The Ballad of Bonny and Reade

Anne, meanwhile, spent most of her time drinking at local saloons and seducing pirates; in A General History, Johnson contends that she was “not altogether so reserved in point of Chastity,” and that James Bonny once “surprised her lying in a hammock with another man.” Anne grew especially enamored of one paramour, John “Calico Jack” Rackam, so-called due to his affinity for garish clothing, and left Bonny to join Rackam’s crew. One legend holds that she launched her pirating career with an ingenious ploy, creating a “corpse” by mangling the limbs of a dressmaker’s mannequin and smearing it with fake blood. When the crew of a passing French merchant ship spotted Anne wielding an ax over her creation, they surrendered their cargo without a fight.

Eighteenth-century lady pirates swore, drank, and might have smeared mannequins with fake blood. [Via]