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Speaker 1: This episode features stories about sex work that may be

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Speaker 1: a bit too grown up for some of our younger listeners.

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Speaker 1: Discretion is advised. The larger boats floating in the harbor

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Speaker 1: had upper decks and more rooms to accommodate the clientele.

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Speaker 1: Each boat was painted in bright shades of yellow, red, green,

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Speaker 1: and blue. Equally vibrant silk flags danced in the wind.

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Speaker 1: Prisms of every color adorned the rose tinted glass lantern

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Speaker 1: shades aboard, two string fiddles played while women dressed in

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Speaker 1: embroidered robes sang. The sing sing girlies, as many called them,

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Speaker 1: sang of love and war and beckoned the men to

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Speaker 1: join them in the early evening light. Some said these

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Speaker 1: boats were the most beautiful in all the world. Merchant, military,

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Speaker 1: and even pirate ships pulled into the harbor, drawn by

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Speaker 1: women and their songs. Men who worked in the factories

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Speaker 1: along the harbor often lined up to board the small boats.

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Speaker 1: Diplomats and other high ranking of a shoals sought out

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Speaker 1: the larger and more expensive ones. While some called them

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Speaker 1: flower boats, others refer to them simply as pleasure boats

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Speaker 1: or more bluntly floating brothels. Parents who cannot afford to feed.

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Speaker 1: Their families sometimes sold their daughters to the boat owners,

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Speaker 1: who promised to feed and clothe them and give them

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Speaker 1: a place to sleep. The girls, who could be as

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Speaker 1: young as thirteen, began work around five or six in

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Speaker 1: the evening, continuing until the early morning hours. The more

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Speaker 1: prominent boats catering to the affluent men, served food and drink.

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Speaker 1: Their owners provided enough girls to fulfill every man's desire,

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Speaker 1: from a dinner companion and discussion partner, to singing and

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Speaker 1: dancing and sex. If the girls didn't contract syphilis, for

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Speaker 1: which there was no cure, they hoped to attract a

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Speaker 1: wealthy man who might keep her as his mistress. Otherwise,

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Speaker 1: once they grew older, the brothel owners discarded them, leaving

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Speaker 1: them with little money. In a world where men dominated

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Speaker 1: the workforce, Canton flower boats served only Chinese men, Western men,

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Speaker 1: and of or foreigners were sent to the lower class

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Speaker 1: brothels at Wampoa, often run by the poorest families. These

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Speaker 1: women shared similar stories with others around the world. Without

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Speaker 1: equal rights and pay, women had little opportunity if they

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Speaker 1: were born into poverty or a lower class. For the

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Speaker 1: poorest women in Canton, they could work sixteen hour days

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Speaker 1: and factories for pay that wouldn't be enough for food

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Speaker 1: or rent, or they could find work in a brothel.

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Speaker 1: During the Golden Age of pirates, research suggests that one

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Speaker 1: in five women living in ports and harbor towns were

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Speaker 1: sex workers. Both pirates and sailors alike frequently emptied their

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Speaker 1: pockets to spend time with them. Others were said to

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Speaker 1: pay five hundred pieces of eight just to see them naked.

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Speaker 1: A woman's ability to earn a living relied heavily on

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Speaker 1: her youth and her looks. As they aged, any chance

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Speaker 1: of a better future grew dimmer by the year. But

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Speaker 1: in China, one sing sing girl set her sights on

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Speaker 1: a better future, and as will soon discover, her light

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Speaker 1: shone brighter than all the lance earns in the harbor.

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Speaker 1: I'm Aaron Manky and welcome two pirates. In seventy eight,

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Speaker 1: Jingshi's family needed to supplement their income, which meant forcing

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Speaker 1: their thirteen year old daughter to become a sex worker

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Speaker 1: on a Cantonese flower boat. Within a few years, her

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Speaker 1: beauty had made her highly popular with the more elite customers,

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Speaker 1: and by eighteen o one she had worked her way

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Speaker 1: up to Madam Although no longer one of the regular girls,

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Speaker 1: Chinghi still kept an eye out for a better opportunity,

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Speaker 1: and in eighteen o one, that opportunity sailed into harbor

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Speaker 1: flying a pirate flag. Jang yees fleet of ships each

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Speaker 1: flew a red flag, making them stand out among other

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Speaker 1: pirate ships. While black flags were the common calling card

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Speaker 1: for pirates, red flags were worse. In pirates and maritime lingo.

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Speaker 1: Red flags meant that the captain and crew would not

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Speaker 1: negotiate nor offer mercy or pity to targeted ships. Jang

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Speaker 1: Ye's fleet was sizeable, over two hundred ships in fact,

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Speaker 1: although his power extended well beyond that. He commanded upwards

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Speaker 1: of forty thousand men across six hundred ships, and while

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Speaker 1: he controlled the red fleets, he entrusted other pirate captains

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Speaker 1: with the white, green, yellow, blue, and black fleets. Jang

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Speaker 1: Yee had not only built a formidable armada, but he

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Speaker 1: also had created and ruled an entire pirate confederacy. The

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Speaker 1: colored flags also announced to his captains that ships flying

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Speaker 1: certain colors belonged to the confederation and should not be attacked. Instead,

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Speaker 1: his fleet sought out merchant ships for their silk, gold

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Speaker 1: spices and other cargo. The pirates also ran a protection racket.

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Speaker 1: Any village that didn't pay protection money found itself targeted

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Speaker 1: for a raid. Pirating had been the only life jang

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Speaker 1: Yi knew. His father had been a pirate, as well

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Speaker 1: as the men before him. Most of his fleet consisted

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Speaker 1: of large cargo ships otherwise called junk. Each eighty footship

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Speaker 1: was capable of carrying approximately eight hundred pounds of cargo

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Speaker 1: and housed about forty cannons. Jang Ye had become one of,

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Speaker 1: if not the most powerful pirate to sail the South

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Speaker 1: China Sea. Then he was about to meet the one

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Speaker 1: person who would take the pirate confederacy to an even

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Speaker 1: higher level. It said that when jang Yi visited the

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Speaker 1: flower boat, Ching Shi worked on her beauty and spirit

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Speaker 1: captivated him, But it was her reputation as a shrewd

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Speaker 1: businesswoman that might have intrigued him the most. Word of

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Speaker 1: her financial prowess had traveled far and wide, as did

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Speaker 1: her giles in wielding power over influential men. The pirate

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Speaker 1: king was so enchanted with ching Shi that he proposed

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Speaker 1: to her. Right then she would accept, she told him,

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Speaker 1: but only if he gave her fifty percent of his

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Speaker 1: finances and partial control over his entire fleet. It was

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Speaker 1: a bold move, and one Jang Yee might have walked

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Speaker 1: away from fact in legend blur here and historians have

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Speaker 1: debated over two different outcomes. One is that he ordered

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Speaker 1: his men to kidnap her, and the other is that

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Speaker 1: he agreed to her terms. Either way, the outcome remained

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Speaker 1: the same. Ching she got what she asked for. If

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Speaker 1: Jang thought his new bride had spirit, though he wouldn't

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Speaker 1: be disappointed. She worked alongside him growing his empire. She

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Speaker 1: instituted codes acts of loyalty were revered above all else

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Speaker 1: and highly rewarded. If her husband went to see she

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Speaker 1: went with him. She learned everything he knew about steering

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Speaker 1: a ship and managing a crew. When it came to

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Speaker 1: women aboard the ship, Chinghi didn't subscribe to many pirate

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Speaker 1: and sailor superstitions that women were bad luck. However, she

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Speaker 1: did implement a code of conduct that she expected the

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Speaker 1: men to follow whenever they had attractive female hostages on board.

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Speaker 1: Men were castrated or hanged for committing sexual assault. Chances

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Speaker 1: are that Ching she survived horrors in her own time

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Speaker 1: working on the flower boats, which would explain her insistence

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Speaker 1: for punishing crew who committed violence against women on board.

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Speaker 1: Other rules were broader and assured complete compliance among crew.

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Speaker 1: Any crew member who refused to follow an order faced

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Speaker 1: immediate execution. Bounties had to be shared. Anyone hiding treasure

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Speaker 1: for themselves risked losing an appendage. Rule breakers were flogged,

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Speaker 1: kept in irons, chastised, or even quartered, depending on the

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Speaker 1: severity of the transgression. But while her rules and codes

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Speaker 1: were strictly enforced, she made other kinder changes as well.

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Speaker 1: Changes that one over not only Jane Yie and his crew,

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Speaker 1: but many others as well. As I said before, while

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Speaker 1: rule breakers suffered her wrath, ching Chi made sure to

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Speaker 1: treat and reward the most loyal men exceptionally well, setting

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Speaker 1: an example for all the others. Before long, she grew

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Speaker 1: her husband's confederacy to over eight hundred ships and nearly

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Speaker 1: sixty thousand pirates. Many of those men had come from

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Speaker 1: Vietnam hoping for a better life. Soon the pirate couple

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Speaker 1: had created the largest and the most formidable pirate fleets

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Speaker 1: in the world. However, not all was well. You see,

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Speaker 1: the couple had failed to conceive an heir to their

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Speaker 1: pirate kingdom together, though they found a solution. A twenty

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Speaker 1: year old captain aboard one of the Red Fleet ships

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Speaker 1: had proved himself worthy and loyal. Chung Po denounced his

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Speaker 1: own family and joined jiang Yees, making him second in command.

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Speaker 1: The adoption raised questions among the crew. Chung Po was

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Speaker 1: a full grown man, after all, not a child Ching.

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Speaker 1: She was clever, though, and the move proved more of

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Speaker 1: a strategy than anything remotely maternal. Without a male heir,

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Speaker 1: jing Ye couldn't pass along his power and wealth should

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Speaker 1: he die, and as a woman, that would leave her

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Speaker 1: in a tenuous position. But threats to their dynasty came

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Speaker 1: from outside forces as well. Governments from around the globe

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Speaker 1: set out to destabilize their fleet. Portugal, England, even armies

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Speaker 1: in China saw the ever growing pirate confederacies rising power

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Speaker 1: and vowed to break it. Despite government attempts, though the

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Speaker 1: Can Federacy continued to remain untouched until one day in

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Speaker 1: eighteen o seven. That's when Jing Ye went on a

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Speaker 1: hunting trip off the coast of Vietnam and left his

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Speaker 1: wife and newly adopted son in charge. It said that

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Speaker 1: a terrible storm swept him off the deck and out

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Speaker 1: to sea. Suddenly, Ching Shi was a widow. Now normally,

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Speaker 1: male heirs took over and the widow was expected to

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Speaker 1: retire from the public eye, but ching She had planned

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Speaker 1: well and she was far from retirement. Jing Ye had

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Speaker 1: a living nephew, you see, and a few male cousins

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Speaker 1: who all made it clear that they wanted to control

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Speaker 1: the Red Fleet. Other members within their confederacy also vide

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Speaker 1: for power. All challenged Chung Po's place, but Chinghi had

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Speaker 1: no intentions of handing the fleet over, either to relatives

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Speaker 1: or traitorous upstarts. Her lieutenants and Chung Po supported her

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Speaker 1: bid for power, securing five of the six fleets. But

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Speaker 1: to solidify the Red Fleet's allegiance, she needed a different

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Speaker 1: relationship with the new patriarch and former second in man,

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Speaker 1: Chong Po. The best way to do that, she decided,

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Speaker 1: was to marry him. Within a couple of weeks after

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Speaker 1: her husband's death, the two were wed. Their union asserted

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Speaker 1: the couple's combined power within the confederacy and one loyalty

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Speaker 1: from her dead husband's relatives. Ching Shi had the captains

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Speaker 1: who had sought to overthrow them captured to demonstrate what

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Speaker 1: happened to traders or anyone who might attempt another coup,

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Speaker 1: she had the men publicly executed. To keep tight control,

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Speaker 1: she created a new rule. All business transactions had to

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Speaker 1: be approved through her. This tactic kept her in charge

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Speaker 1: of all the finances and therefore kept the ultimate power

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Speaker 1: in her hands alone. The fleets continued to grow and thrive,

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Speaker 1: and by eighteen o eight, the Red Fleet attempted to

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Speaker 1: dominate the provincial salt trade. According to the legend, the

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Speaker 1: Red Fleet knew of every ship that sailed in the

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Speaker 1: South China Sea. Ships passing through that escaped attack could

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Speaker 1: count their blessings, but no ship passed without paying attacks.

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Speaker 1: Every move, every attack went through chain. She She insisted

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Speaker 1: that all bounties were inspected. The fleet's bookkeeper, who reported

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Speaker 1: directly to her, entered every item into the ledger. The

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Speaker 1: fleet's island fortress made launching attacks easy. The assault on

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Speaker 1: passing ships continued, even on Chinese government vessels. Eventually, the

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Speaker 1: government controlled just four of their original fleet of two

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Speaker 1: hundred and seventy ships, and all those ships carrying salt

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Speaker 1: paid the fleet taxes in order to transport their cargo,

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Speaker 1: but salt wouldn't be the only resource. Text The Red

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Speaker 1: Fleet charged fishing vessels anywhere from fifty to five hundred

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Speaker 1: Spanish silver dollars for every trip they made. China might

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Speaker 1: have had an emperor, but ching She ruled the South

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Speaker 1: China Sea, and her power continued to soar. To all

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Speaker 1: who came across them, the Red Fleet seemed unstoppable. Before long,

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Speaker 1: the pirates had set up tag offices in major ports

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Speaker 1: cities run by agents. Ching Shi kept on friendly terms.

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Speaker 1: As a brilliant strategist, she coordinated every attack, going over

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Speaker 1: the smallest of details to ensure success. Aside from merchant vessels,

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Speaker 1: garrisons became her favorite target. Her men would simply overpower

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Speaker 1: the military base and take what they needed whenever they wanted.

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Speaker 1: In September of eighteen o nine, Chingshi's men captured an

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Speaker 1: East India Company employee. Later, after his release in December,

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Speaker 1: he would report that the pirate queen commanded over eighty

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Speaker 1: thousand men. Chinghi and the Red Fleet made trade and

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Speaker 1: safe passage for merchant ships nearly impossible. China's emperor could

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Speaker 1: no longer ignore such a threat. Mostly though, the idea

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Speaker 1: that a woman with so much power was out there

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Speaker 1: just infuriated him. The land, see people, and resources should

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Speaker 1: belong to him. At first, he offered amnesty to the pirates,

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Speaker 1: hoping to break their loyalty to Ching Shi. While that

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Speaker 1: might have made a dent, the offer alone wouldn't be enough.

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Speaker 1: The Emperor discovered that the pirates had severely strained relations

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Speaker 1: between China and other countries. Officials in Canton entered into

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Speaker 1: international negotiations, finally accepting help from the British and the

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Speaker 1: Portuguese in September of eighteen o nine. They asked the

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Speaker 1: British to rescue a few ships coming from Siam carrying

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Speaker 1: valuable tribute, and the British agreed. On September fifteenth, the

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Speaker 1: Mercury set sail with twenty cannons and fifty volunteers. Meanwhile,

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Speaker 1: the Chinese government signed a lease for Portuguese man of

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Speaker 1: warships to sail with the Cantonese navy. When it finally happened,

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Speaker 1: the attack on the Red Fleet was brutal and swift.

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Speaker 1: Although the pirates had beaten the Portuguese back twice before

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Speaker 1: this time, they arrived with ships and weapons far superior

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Speaker 1: to the Red Fleet. Unable to respond with the same force.

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Speaker 1: Chingshi understood her time of reign had come to an

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Speaker 1: end as she watched the Portuguese destroy one of her

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Speaker 1: ships after the other. Chingshi had no choice but to

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Speaker 1: accept the Emperor's offer of amnesty, of course, under one

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Speaker 1: condition that they meet to negotiate the terms. Cantonese officials agreed.

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Speaker 1: Those along the banks had to be stunned by the site.

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Speaker 1: Two hundred and sixty of Ching Chi's vessels, with fourteen

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Speaker 1: thousand of her men aboard, sailed into the Pearl River.

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Speaker 1: After docking, Chung Po and a handful of his lieutenants

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Speaker 1: were sent on shore to begin the negotiations. Things didn't

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Speaker 1: start off well, though. They rejected the Governor's general request

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Speaker 1: that the fleet turn in all their ships and that

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Speaker 1: all the men aboard live on shore for weeks. The

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Speaker 1: negotiations continued before eventually just stalling. Finally, unarmed and unaccompanied,

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Speaker 1: Ching Shi visited the Governor General's office herself. While most

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Speaker 1: pirates might be lucky to talk their way out of

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Speaker 1: a noose, ching she negotiated well, getting most of the

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Speaker 1: things she wanted. In the end, Cheung Po kept eighty

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Speaker 1: ships in his command in addition, he and a good

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Speaker 1: portion of his men were granted positions in the Chinese navy.

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Speaker 1: Ching Shi and her men were also given everything that

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Speaker 1: they alluded, making many of them exceptionally wealthy, and it

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Speaker 1: seemed that smoother waters were ahead. Over time, Chung Po

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Speaker 1: was named captain of the Qing dynasty's Guangdong Navy. Then,

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Speaker 1: as for Ching sh, she gave birth to a son

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Speaker 1: in eighteen thirteen, and eventually even had a daughter. Though

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Speaker 1: she was no longer a powerful pirate queen, her new

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Speaker 1: life seemed to be going rather well. However, in eighteen

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Speaker 1: twenty two, Chung Po was lost at sea. She had

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Speaker 1: lost both of her husband's the same way. Once again

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Speaker 1: a widow, Chinghi opted to move on with her life.

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Speaker 1: She relocated to Macau with her young family and opened

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Speaker 1: a gambling house with her immense wealth. Eventually she even

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Speaker 1: opened a brothel, ending her journey where she had started well,

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Speaker 1: except that she had done it all on her own terms,

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Speaker 1: and although she had aged, that spirit that Jing Yi

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Speaker 1: had first noticed on the flower boats many years before

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Speaker 1: was clearly still there. Having done what she had set

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Speaker 1: out to do and changing history to boot, Chinghi lived

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Speaker 1: out the rest of her days in luxury. Although her

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Speaker 1: husband's had been famous and formidable pirates, their achievements paled

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Speaker 1: in comparison to hers. In eighteen forty four, at the

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Speaker 1: age of sixty nine, ching, she passed away in her sleep, wealthy, comfortable,

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Speaker 1: and very much at peace. We've all heard a superstition

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Speaker 1: or two in our time. Walking under a ladder or

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Speaker 1: breaking a mirror are considered bad luck. Throwing salt over

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Speaker 1: your shoulder wards off evil, perhaps even the devil himself.

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Speaker 1: And when it comes to bad luck on ships, there's

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Speaker 1: no shortage of superstitions, from navy to merchants to pirates.

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Speaker 1: A single misstep could endanger the ship and all who

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Speaker 1: sailed upon it. We've probably all seen the movies where

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Speaker 1: sailors encounter sirens, mythical femme fatals whose song lured men

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Speaker 1: to their death by crashing the ship on jagged rocks.

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Speaker 1: Killing and albatross was also bad luck for the crew

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Speaker 1: and of course for the bird. And although it wasn't universal,

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Speaker 1: a voyage that started on a Friday was likely to

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Speaker 1: be doomed. Red skies in the morning meant a dangerous

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Speaker 1: day awaited the sailors whistling challenged the wind and conjured storms.

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Speaker 1: No one dared say the word drowned or goodbye for

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Speaker 1: fear of bringing bad luck, and oddly enough, bananas on

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Speaker 1: a ship were also considered bad, although there's no explanation

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Speaker 1: as to why that I can find. To ward off

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Speaker 1: evil sailors had patron saints like St. Nicholas and Saint Elmo,

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Speaker 1: Mermaids could either be helpful or harbingers of bad luck,

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Speaker 1: and black cats, while bad luck on land were often

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Speaker 1: considered good luck on ships, the cats hunted rodents, and

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Speaker 1: rodents ruined grain on ships and spread disease. So it's

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Speaker 1: easy to understand how this superstition has some truth to it.

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Speaker 1: But not one superstition seemed as pervasive or universal as

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Speaker 1: women aboard ships as symbol of bad luck. But we

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Speaker 1: already know women pirates who did rather well, Ching Schi

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Speaker 1: and Bonnie Mary read for starters, and while Jing Yee

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Speaker 1: and Captain Jack Calico felt at ease with women aboard,

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Speaker 1: pirates like Blackbeard strictly forbade them. It's not clear if

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Speaker 1: he prohibited women because of superstition or because they were

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Speaker 1: a distraction, or maybe just both. Women sometimes disguise themselves

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Speaker 1: as men to gain passage on ships, and of course

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Speaker 1: women traveled on ships as passengers. Since travel by sea

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Speaker 1: helped to establish colonies in the New Lands, it's probably

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Speaker 1: safe to say that enough ships carrying women did not

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Speaker 1: end in disaster. There are even reports of sailors throwing

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Speaker 1: women overboard in a misguided attempt to save the ship

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Speaker 1: or themselves, and this leaves us to wonder if the

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Speaker 1: act was based on superstition or if they looked at

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Speaker 1: women as cargo and extra weight. So where did the

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Speaker 1: superstition come from? Well, it might just date back as

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Speaker 1: far as thirteen seventy nine. Thomas Walsingham, a fourteenth century priest,

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Speaker 1: wrote that a baron once kidnapped sixty women from a convent.

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Speaker 1: Once he and his men had the frightened women aboard

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Speaker 1: their ship, they set sail from Southampton, England, to Brittany, France.

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Speaker 1: According to the story, it was December and a winter

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Speaker 1: storm blew in from the west. With the ship in

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Speaker 1: danger of sinking, the men began tossing cargo overboard, potentially

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Speaker 1: to lighten the ship's load, and when their predicament didn't change,

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Speaker 1: they tossed the women overboard as well. Sadly, the ship

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Speaker 1: sank anyway, and the baron drowned as well. Wherever the

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Speaker 1: myth truly came from, And regardless of who believed in it,

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Speaker 1: superstition alone made women like ching She the exception rather

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Speaker 1: than the rule. It's a very modern idea to imagine

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Speaker 1: piracy as purely a man's world. I hope today's exploration

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Speaker 1: of ching Che's thrill life and accomplishments helped you see

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Speaker 1: how wrong that assumption is. But we're not done just yet.

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Speaker 1: We've got one last tale of ladies on the high

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Speaker 1: Sea and our cargo hold, And if you stick around

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Speaker 1: through this brief sponsor break, my crewmates Alie Steed will

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Speaker 1: tell you all about it. There are always first in history,

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Speaker 1: first men on the moon, the first European ships to

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Speaker 1: arrive in the Americas, and New England's first and only

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Speaker 1: female pirate. Rachel Schmidt was born in seventeen sixty on

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Speaker 1: a farm in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Her parents were farmers by

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Speaker 1: trade and Protestants by religion. Though she spent her childhood

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Speaker 1: among the barns in the fields, she loved the sea.

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Speaker 1: At sixteen, she left home to make a new life

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Speaker 1: by the waterfront. Her love of the water also led

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Speaker 1: her to another kind of love, a fisherman named George Wall.

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Speaker 1: Rachel's family disapproved of George, but despite her parents of

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Speaker 1: jack actions, she married him and the two went off

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Speaker 1: to live near Boston. Like many young couples, they struggled

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Speaker 1: to support themselves. George continued to work as a fisherman

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Speaker 1: and Rachel found employment as a maid to a family

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Speaker 1: on prosperous Beacon Hill. Fisherman didn't make a lot of

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Speaker 1: money from long, backbreaking and sometimes deadly work. Brutal storms

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Speaker 1: capsized boats, and boat owners looking to save some money

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Speaker 1: didn't always keep fishing vessels in the best condition, And

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Speaker 1: of course, there were the pirates. The couple's life was

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Speaker 1: about to change, though. One night, George returned home with

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Speaker 1: five other sailors and their woman companions. They had a

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Speaker 1: great idea and they couldn't wait to tell her about it.

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Speaker 1: They could all be making a lot more money as pirates.

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Speaker 1: The group convinced Rachel to leave a maid's life on

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Speaker 1: land behind for a life of adventure at sea. But

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Speaker 1: to make their plan work, they would need a ship.

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Speaker 1: Buying one was completely out of the question, so the

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Speaker 1: group stole a small ship named the Essex and headed

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Speaker 1: offshore to the coast of New Hampshire. The ship's size

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Speaker 1: could hardly be considered a threat to other boats, so

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Speaker 1: the crew had to get creative. No stranger to what

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Speaker 1: bad weather could do two ships, the fisherman came up

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Speaker 1: with a plan. The crew set to work on the ship,

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Speaker 1: making it a pier storm battered, though it remained totally seaworthy.

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Speaker 1: The next phase required them to wait for storms. After

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Speaker 1: the worst of a storm had passed, they strategically placed

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Speaker 1: the ship offshore and set the trap, using Rachel as bait.

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Speaker 1: While the rest of the crew waited below deck, Rachel

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Speaker 1: called frantically for help, flagging down any passing ships. She

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Speaker 1: played the damsel in distress flawlessly. Upon seeing a young

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Speaker 1: and very pretty woman stranded on a broken down vessel,

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Speaker 1: sailors were more than likely to come to her aid.

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Speaker 1: She kept the attention focused on her while the unsuspecting

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Speaker 1: sailors pulled alongside the Essex. Once the ship up and

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Speaker 1: the sailors boarded, George and the crew emerged, taking the

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Speaker 1: rescuer's crew by surprise. The scheme usually went according to plan,

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Speaker 1: and the groups robbed dozens of ships, breaking in six

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Speaker 1: thousand dollars it's about a hundred and fourteen thousand today.

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Speaker 1: In the process, they killed twenty four sailors, and it

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Speaker 1: didn't take long for the locals to start spreading word

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Speaker 1: about a band of pirates luring in ships with a

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Speaker 1: beautiful woman. All good things must come to pass, and

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Speaker 1: the crew aboard the Essex became victims themselves when George

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Speaker 1: made a navigational error. They were out at sea when

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Speaker 1: a storm hit and the miscalculation caused the Essex to capsize.

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Speaker 1: Rachel and the others swam to safety, but George drowned

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Speaker 1: without a ship. The crew disbanded, each going their separate ways.

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Speaker 1: Rather than go home to her family, Rachel stayed in

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Speaker 1: Boston and returned to working as a maid. While everyone

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Speaker 1: knew of her escapades aboard the Essex, no one paid

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Speaker 1: her much attention until she began her side hustle of

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Speaker 1: stealing from ships stocked at the harbor. She even boldly

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00:24:05,440 --> 00:24:09,040
Speaker 1: robbed people of influence like a patriot friend of John Adams.

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Speaker 1: Even multiple arrests for theft and larceny didn't persuade her

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Speaker 1: to give up her life of crime. In fact, she

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00:24:16,000 --> 00:24:18,920
Speaker 1: returned to a life of piracy once more, well as

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Speaker 1: a highway robber, which is pretty much like a pirate.

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Speaker 1: Just on Land. On March eighteenth of seventeen nine, Rachel

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Speaker 1: reportedly attacked and robbed seventeen year old Margaret Bender. Rachel

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Speaker 1: was arrested and went to trial on August. She admitted

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Speaker 1: to her crimes of piracy and theft, but denied assaulting

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Speaker 1: Margaret Bender. The jury came back with a guilty verdict.

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Speaker 1: Governor John Hancock signed her order of execution. Twenty eight

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Speaker 1: year old Rachel was hanged in Boston Common on October eighth,

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Speaker 1: seventeen eighty nine. Aside from being England's first and last

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Speaker 1: woman pirate, her death earned her another place in history,

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Speaker 1: The last woman to be executed in Boston. Pirates was

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Speaker 1: executive produced by Aaron Manky and narrated by Aaron Manky

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Speaker 1: and Alexandra Steid. Writing for this season was provided by

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Speaker 1: Michelle Mudo, with research by Alexandra Steid and Sam Alberty.

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Speaker 1: Production assistance was provided by Josh Than, Jesse Funk, Alex Williams,

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Speaker 1: and Matt Frederick. To learn more about this and other

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Speaker 1: shows from Grimm and Mild and I Heart Radio. Visit

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Speaker 1: grim and Mild dot com.