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This post describes the harsh punishments and executions faced by female pirates captured in the 17th–18th centuries. Shared solely for historical education and remembrance of women punished under colonial maritime law.
What Happened to Female Pirates After Capture – The Brutal Truth
When a woman was caught pirating in the Golden Age of Piracy (1650–1730), the British Empire treated her not only as a criminal, but as a dangerous violation of gender itself. The Admiralty courts offered almost no mercy.
Immediate & Public Humiliation Upon capture, female pirates were stripped of weapons and often flogged on deck with the cat-o’-nine-tails in front of the crew — a punishment meant to reassert “proper” order.
Trial by Admiralty (no jury, no appeal) Under the Piracy Acts of 1698 and 1717, trials were held at sea or in colonial ports (Jamaica, Virginia, London) before a panel of naval officers and merchants. Women had the same rights as men — which meant almost none. Verdicts were usually reached within hours.
The Sentence: Death or WorseHanging at Execution Dock (Wapping, London) or in colonial ports, body left in chains on the shoreline as a warning.Temporary reprieve only if the woman was pregnant (“pleading the belly”) — after birth, execution was resumed (e.g., Mary Critchett, 1720s).Transportation to penal colonies (Botany Bay) or forced servitude on prison hulks if the death sentence was commuted.
The Famous CasesAnne Bonny & Mary Read (1720, Jamaica): Both sentenced to hang, but “pleaded their bellies.” Mary died in prison of fever; Anne vanished from records — possibly ransomed or escaped.Rachel Wall (1789, Boston): First American-born woman pirate, hanged for highway robbery after her piracy career.Charlotte Badger & Catherine Hagerty (1806): Sentenced to transportation to Australia; mutinied and escaped to New Zealand — among the very few who evaded final punishment.
The Unrecorded Many Dozens of unnamed women appear in trial transcripts only as “female pirate” or “woman taken on the [ship name]”. Most were hanged quietly in Port Royal, Nassau, or Charles Town and erased from official memory.
We remember these women today not to romanticise piracy, but to acknowledge that when the law punished them twice — once for crime, once for daring to step outside the role society assigned them — it revealed more about the era’s fear of female agency than about justice itself.
Some were hanged. Some vanished into prison ships. Almost all were punished for being women as much as for being pirates.
Official & reputable sources
The National Archives (UK) Archives – HCA 1/99–101 (Old Bailey Admiralty Sessions, 1700–1750)
Calendar of State Papers Colonial – Jamaica & Virginia trial recordsRediker, Marcus – Villains of All Nations (2004)
Stanley, Jo – Bold in Her Breeches: Women Pirates Across the Ages (1995)
Cordingly, David – Women Sailors and Sailors’ Women (2001)