 1: Read who's listened in a death record for a seventeen one.

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Speaker 1: You can learn more about all this in the August

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Speaker 1: fifteen episode of Steph You Missed in History class, including

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Speaker 1: why that general history of the Pirates that I just

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Speaker 1: read from is a source you should really take with

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Speaker 1: a grade of salt. That's why there's also so much

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Speaker 1: supposedly and reportedly in this episode. Thanks to Casey Pigraham

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Speaker 1: and Chandler May's for their work on this show, and

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Speaker 1: you can subscribe to This Day in History Class on

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Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, and where rail to get your podcasts.

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Speaker 1: You can tune in tomorrow for a Massacre at Sea