Mary Read
Mary Read (* around 1685 in London , England , † April 28, 1721 in Santiago de la Vega , Jamaica ) was a legendary English pirate .
Life
Apart from the book "A General History of the Pyrates: from their first rise and settlement in the island of Providence, to the present time", which is attributed to Daniel Defoe and published in 1724 under the pseudonym Captain Charles Johnson , there are no sources the figure of Mary Read. The following description follows this book, the extent to which the information corresponds to the historical events can no longer be proven.
Mary Read was born out of wedlock in England. Her mother was married to a sailor who was lost at sea. She became pregnant again through an affair , which she hid from her in-laws. When her legitimate son died shortly afterwards, she dressed Mary like her late son in order to secure financial support from her husband's family.
Mary worked as an errand boy and on a ship. She later joined the British military, fell in love with a Flemish soldier, married him and ran the De Drie Hoefijzers (The Three Horseshoes) inn with her husband near the Breda City Palace in the Netherlands .
Six years later, in 1716, her husband died. Again, Mary dressed as a man and entered the Dutch military. After the war ended, she was hired on a ship sailing to the West Indies .
This ship was hijacked by pirates, whom Read voluntarily joined. Due to a royal amnesty around 1718/1719, she went from being a pirate to being a privateer , but took part in a mutiny , with which she lost her legal status again. In 1720 Read met the pirates Calico Jack Rackham and Anne Bonny . In the same year Rackham's ship, the Revenge , was attacked by an English warship . At that point they were in Jamaica . The ship's crew - apart from the two women - were drunk and hid below deck. Anne Bonny and Mary Read fought alone. Their resistance did not last long.
In November 1720 the verdict was passed on Rackham, Bonny, Read and the rest of the crew: death by hanging . The execution of the two women was postponed because they were (allegedly) pregnant. Mary Read died of a fever a year later.
literature
- Robert Bohn : The pirates. 2nd Edition. Beck, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-406-48027-6 , pp. 103ff. ( Excerpt from the publisher ).
- Captain Charles Johnson: A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pirates . London 1724/1728. Reprint: The Lyons Press 2002, ISBN 1-58574-558-8 , pp. 130ff. (Is considered the only authentic account of the life of Anne Bonny and Mary Read)
German edition: Comprehensive history of the robberies and murders of the notorious pirates. Robinson, Frankfurt am Main 1982, ISBN 3-88592-009-3 . - Joan Druett: She Captains: Heroines and Hellions of the Sea. Simon & Schuster 2001, ISBN 0-684-85691-3 , p. 91ff.
- Armin Strohmeyr : Adventure of Traveling Women. 15 portraits: Mary Read (around 1685–1721) and Anne Bonny (around 1690 – after 1720) - Pirates of the Caribbean , Piper, Munich 2012, ISBN 978-3-492-27431-9 , pp. 37ff.
Filmatization
- 1961: Pirate Captain Mary , directed by Umberto Lenzi , France / Italy 1961
Individual evidence
- ^ Project Gutenberg , accessed on November 22, 2018.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Read, Mary |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | English pirate and privateer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | around 1685 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | London , England |
| DATE OF DEATH | April 28, 1721 |
| Place of death | Santiago de la Vega , Jamaica |