Written by Tiffany Miron in December, 2023.
My pirate research began during my spring semester in 2023, because I had to take a historical research methods course required for my major. Once I knew I wanted to conduct a case study comparison of Blackbeard and Anne Bonny, I needed to decide how I would do it. After some time, I landed on comparing how historians over time wrote about each pirate respectively, and then examining where gender influenced how their stories are told. In other words, I had to examine the historiography of Blackbeard and Anne Bonny.
Historiography: Studying the History of History
In simple terms, historiography is looking at how historians over time have researched or discussed a topic. This meant for my research, I analyze various pirate works overtime and see how they wrote about each pirate. In many cases, historians who write about Golden Age piracy write a complete book and examine the life of a different pirate from the time in each chapter. This made my work significantly easier, because in each work I could see how the historian wrote about both Anne Bonny and Blackbeard. A trend was made apparent from the first primary source I read from 1724. It became very apparent that gender allowed Blackbeard to be made into a legendary figure, while Anne Bonny faced immense criticism regardless of her actions being substantially tamer than Blackbeard’s. This trend followed, and the language even worsened, as the years went on.
Blackbeard vs Anne Bonny
The sources I was utilizing for my research were from 1724, 1874, and 1925; which gave me a solid group of historians over time discussing the same figures. This allowed me to see what they had in common and what the trends were. Blackbeard continuously was revered as a legend, and many historians refer to him as the most notorious and fearsome pirate to exist. On the contrary, Anne Bonny was also a fearsome pirate, but despite her crimes being less severe than Blackbeard’s she faced incredibly harsh criticism. This is made very clear through the language used to describe her, often saying she was a devil of a woman that threw her proper life away to live as a pirate. Alongside the criticism, Bonny’s story is also overshadowed by the men in her life, mostly focusing on her being the result of her father’s affair or on the pirate she married. Instead of being written about as a notable pirate legend, Anne Bonny instead faces criticism that leads to her story being lost. These trends led me to conclude that gender was a critical component for how historians have written about pirates. Blackbeard was able to become a notorious pirate legend because he was a man, and seafaring was considered a man’s world and similarly, so was piracy. In comparison, Bonny was harshly criticized and also received a lack of attention because her being a pirate was seen as disgraceful because she was a woman. I had difficulty finding historians who wrote about Anne Bonny, and I believe this lack of writing can be attributed to how very few wanted to write about a woman committing crimes and leading the sort of life she did. Ultimately, gender is a component of both pirate society and analysis that cannot be ignored.
So, where am I going from here?
Since I have made conclusions about gender being a major factor in how pirates have been studied, I have had to figure out what my next steps would be in my research. Going forward, I intend to look at genders place in pirate society, and how this fit in to the so-called egalitarian society of piracy. I am planning on further examining the lives of Mary Read and Anne Bonny, and looking at how pirate society impacted their stories and success. Life at sea was widely considered a man’s world, but these two women managed to be successful pirates regardless. Some argue that this was because piracy was a society created by outlaws, so they had no need to uphold the gendered expectations from the time. Others believe that Read and Bonny were incredibly good at hiding their gender by dressing and acting like men, and that is what helped them succeed. While I am currently unsure of what my conclusions will be, I intend to deeply analyze how egalitarian pirate society was, and see if any of Read’s or Bonny’s success can be attributed to the society they worked in. I am very excited to continue this research through the McNair Research Program and see what my conclusions are, and then add them to the greater understanding of pirate history.
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