A History of Women in Piracy

The word 'pirate' conjures up images of the swashbuckling men featured in the likes of Black Sails and Pirates of the Caribbean, but the world of piracy has a centuries-long history that is filled with little-known women who wielded real power in a man's world long before they were able to even vote in democratic elections. Their stories are compelling and encompass women of all ethnicities and cultures. From Sayyida al Hurra, Queen of the Barbary Pirates, a muslim woman who successfully preyed on the shipping of her enemies and became governor of Tetouan, to Zheng Shi, an outlawed Tanka woman born in a brothel who rose to successfully command seventeen thousand men in the Red Flag fleet, which at the time outrivaled the Imperial Chinese Navy. During the Golden Age of Caribbean Piracy, many transgendered women joined pirate crews even though the presence of a woman aboard ship meant death. Their stories have largely been ignored by history but A History of Women in Piracy uncovers the lives and loves of these daring women who flaunted convention and proved themselves to be every bit as capable (or more so) as their male brethren. AUTHOR: Roxanne Gregory is an award-winning WGC screenwriter, author and recovering journalist. She has been a segment producer for BBC1/Nine Network Australia and Canwest Global (news). She was a print journalist for Canadian Press, and The Province, a Vancouver daily. She is author of Dark Angel of Whitechapel (2020); Sketches from Haida Gwaii (2021); Boudicca's Revenge; Klondike King and Queen's Mate; Meet Corona (2020), and Working the Tides. Her story "The Tell" is featured in Canada's premier sci-fi anthology Tesseracts 20. 16 b/w illustrations