Abstract
Piracy in Caribbean during the 18th century affected numerous social issues including race, class, and nationality. However, it also effectively introduced ideas of sexual equality three hundred years ahead of its time by embracing a group historically rejected by both the general public and academic scholars alike: women. Female pirates like Anne Bonny and Mary Read thrived alongside their male counterparts, learning to benefit from both sexes by fighting like men in war and escaping execution through pregnancy. Despite the sharp social stratification found on land, life at sea afforded strong men and women the opportunity to escape the lives prescribed to them.Copyright for articles published in this journal is retained by the authors, with first publication rights granted to Vanderbilt Undergraduate Research Journal under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (linked here). By virtue of their appearance in this open access journal, articles are available for wide dissemination at no cost to readers, with proper attribution (acknowledgment of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal), in educational and other non-commercial settings. Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process.
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