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The Pirates Own Book: Authentic Narratives of the Most Celebrated Sea Robbers

by Charles Ellms

Originally published in 1887, this book features pirates reporting in their own words.

Booty: Girl Pirates on the High Seas

by Sara Lorimer

Stories of twelve women pirates from the ninth century to the 1930s.

ship passing through her waters had to buy protection from her, and Ching Shih’s fleet of mercenaries torched any vessel that refused to pay up.

The Red Flag Fleet under Ching Shih’s rule could not be defeated—not by Chinese officials, not by the Portuguese navy, not by the British. But in 1810, amnesty was offered to all pirates, and Ching Shih took advantage of it, negotiating pardons for nearly all her troops. She retired with all her ill-gotten gains and ran a gambling house until her death in 1844.

RACHEL WALL

Rachel Schmidt was born in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, in 1760. When she was sixteen, she met George Wall, a former privateer who served in the Revolutionary War; against the wishes of her mother, she married him. The two moved to Boston, where George worked as a fisherman and Rachel worked as a maid in Beacon Hill. George, whom Rachel’s mother had considered more than slightly shady to begin with, fell in with a rough crowd and gambled away what money they had. Unable to pay the rent, and lured by the fun of his fast-living fisherman friends, he hit upon pirating as the answer to their financial woes and convinced Rachel to join in.

George and Rachel stole a ship at Essex and began working as pirates off the Isle of Shoals. They would trick the passing ships by having the blue-eyed, brown-haired Rachel pose as a damsel in distress, standing at the ship’s mast and screaming for help as the ships came near. Once the rescuing crew came aboard to help, George and his men would kill them, steal their booty, and sink their ship. Rachel and George were successful as pirates, capturing a dozen boats, murdering two dozen sailors, and stealing thousands of dollars in cash and valuables.

Their evil plan was cut short in 1782, when George, along with the rest of his crew, was drowned in a storm. Rachel, who really did need rescuing in that situation, was saved, brought ashore, and taken back to Boston, but it was hard to leave her pirating ways. She spent her days working as a maid, but by night she broke into the cabins of ships docked in Boston Harbor, stealing any goods she could get her hands on. Her luck ran out in 1789, when she was accused of robbery. At her trial, she admitted to being a pirate but refused to confess to being a murderess or a thief. She was convicted and sentenced to death by hanging. She died on October 8, 1789, the first and possibly the only woman pirate in all of New England, and the last woman to be hanged in Massachusetts.

A Short History of Women Inventors and Scientists

EVEN THOUGH it’s said that “necessity is the mother of invention,” women’s contributions to inventing and science have been, in the past, often overlooked. It’s likely women have been using their creativity and intelligence to engineer new ideas and products since the beginning of human experience, but nobody really kept track of such things until a few hundred years ago. Below we’ve assembled some of our favorite daring women inventors, scientists, and doctors—from Nobel Prize winners to crafters of practical devices, from women who revolutionized the way diapers were changed to women whose revolutionary ideas changed the world.

1715

Sybilla Masters becomes the first American woman inventor in recorded history, though in accordance with the laws of the time, her patent for “Cleansing Curing and Refining of Indian Corn Growing in the Plantations” was issued in her husband Thomas’ name by the British courts. Her husband was issued a second patent for another of her inventions, entitled “Working and Weaving in a New Method, Palmetta Chip and Straw for Hats and Bonnets and other Improvements of that Ware.”

1809

Mary Dixon Kies of Connecticut becomes the first U.S. woman to be issued a patent