Episode 82: Anne Bonny, Bisexual Rule Breaker

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
On today's show, folks, we're going to talk about a
pirate that went out, broke barriers and lived the life
they wanted to live, and did it while being as
beautifully bisexual as they possibly could. I'm talking, of course,
of the pirate and Bonnie, So stay tuned. The dives

(00:22):
were shadows, creep stories rise as the kieff artieves. John
the voice of hauntsing soirl with every sale, heap feds
all that goost, whispers Tonight saucy by the fire light
of fierce life. The storyteller jid through the stetcha five

(00:50):
Fangels at Missing Night. Nice Welcome back to the Carona
Storyteller Polks. My name is John from Phoenix. I am
your Carolina Storyteller. I want to take a brief moment
to apologize for the absence. We have experienced really hard
times here in the Carolina Storyteller family, and we've lost

(01:16):
and struggled. But we're back and we're going to continue back,
and we're starting off the month of June with a
Pride Month story, if you will. So I kind of
email recently from a member of Ghost Guild Incorporated, and

(01:37):
they asked me a question. They said mister Peaks, do
you know of any LGBTQ stories that occurred in the
in the Charleston region. And I was like, you know what, No,
I really don't. I really couldn't think of one that
off the top of my head that I knew, and

(01:58):
so I had to go dig and I had to
go do on some research and it didn't take me
long to find one. It was as if it was
just there waiting for me, and I may I may
have told a version of this story before, but today
we're going to do an in depth story about a
young woman who struck out on her own and lived

(02:20):
life the way she wanted and most likely died the
way she wanted. This is going to be a story
of piracy and you name it, it's going to be
in there. I'm going to tell you the story of
Anne Bonnie and her ghost that now resides in Charleston,
South Carolina. So let's start with Anne's youth. She was

(02:44):
born in Ireland to a family of farmers who decided
to move to the New World because that's what they
were doing. Baby. They were going across to see looking
for a brighter future in America, because that's why everybody
comes to America. There's supposed to be a brighter future here,
and Anne Bonnie's family was no different. But Anne Bonnie

(03:07):
didn't want a life as a farmer and being married
and raising children. And Bonnie wanted it venture. So she
made her way to Charleston, leaving her family behind, and
ended up joining the crew of the pirate Jack Rackham.
Now this pirate was also sometimes known as Calico Jack,

(03:28):
and he was a little notorious, not black Beard level,
but he still had some rewards on his head. But
like most pirates and sailors in that day, they didn't
believe that women had a place on their ships. So
in order to get on the ship, Anne had to
disguise herself as a man, and I worked for a
while until Jack figured it out. Now, typically if this

(03:53):
happened on a pirate ship, you can kind of guess
the results. It would be a brief walk and then
a splash, and they'd sail on without you while you
went to see Davy Jones Locker. Because pirates were a
very superstitious bunch, they believed in a lot most sailors
still to this day do superstition is everything. So the

(04:19):
pirates would have killed her but Jack fell in love
with her and ended up marrying her, and the two
of them and in the skies and Jack sailed off
to do their piray thing as husband and wife with
the whole crew, never knowing that Jack's wife was right
there sleeping with him the whole time. No, no, no,

(04:40):
couldn't figure it out. Don't ask me how that happened
on a pirate ship, but it did. Anyway. They picked
up another young man, and for some reason, Anne was
attracted to this young man very much so, and this
young man was attackted to the man that Annie was
very much so. This became a problem, obviously, because Jack

(05:04):
Rackham was married to Anne, until the young man revealed
who he really was, because he was the pirate Mary
Brown also disguising herself as a man to get around
in there, and so Anne and Mary began to have
an affair kind of behind Jack's back. But Jack knew

(05:26):
something was going on and went to go kill Mary
until Mary revealed what she was, and then they kind
of started having this three way relationship. And after that
all the pretenses were gone. There were two women on
this ship, and you know, there was just this mutual
relationship amongst them. Both or all three of them, should

(05:47):
I say not amongst them? Both that carried on as
they pillaged and plundered and fought their way through the
Caribbean for about a year and a half. Now, like
most pirates, eventually the law caught up with them. Remember
they were pirates, not privateers. Two different things. Privateers sail

(06:07):
unto the flag of a kingdom and kind of have
like the permission from the kingdom to commit piracy, but
they're not really pirates, so they have a law behind them,
whereas pirates don't have any flag or any kingdom. They
sail under their own rule, and of course they answer
to no one, so when they're caught, anybody can deal

(06:31):
with them, and nobody's going to come and back them up.
Two very different things. And pirates were more common than privateers,
So Jack, Mary and Anne who had earned this legend
of being these brutal and bloody pirates. It was said
that at times they would bear one of their breasts

(06:53):
out while they were fighting, just so that the men
they slayed knew they were bested by a woman. And
these women in swords, guns didn't matter, they were amazing
with them, excellent fighters. People were terrified of them, so
naturally they got haunted down and they were captured and

(07:15):
they were taken to a free count in Cuba, which
was a Spanish colony at the time. There they were
all tried, but Anne and Mary claimed to be pregnant
with Jack's children. Again. Remember they had this threeway relationship going,
which made Jack happy, made Anne happy, made Mary happy.
But apparently now they we're babies. So instead of hanging

(07:38):
Anne and Mary with Jack, Anne and Mary were put
into prison. Jack received the short drop and a sudden stop.
Ann and Mary got life imprisonment at least until their
children were born. Now, Mary, unfortunately we know for a fact,
did die in that prison, and the rumor was Anne

(08:00):
did too. But the thing is is that there's more
than one rumor, and the story that goes from there
is that Anne's family found out that she was in
a prison on a Spanish colony on the isle of Cuba,
and they got the money together and they had Anne
set free. She was brought back to Charleston, South Carolina,

(08:22):
where she gave birth and for a few years did
the whole farm and family thing. But Anne still had
that yearning for adventure, and so she began to frequent
the pirate hangouts in Charleston, trying to get back into
the pirate game. Now, where she died is sometimes argued

(08:47):
there was an old powderhouse that supposedly exploded while Anne
was in it, and then there's the Pink House where
she died fighting. But somebody the stories are all jumped
up there, unfortunately. But the legend is is that Anne
Bonnie's ghost to this day still haunts the Pink House

(09:08):
in Charleston, where she can be seen walking the halls
and sitting in what used to be the tavern there,
and that Anne Bonnie met her end in a fight
with other pirates. Now what happened to her son, I
don't really know. I've never really read anything about it.
It's probably out there. But I think this is a

(09:30):
great story because Anne Bonnie did what we all want
to do. Go out and live your life by your
rules and how you want to Now. Granted, anne Bonnie
found the consequences of doing that because she broke the
laws several times. But Anne Bonnie lived her truth, and
that is a great moral for a story for a ghost.

(09:55):
She may still be haunting the Pink House, but she's
doing it as her t herself. And it's not known
whether she fought over a man or a woman at
the Pink House when she met her end, but I
like to think she fought over whatever she wanted to
and took that with her to the grave. So if

(10:15):
you're ever visiting Charleston, South Carolina, and you just happened
to go into the Pink House and you see a
lovely redheaded pirate standing there, you might have just encountered
the great and famous Anne Bonnie, and hey, maybe she's
into you. No matter what. That's today's story, the story

(10:38):
of Anne Bonnie, and that's my one of my favorite
pirate stories. I love the fact that these two women
were such a big part of piracy. I hate the
fact that it is not so well known. We know
the names of pirates like Black, but we have no

(11:01):
clue who Mary Reid was or who Anne Bonnie was
because they aren't given the time. And I love being
able to give this woman some time and put her
on Thank you guys so much for listening. I'm really
glad to have you here. I've got another story that's
going to be coming up from you real soon. I'm
gonna do some revisits to some old stories and kind

(11:24):
of freshen them up a little bit, give them a
little more twists and turns and make them awesome for you.
And I've got new stories coming in. We've got some
other guests that are going to be coming in this year,
so stay tuned. Thank you for bearing with me. Remember
you can support this show by going to Patreon dot
com forward slash z Carolina Storyteller. We also have a

(11:44):
March store on Printifi. It's the Carolina Storyteller. You can
find us on YouTube as the Carolinastoryteller dot com. You
can also check out my other show, val Mount and
The Black Raven Chronicles. Episode six will be coming out soon.
We're just finishing up some great scenes in that and
the show is really ramping up. You know, there's only
twelve episodes in the season and we're halfway there. So

(12:06):
this is a halfway point for a Frag and Tira
and who knows what craziness is going to come, So
be sure you check that out. Thanks for tuning in,
and as always, stay spooky my friends. We'll see you
next time. Sees a fright in tread every heartbeat a

(12:33):
path we tread