27. Female Pirates

While piracy was predominantly a male occupation, a small minority of pirates were women.

On many ships, women were prohibited by the Articles of Agreement. Ever superstitious, traditionally pirates believed it was bad luck to let a female onboard ship.

Because of this resistance, many female pirates did not identify themselves as such. While fighting on deck Anne Bonny dressed and acted as a man while on Calico Jack's ship. 

Against the odds, female pirates did exist, and some even became pirate legends.

Jeanne de Clisson was born in 1300 into nobility and became known as the Lioness of Brittany.  She was a French pirate who plied the English Channel. 

In 1330 Jeanne married nobleman Olivier III de Clisson.  Jeanne and Olivier were reportedly very much in love. The couple might have lived happily ever after, if not for the Breton War of Succession. Though Brittany was historically English, it owed its allegiance to France.  

Olivier initially did his duty for the French.  After a fight with one of the leaders in the Breton war, Olivier defected to the English.  In 1343, when the French King, Philip VI, learned of it, the King had him tried and beheaded for treason. 

Exacting revenge for her husband she sold her family’s riches to buy ships.  She painted the ships black and dyed the sails red. Her fleet was called the "Black Fleet". 

For the next 13 years, she pirated the English Channel, targeting French ships.

Jeanne is said to have personally beheaded captured French aristocrats with an axe, then pitched their lifeless bodies into the sea – payback for the beheading of her beloved husband.

Jeanne retired to England in 1356 to the Castle of Hennebont, a port town on the Brittney coast.  She later died there in 1359.