Cindy Vallar's Blog - Posts Tagged "south-carolina"

Anne Bonny the Infamous Female Pirate by Phillip Thomas Tucker

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Ask for the name of a female pirate and Anne Bonny will inevitably be given. History has left us two main sources of information about this woman – Captain Charles Johnson’s A General History of the Pyrates and the account of her trial in Spanish Town, Jamaica in 1720. The former isn’t an entirely accurate history of famous pirates and the latter covers only a short period in Anne’s life that is primarily seen from the victims’ perspectives. Anne herself left no journal or diary detailing her life. Over the centuries, a number of books, mostly collections about women pirates, have included Anne, but author bias and cultural interpretations have sometimes intruded into these biographies. Dr. Tucker’s goal is to separate the mythology from Anne’s story to resurrect the real Anne Bonny and place her within the world in which she lived.

Anne Bonny begins in 1698 and lays the framework for who her parents were, how she came to be born, and how circumstances in Ireland eventually led to Anne and her parents emigrating to South Carolina. Subsequent chapters cover her life in that colony, her marriage to James Bonny, her move to the Bahamas, her love affair with Calico Jack Rackham, her life as a pirate, and her capture and trial. The account of her life concludes with what happened to her after she vanished from her gaol cell until her death in 1782. The narrative ends with a conclusion and endnotes. Maps and other blank-and-white illustrations are included throughout the book.

This book has a number of weaknesses. The absence of an actual bibliography and index make it difficult to locate information within the narrative. The format of the endnotes causes confusion as to which part of the narrative provided either the subject discussed or the quotation. Also, a few of the source materials cited here fall under the category of primary documentation. The majority are either secondary or tertiary resources; a few, such as Wikipedia and Answers.com, are questionable resources. Dr. Tucker incorporates source citations within the endnotes, but only the first usage includes the author, full title, and publication date. If the resource is a website, a URL is never provided and trying to locate it using a search engine is nearly impossible from the limited information that is provided.

Equally frustrating is the frequent use of language conveying hypothetical conclusions, such as likely, might, possibly, perhaps, maybe. In a non-fiction book that purports to set the record straight and to fill in the gaps, how can this be achieved without providing definitive historical evidence to back-up these claims? A subsection of chapter two is “Dynamic Irish Women”, yet the first woman role model discussed is Joan of Arc, who was French. If Anne knew of Grace O’Malley, who was Irish, her story may have inspired Anne as Dr. Tucker claims.

Several of his points also raise red flags. On page 49, Anne was “unaware that piracy was a most dangerous profession.” Captain William Kidd’s imprisonment, trial, and execution in 1701 were big news back then and Anne was not illiterate. Newspapers and broadsheets often carried tales of pirate attacks. The zenith of bringing pirates to justice and executing them may not have been reached at the time Anne became a pirate, but she was associating with them in the taverns of New Providence when Woodes Rogers was tasked with the job of ridding the pirates from the Caribbean. How could she not have known piracy was dangerous?

Two other examples pertain to Edward Teach or Blackbeard. On page 56, Dr. Tucker writes, “Some scant evidence exists that even Edward Teach . . . was of mixed black and white ancestry.” Ten pages later this becomes a rumor and that he was “a light-skinned mulatto,” yet no evidence is provided to support or discount this – why include a rumor in the first place? As to Dr. Tucker’s claim that Anne “might well have seen Blackbeard on the sandy streets” of Nassau, this is highly improbable. Anne didn’t arrive there until November 1718 and in November Blackbeard was in the environs of the Carolinas and was slain on 22 November.

On the other hand, this book provides an interesting perspective of Anne and how cultural influences and societal attitudes may have influenced her life and her decisions. It also shows her as a typical teenager, experiencing the angst of growing up and living in patriarchal societies where religion and on which side of the tracks you were born played a role in who and what you could be, especially if you were female. Dr. Trucker also does a commendable job expressing why society feared Anne and what she represented.




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Timeless Treasure by MaryLu Tyndall

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Her family has long been cursed. Her father is the latest to be incarcerated, but he abandoned her when she was six months old and now that her mother has passed, Lexie Cain is alone, penniless, and homeless. Her mother’s legacy – a gold coin and 300-year-old letters signed by Stede Bonnet – offers her a slim hope. According to her mother, the pirate is a distant relative and pirates buried their treasure, didn’t they? With no other options open to her, Lexie heads to Charleston, South Carolina, hoping the etchings on the coin and clues in the letters will lead her to the trove.

Although his beloved son died in 1712 and four years have passed, Stede Bonnet is still haunted and tormented by the loss. He has a wife, other children, wealth, and a good reputation, but Barbados is more a prison than a home. His only saving grace is the love of his life, Melody Rogers, but she is not his wife and must now accompany her father to Charles Town where he will endeavor to save the souls of the pirates and other scoundrels living there. Stede’s only option is to leave his life behind and go on the account. Perhaps plundering will gain him a new fortune on which he and Melody can live one day soon. To that end, he builds a pirate ship, hires a crew, and sets sail. But he is a soldier, not a sailor, and gaining the crew’s respect proves a difficult and perilous task.

Barret Johnson, a handsome history professor at Charleston Southern University, feels truly blessed. He has a family, comes from money, has a job, and is working on a new book about Stede Bonnet that might garner him an award that will allow him to continue his research on South Carolina pirates. The woman with a tattoo who barges into his office irritates him. He doesn’t believe a word Lexie says, but if there’s even a slim chance that the letter she shows him is authentic, he must pursue this new avenue of research.

Lexie thinks Barret is arrogant and the less contact she has with him, the better – but she needs his help to understand her ancestor’s writings. No one else knows as much as he does about Bonnet, but Barret is not the only one interested in the letters. Someone is stalking her. Then someone breaks into her apartment. Barret comes to her rescue, and the more time he’s with her, the more of an enigma she becomes. She has so little, but goes out of her way to help others even less fortunate than herself. He’s determined to protect her, even when her stalker proves that he is willing to do anything and harm anyone, especially those closest to her, to get the letters and the coin.

This inspirational romance will captivate readers with its two parallel love stories. One takes place in present-day Charleston, the other in the past. The outcomes differ, but Tyndall deftly contrasts the differences between those who have and those who have not. She does an excellent job portraying Blackbeard and Stede Bonnet, weaving a plausible tale that fills in the blanks that history has left of their association. Bonnet may be an ineffective pirate and not necessarily likeable, but readers will sympathize with his predicament. Lexie’s and Barret’s emotional struggles pull at the heartstrings in a deftly woven love story that will become a cherished favorite.



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