Mary Read

Mary Read lived her childhood as a boy, disguised as such by her mother, in order to gain money from the parents of her deceased husband. Read continued to dress as a man into adulthood, when she fought for the military during the Nine Years’ War. She married but after her husband passed away she joined the pirates Jack Rackham and Anne Bonney. The two women proved courageous and lethal; they were ultimately captured and imprisoned in 1720, when Read died of fever in jail.