Female Pirates

Explore documented women pirates while separating strong historical evidence from later biographical storytelling.

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Anne Bonny: History, Mystery and Legend

Anne Bonny is one of the best-known women associated with the Golden Age of Piracy. The surviving record clearly places her aboard Calico Jack Rackham's pirate vessel and at a dramatic 1720 trial in Jamaica, but many details of her early and later life remain uncertain.

Ching Shih: The Pirate Leader Who Commanded a Vast Fleet

Ching Shih, more accurately known in scholarship as Zheng Yi Sao, became one of history's most powerful pirate leaders. In the early nineteenth century she helped direct a vast confederation in the South China Sea and ultimately negotiated terms that allowed her to leave piracy alive and wealthy.

Mary Read: Life, Piracy and What We Know

Mary Read is one of the best-known women associated with the Golden Age of Piracy. Her presence in John Rackham’s crew and her prosecution in Jamaica are historically grounded, but much of the dramatic story told about her childhood, military service and early adventures comes from later narrative sources that require caution.

Grace O’Malley: Irish Sea Leader and Pirate Legend

Grace O’Malley—Gráinne Ní Mháille—lived more than a century before the Golden Age of Piracy. She was a Gaelic Irish political and maritime leader whose family power depended on ships, coastal strongholds and control of trade routes in western Ireland.