When one thinks of pirates, usually the first thing to come to mind is the infamous Blackbeard. What does not come to mind is women pirates. Rarely is Anne Bonny brought up. Bonny was a female pirate that could wreak as much havoc as Blackbeard or any other male pirates. But Anne Bonny was not the only female pirate to sail the seas.

Some known female pirates are:

Queen Artemisia of Halicarnassus (in Greece) was a known pirate around 480 B.C. in the Mediterranean region.

Elissa, commonly known as “Dido” was a pirate in 470 B.C., also in the Mediterranean region. She is also the legendary founder of Carthage.

Queen Teuta of Illyria was a pirate in the Adriatic Sea circa 232 B.C. to 228 B.C.

Norwegian Vikings Princess Sela, Princess Rusla, Russila and her sister Stikla pirated the seas between 420 A.D and 800 A.D.

Other female Viking pirates believed to sail the seas post 800 A.D. are Wigbiorg, Hetha, Wisna, Alfhild (a.k.a. Ælfhild, Alwilda, Alvilda), Ladgerda and Æthelflæd, who was known as the “Lady of the Mercias.”

A fairly famous pirate in the 1500’s was Grace O’Malley, who was also know to go by Granuaile, Grainne O’Malley. She commanded three galleys and 200 men in the Atlantic.

Between 1500 - 1800, it is estimated that hundreds of Chinese female pirates roamed the seas. Supposedly whole families of pirates lived at sea, including mothers, wives, daughters, and servant girls. Some were forced, some voluntarily joined and some were born into piracy.

Other pirates of the late 1500’s to early 1800’s include Lady Killigrew who sailed the Atlantic during 1530-1570, and Mrs. Peter Lambert of Aldeburgh, Suffolk pirated in the late 1500’s. The 1600’s saw Elizabetha Patrickson pirating in 1634, and Caribbean buccaneers Jacquotte Delahaye and Anne Dieu-le-veut were around in 1650s-1660s. The 1680’s saw an anonymous Indian Pirate Queen sailing the Arabian Sea and La Marquise de Frèsne was in the Mediterranean in the late 1600s.

It wasn’t until around 1720 that Anne Bonny, sometimes using the aliases Ann Bonn, Fulford, and Sarah Bonny, terrorized the Caribbean. At the same time, Mary Read, sometimes using the alias Mark Read, was also in the Caribbean.

Several women worked off the east coast of the United States in the 1700s and 1800s including Mary Harvey (or Harley), who used the alias Mary Farlee in 1725-1726, Mary Crickett, sometimes Crichett in 1728, Rachel Wall in the 1780s, Charlotte Badger and Sadie the Goat in the early 1800s.

China also had its share of notorious female pirates. Qi Sao in the South China Sea commanded a fleet of 20 ships. Li, the wife of Chen Acheng, was also in the South China Sea in the early 1800s and was believed to be involved in at least 10 robberies at sea with her husband before she was captured and made the slave of a military officer. Shi Xainggu, who was better known as Cheng I Sao, Ching Yih Saou, or Zheng Yi Sao, was in the South China Sea between 1801-1810 and commanded five or six squadrons consisting of 800 large junks, about 1,000 smaller vessels, and between 70,000 and 80,000 men and women. And Cai Quin Ma, Matron Cai Quin was also in the South China Sea in the early 1800s. T’ang Ch’en Ch’ia, known by the alias “Golden Grace,” was another prominent female pirate of this time.

In other regions, Catherine Hagerty was a pirate off the coast of Australia and New Zealand in 1806. The Canadian East Coast saw Margaret Jordan in the waters in 1809. Also in Canada was Gertrude Imogene Stubbs, often using the alias “Gunpowder Gertie, the Pirate Queen of the Kootenays.” She used Kootenay Lake and river system of British Columbia, Canada between 1898-1903.

Lo Hon-cho, known as Honcho Lo, took over command on husband’s death in 1921, was a supporter of the Chinese revolution. In 1922, Wong, another female pirate, united her 50 ship fleet with Lo Hon-cho’s 64 junks.

Between 1922 – 1939, Lai Sho Sz’en commanded 12 junks in the South China Sea. And in 1936, P’en Ch’ih Ch’iko commanded 100 pirates. 1937-1950 saw Huang P’ei-mei as a leader of some 50,000 pirates.

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