Pirate Wench Costumes – Tonight Mathew I’m going To Be Anne Bonny

The Golden age of piracy was thought to begin around 1650 through to 1720. It thrived because of the general lawlessness on the high seas at the time. As soon as the Royal Navy and other European fleets started to make their presence felt, primarily in the Atlantic ocean but also the Mediterranean and Indian oceans, many pirates soon either sort a new gig or felt the bite of the hempen halter (and more besides).

Sidebar: Looking for that special costume for Halloween, check out the latest pirate wench costumes

This period has gone through all manner of revisions thanks to books like Treasure Island, movies like the Pirates Of The Caribbean and even kids shows like Captain Pugwash. The popular modern revision of Pirates from those times were incorrigible scoundrels partaking in daring do adventures that usually ended up with tall tales in the Inn or Pub. The sanitized version in fact.

In reality, most pirates were career criminals that would be given short shrift if ever captured. And some of the legendary pirate captains were bloodthirsty, violent psychopaths.

Hey, but why let the truth ruin a good story and anyway, you’re looking for a pirate wench costume so what does all this reality have to do with dressing up like a pirate ? Well I did a little research when looking at pirate costumes and I was quite surprised to find that there were female pirates. Not many, but some were extremely successful. And others had stories of their own well worth telling. Maybe you can use their tales to inspire you in your next fancy dress party or Halloween event.

And possibly one of the most notorious female pirates was Anne Bonny. Her tale is recounted in the famous book “A General History of the Pyrates”.

It relates that Anne was born in County Cork in Ireland. It recounts how her family effectively emigrated to the new world and South Carolina, because of some indiscretions by her father. Despite his shame in the old country, her father was massively successful and became wealthy.

Thus Anne was raised in a fairly privileged existence. But as she got older, she got in with a bad crowd. This came to a head with her marraige to a low level pirate who went by the name Bonny. And though the details are pretty vauge, it appears they burned her father’s plantation home down accidentally or on purpose. Whoops.

They left South Carolina under a rather heavy cloud and ended up in the Caribbean. They found a new home on the Bahamas, that was the center of the pirate world at the time. This let Anne mingle and mix with pirates at the abundant pirate drinking holes in the main port. It was also during this time that she and her husband’s relationshop founded on the craggy rocks. She fell in with a man known as John “Calico Jack” Rackham (great name!) who was a known pirate and had a sloop.

The new couple left on the sloop and Anne Bonny became a full blown pirate (probably not a wench though as she seemed to be pretty strong willed).   

Anne assumed the identity of a man in front of the crew. She was disguised in men’ clothing to preserve her identity from the rest of the crew. Only Rackham who she was involved with, and another female pirate, knew her true identity.

Rackham’s band of merry men performed various acts of piracy, mainly on unsuspecting Spanish galleons, transporting gold and other precious items back to Spain form the colonies. It is written that Anne more than held her own during their missions. However the sloop was eventually engaged by a Royal Navy vessel and the pirates were arrested.

Rackham and many of the other pirates were hanged but Anne Bonny pleaded her belly. she claimed to be pregnant which meant she could not be hanged and was instead sentenced to life in prison. With that said, no more details exist of her. Various claims say that she died in prison whilst other claim she escaped and went back to live in South Carolina. Whatever the truth, her story might serve as inspiration for your next pirate wench costume party.

You will find even more costumes in the wench theme, including renaissance wench costume

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