Pirate Codex

Pirate

Anne Bonny

also known as Anne Cormac, Anne Fulford

Lifespan
c. 1697 – after October 1720 (further dates disputed)
Regions
Caribbean , Bahamas
Flag
Sailed under the flag of John Rackham — a skull above two crossed cutlasses.
Fate
Convicted of piracy at Spanish Town, Jamaica, in November 1720; sentence of hanging stayed on grounds of pregnancy. Subsequent life undocumented.

Irish-born pirate active with John "Calico Jack" Rackham’s small Caribbean crew in 1720; one of two women, with Mary Read, convicted of piracy at the Spanish Town trials of November 1720.

Overview

Anne Bonny is one of two women known by name to have been convicted of piracy under the British Crown in the Golden Age — the other being her shipmate Mary Read. Both sailed in the small consort of John “Calico Jack” Rackham, were captured off the coast of Jamaica by a privateer in October 1720, and were tried at Spanish Town that November. Both pleaded their bellies (claimed pregnancy) at sentencing; both had their hangings stayed.

Origins

Bonny was born in or near Cork around 1697, the illegitimate daughter of a lawyer named William Cormac. The family emigrated to the Province of Carolina, where the elder Cormac became a prosperous planter near Charleston. Anne’s early adulthood is sparsely documented; she married a small-time sailor named James Bonny, moved to the pirate haven at Nassau in the Bahamas, and there left her husband for John Rackham. Most of this account derives from Charles Johnson’s 1724 General History and is corroborated only in part.

Career

Bonny’s active period at sea was short. Rackham’s crew, operating principally from a small sloop, took fishing vessels and minor coasters in the waters around Jamaica and Hispaniola through the spring and summer of 1720. The crew was surprised at anchor in Negril Bay, Jamaica, in October 1720 by a privateer commanded by Jonathan Barnet, sent by Governor Nicholas Lawes specifically to take Rackham. Most of the male crew were drunk and below decks; Bonny and Read are recorded in trial testimony as having been the most active in the brief defence.

Rackham and the male crew were tried at Spanish Town on 16 November 1720, convicted, and hanged. Bonny and Read were tried separately on 28 November and convicted; both pleaded pregnancy and the death sentences were stayed pending the births. Read died in Spanish Town gaol the following spring, probably of fever; Bonny’s subsequent fate is undocumented.

Ships

  • William Sloop

    Rackham’s flagship and Bonny’s only documented vessel; captured at Negril Bay, Jamaica, October 1720.

Notable raids & captures

DateLocationTarget / notes
1720-09 Coast of Hispaniola Spanish coastal sloop — One of the few documented prizes of Rackham’s 1720 cruise.
1720-10 Negril Bay, Jamaica Capture by Jonathan Barnet — The Rackham crew was surprised at anchor; trial testimony names Bonny and Read as among the few aboard fit to defend the vessel.

Fate

The official record after November 1720 is silent. Various subsequent accounts — that her father ransomed her, that she returned to Carolina, that she remarried and lived to old age — circulate in twentieth-century Bonny biographies but are not anchored in primary sources. The 1721 manuscript continuation of Spanish Town gaol records, if it ever existed, has not been located.

Associates & contemporaries

  • Mary Read — Shipmate aboard the <em>William</em>; tried alongside Bonny at Spanish Town.
  • John "Calico Jack" Rackham — Captain of the <em>William</em>; Bonny&rsquo;s partner from c. 1719 until his hanging in November 1720.

Sources

  1. Charles Johnson. A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pyrates London , 1724
  2. Jo Stanley (ed.). Bold in Her Breeches: Women Pirates Across the Ages Pandora , 1995
  3. Robert Baldwin. The Tryals of Captain John Rackam, and Other Pirates Jamaica , 1721

Last updated 2026-05-03.