John Rackham was a British pirate who sailed in the Caribbean Sea during the early eighteenth century. He was one of the best-known pirate captains in a time known as the “Golden Age of Piracy,” and he is often listed among his well-known contemporaries, including Blackbeard, Bartholomew Roberts, Anne Bonny, and Mary Read. His nickname, “Calico Jack,” came from his recognizable habit of wearing calico, a white cotton cloth imported from India.
Captain John “Calico Jack” Rackham rivaled Blackbeard as the most famous British pirate in the so-called Golden Age of piracy in the early eighteenth century. Although only modestly successful as a pirate, his legend grew as a result of stories about his love affair with another famous pirate, Anne Bonny. (The Print Collector/Print Collector/Getty Images)
Some scholars call Rackham a “pirate dandy,” due to his recognizable and sometimes ostentatious dress. His calico clothing was a rebellious gesture against the sumptuary (antiluxury) laws in the British Empire during the era (Travers 2007, 16, 188). Rackham’s major claim to fame, however, rests not in his clothing, nor in his limited exploits as a pirate captain, but in his association with the female pirates Anne Bonny and Mary Read, who both ended up on his ship.
Most information on Rackham’s life comes from a 1724 book by Captain Charles Johnson, titled A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pirates. Johnson’s occupation and true identity remain unknown, since his name was a pseudonym (it’s theorized that he might have been a sailor or a pirate himself, due to his knowledge of the sea and his many pirate connections). Nevertheless, his accounts and stories provide substantial biographies of the pirates of his day. Johnson’s biographies have proved to be generally accurate, as scholars have cross-referenced his information with documents from the English High Court of the Admiralty, Colonial Office reports, trial reports, and other sources (Travers 2007, 9). Johnson does not provide any details of Rackham’s past or early life; Rackham’s biography instead begins with his rise to the title of pirate captain.
Early in Rackham’s career, according to Johnson, he was quartermaster to pirate captain Charles Vane, making him second-in-command. Rackham spoke for the crew, managed discipline on the ship, supervised the division of booty, called meetings, and acted as judge in special cases onboard. Vane’s crew trusted him immensely, and it was this trust that led to a mutiny against Captain Vane in 1718. Various sources explain the scenario in different ways, but it is agreed that Vane’s cowardly actions in confronting one French warship dissatisfied his crew, causing them to depose him as captain and elect Rackham as his replacement.
From then on Rackham established his reputation as a pirate, and he and his crew captured a small Jamaican vessel called the Kingston as their flagship, followed by two large ships off the coast of Bermuda. Rackham today is considered a small-time pirate captain; compared to Blackbeard and Roberts, who held forty-gun warships and commanded fleets of supporting vessels, he operated with more modest resources and less violence. He limited his attacks to small fishing boats and local trading ships near Jamaica; there is also no record of Rackham using torture or murder on his victims. It was customary for pirate captains to create recognizable flags from 1700 to 1720, and Rackham’s flag featured a skull above crossed cutlasses (Cordingly 1996, 116).
In 1719 Rackham sailed into Nassau in the Bahamas to acquire a royal pardon, since it had become common for British governors in the Bahamas to grant pardons to pirates who were willing to stop their activities. Pirating in the Caribbean interfered with the conflict between Great Britain and Spain, who fought over control of the islands, which led to the campaign to rid the area of piracy. One governor, Governor Woodes Rogers, was responsible for this effort, and in addition to granting royal pardons, he also offered many pirates commissions as privateers for the British navy. Rackham sought both a pardon and a commission at this time, but Rogers only granted him a pardon, not a commission, because he had little faith in Rackham’s ability to fight the Spanish. In exchange, Rackham vowed to abandon his life of piracy (Means 2009, 1).
While in Nassau, Rackham met Anne Bonny. She had come to the Bahamas with her husband, the sailor James Bonny, who worked as both a sailor and informant for Rogers. In Nassau Anne had several affairs with other sailors and pirates, and was supposedly disgusted with the role her husband played in the capture of many pirates. Rackham allegedly encountered her while frequenting the taverns along the waterfront, fell in love with her, and began to court her. The two quickly became lovers.
When James Bonny discovered the affair, Rackham offered him a large sum of money in exchange for Anne, which was a customary approach to divorce at the time. James refused, and Rogers became involved, arranging to have Anne whipped on charges of adultery. Disguised as a sailor, Anne escaped and fled to sea with Rackham in the middle of the night, breaking Rackham’s pardon before her punishment could take place. Shortly after joining Rackham and his crew, Bonny discovered she was pregnant and went ashore on Cuba to deliver the child before returning to Rackham’s ship.
A second notable woman joined Rackham’s crew disguised as a man, the famed Mary Read. She had been a sailor on a Dutch merchant vessel Rackham had defeated, and, not knowing she was a woman, he welcomed her aboard. Anne Bonny began to feel strangely attracted to Read, not realizing her gender, and in a moment alone together attempted to seduce her. Read revealed her secret and she and Anne became close friends. Read revealed her identity to Rackham as well, but only after his jealousy at her friendship with Anne made him threaten to kill her.
Rogers ordered the capture of Rackham and his ship in 1720, and his men finally caught the pirate’s ship anchored at Dry Harbor Bay, finding most of the crew drunk and tired. While most of the crewmen fled to their cabins, Read and Bonny stayed on deck to fight off the soldiers. Ultimately, the British overtook the ship, and Rackham, Bonny, Read, and the rest of the crew were taken ashore to stand trial for piracy (Means 2009, 1).
The Jamaican court found Rackham and the other prisoners guilty, and they all were sentenced to death by hanging, although one man was pardoned because he was able to prove Rackham had forced him into piracy. Five were hanged at Gallows Point, a stretch of shore near Port Royal, and six were hanged in Kingston. Rackham himself was allegedly put into an iron cage and hung from a gibbet on Deadman’s Cay, a small island near Port Royal, which is today called Rackham’s Cay (Cordingly 1996, 63). Bonny commented on Rackham’s execution, “if he had fought like a man, he need not have been hanged like a dog” (Kuhn 2010, 72). Both Bonny and Read were saved from execution and instead imprisoned because they were both pregnant.
Emily Ann Francisco
See also Bellamy, Samuel “Black Sam”; Hornigold, Benjamin; Outlaw Heroes; Thatch, Edward “Blackbeard”; Vane, Charles
Further Reading
Cordingly, David. 1996. Under the Black Flag: The Romance and the Reality of Life Among the Pirates. New York: Random House.
Kuhn, Gabriel. 2010. Life Under the Jolly Roger: Reflections on Golden Age Piracy. Oakland, CA: PM Press.
Leeson, Peter T. 2009. The Invisible Hook: The Hidden Economics of Pirates. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Means, Richard. 2009. “Jack Rackham (Calico Jack).” Biography Reference Center, EBSCOhost. https://www.ebscohost.com/us-high-schools/biography-reference-center. Accessed November 10, 2015.
Travers, Tim. 2007. Pirates: A History. Gloucestershire, UK: Tempus.