A Pirate's Life for She: Swashbuckling Women Through the Ages

A Pirate's Life for She: Swashbuckling Women Through the Ages

by Laura Sook Duncombe
A Pirate's Life for She: Swashbuckling Women Through the Ages

A Pirate's Life for She: Swashbuckling Women Through the Ages

by Laura Sook Duncombe

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Overview

Pirates are an enduring popular subject, depicted often in songs, stories, and Halloween costumes. Yet the truth about pirate women—who they were, why they went to sea, and what their lives were really like—is seldom a part of the conversation. In this Seven Seas history of the world’s female buccaneers, A Pirate's Life for She tells the story of 16 women who through the ages who sailed alongside—and sometimes in command of—their male counterparts. These women came from all walks of life but had one thing in common: a desire for freedom.

History has largely ignored these female swashbucklers, until now. Here are their stories, from ancient Norse princess Alfhild to Sayyida al-Hurra of the Barbary corsairs; from Grace O’Malley, who terrorized shipping operations around the British Isles during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I; to Cheng I Sao, who commanded a fleet of 1,400 ships off China in the early 19th century.

Author Laura Sook Duncombe takes an honest look at these women, acknowledging that they are not easy heroines: they are lawbreakers. A Pirate's Life for She tells their full stories, focusing on the reasons they became pirates. It is possible to admire the courage, determination, and skills these women possessed without endorsing her actions. These are the remarkable stories of women who took control of their own destinies in a world where the odds were against them, empowering young women to reach for their own dreams.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781641600552
Publisher: Chicago Review Press, Incorporated
Publication date: 10/01/2019
Pages: 224
Sales rank: 1,112,063
Product dimensions: 5.70(w) x 8.60(h) x 0.90(d)
Lexile: 1100L (what's this?)
Age Range: 12 - 18 Years

About the Author

Laura Sook Duncombe is an author, lawyer, and feminist who enjoys Star Wars, Broadway, and Sherlock Holmes (when she’s not out pirating). She lives in Tulsa, Oklahoma, with her husband and sons. 

Read an Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

Sayyida al-Hurra

When Catholic monarchs King Ferdinand of Castile and Queen Isabella of Aragon pushed the Muslims out of Spain in 1492, they radically changed the lives of many people. An entire population of men, women, and children became refugees, forced to either give up their religion or leave their homes.

One of these refugees, just a child during her family's flight from Granada, never forgot what Ferdinand and Isabella did to her family. When she grew up, she made Europe pay for the monarchs' crimes. Ferdinand and Isabella might not have suspected that their actions would give birth to a powerful pirate with a bone-deep need for revenge, but they should have realized that the world's history is a house of cards — shake one card and the entire tower quakes. Their Reconquista (a Spanish and Portuguese word that means "reconquest") was the shake that created Sayyida al-Hurra, a Muslim ruler and undisputed pirate queen of the Mediterranean Sea.

Sayyida was born sometime around 1485 in Granada. Today, Granada is part of Andalusia, Spain, but at the time of Sayyida's birth, it was an emirate, or kingdom, ruled by Muslim rulers called emirs. In 1492, after a long fight, Catholic monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella took complete control of the Iberian Peninsula, which includes Granada, and forced all Muslims to convert to Christianity or flee. Sayyida's family, an elite and wealthy Muslim family called the Banu Rashid, chose to flee.

Even though Sayyida is a famous pirate, nobody knows her real name. Sayyida al-Hurra is actually a title, an Arabic phrase that loosely translates to "independent noble lady" or "female sovereign." Some sources claim her birth name was Aisha, which means "lively woman."

The title she wore definitely fit her personality. Although she was very young when her family left Granada and became refugees, she probably had memories of the land of her birth and the life her family enjoyed there. She deeply resented her family's forced evacuation and refused to let the people who were responsible get away with it.

She spent the rest of her childhood in Chaouen, Morocco, where her family eventually settled. Morocco, along with many other parts of North Africa, was a place where many Muslim transplants created homes and businesses. Sayyida's father was instrumental in establishing their new hometown as a place where all refugees were welcome.

* * *

THE RECONQUISTA

The Granada War, which ended Muslim rule on the Iberian Peninsula, was part of a large campaign to retake formerly Christian lands from their Muslim rulers and return them to the Christian rule that they had experienced under the Visigoths (a nomadic group of Germanic people who flourished in late antiquity). It was not one long war but a series of battles from 711 to 1492 CE. Many rulers of various nations were a part of this re-Christianization, or Reconquista, including King Charlemagne.

In the beginning, these battles were seen as a land conquest, not a holy war. Before the Reconquista, Muslims and Christians from this area often allied with each other in battles with other Muslim and Christian kingdoms. Some people, called mercenaries, fought for whichever side paid the most, regardless of religion. The two religions were not always sworn enemies. With its Crusades in the Middle Ages, the Catholic church changed the focus of these battles from landowner versus landowner to Christians versus "infidels." Sadly, Christian bias against Muslims lingers to this day in many parts of the world.

* * *

Because Sayyida came from a wealthy family, she was tutored at home. She did well in all subjects and was especially good at languages. It seemed obvious to everyone who knew her that she would become an important woman someday.

Sayyida's life in Chaouen was a happy one. Her education was longer and more extensive than that of most other girls in her time. But like all girls of this era — rich or poor — after her studies were over, it was time for her to get married and have a family. When she was a child, Sayyida had been promised in marriage to a friend of the family. Her betrothed, Abu Al-Hasan al-Mandri, was the governor of a neighboring town, Tétouan. With many ships coming in and out of it daily, Tétouan was a major seaport in the area. It had been sacked by the Portuguese in 1400 and was a shadow of its former self, but al-Mandri saw potential in the neglected city, which the sultan gave him as a refugee city. He had a dream to make Tétouan great again, and he knew his new bride could help him. Although they did not marry for love and al-Mandri was a great deal older than Sayyida, the two were a strong match. He valued her opinion and respected her.

Once they were married, Sayyida did help al-Mandri in his quest to make Tétouan a thriving town. She shared the duties of ruling with her husband and was regarded by their people as a leader. The al-Mandris painstakingly restored Tétouan to its former glory and turned it into a bustling metropolis featuring a Great Mosque and narrow, mazelike streets designed to confuse intruders. Today, old town Tétouan is a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage site, in no small part because of the work completed by Sayyida and her husband.

After her husband died in 1515, Sayyida ruled Tétouan by herself. She officially became Sayyida al-Hurra, hakimat titwan (sovereign lady, governor of Tétouan). Historians believe she was the last Islamic woman to claim the title of al-Hurra, which means "free woman" and was traditionally given to a woman with great power. For about 25 years, Sayyida governed her new hometown alone, bringing the formerly abandoned city to new heights of wealth. She accomplished this great feat using two very different methods. First, she elevated Tétouan with the business and diplomatic skills she honed over a quarter century of governing. Second, she expanded Tétouan through an alliance with the notorious Barbarossa brothers — a family of pirates.

* * *

THE BARBAROSSA

Few names struck fear into a person's heart like the Barbary corsairs, and the most famous and feared of all the corsairs were the Barbarossa. Many legends explain where the family got the name Barbarossa, from one brother's red beard to a translation of "Uncle Oruç," but nobody knows for sure why they were called that. It was not the family's last name.

Oruç and Khizr Reis were born on the island of Lesbos to a Grecian mother and a Turkish father. They started their careers as sailors and eventually became privateers for Turkey. Oruç was captured by Christians and enslaved for three years before eventually gaining his freedom. When he returned home, he and his brother returned to privateering and made their home island of Lesbos a base for privateers.

The brothers moved to the Barbary Coast in the early 1500s and immediately started raiding Christian-controlled seaports and coastal villages from there with great success. They rose to the top of the corsairs and became leaders — Oruç eventually became sultan of Algiers. When Oruç was killed in 1518, Khizr took over the operation and joined forces with Suleiman the Magnificent, sultan of the Ottoman Empire. The sultan gave Khizr the title Khair-ed-din, which means "best of the religion."

Khizr became an even better pirate than his brother had been and did much to ensure that the name Barbarossa would be known throughout history. Khizr had a long and illustrious career as a corsair as well as a statesman and died in 1546. At his death, Turkish records proclaimed that "the King of the Sea is dead."

* * *

By the time Sayyida reached out to the pirates, the younger brother, Khizr, was in charge, running the operation from Algiers. Although nearly 500 miles separated Tétouan from Khair-ed-din's headquarters, somehow Sayyida contacted the corsair king and obtained a blessing to go into privateering, as well as some information on how to do it. What could have inspired Sayyida to reach out to fearsome pirates? How was the famous pirate swayed by Sayyida? The world may never know. With Khizr's blessing, Sayyida began her privateering career and quickly became the "undisputed leader of the pirates in the western Mediterranean," according to scholar Fatima Mernissi.

Sayyida and the Barbarossa controlled the entire Mediterranean Sea — Sayyida the western part and the Barbarossa the eastern part. In fact, the Western world knows about Sayyida from her appearances in the logs of the Spanish and Portuguese ships that were attacked by her or forced to negotiate with her. She became the person to talk to if a hostage needed to be released or an embargo needed to be lifted. Simply put, if you had business of any kind in the western Mediterranean Sea, you had business with Sayyida.

So how did the pirates take control of the Mediterranean? Two ways: their ships and their reputation. The pirates' ships, galliots, were modified galley ships. Galleys were long, slender warships primarily powered by rowing, although they also had sails. Galliots were smaller and faster than traditional galleys, which gave them a big advantage over the Spanish and Portuguese ships they attacked. A pirate ship could never outfire a better armed military or merchant ship, so it had to outmaneuver them. Corsairs usually sailed up behind an enemy's ship and boarded it from the rear, surprising the crew. Because they usually attacked merchant ships with few fighting men aboard, as opposed to military ships full of soldiers, the hand-to-hand battles were often short and went in the corsairs' favor.

* * *

BARBARY CORSAIRS AND SLAVERY

Pirate stories frequently feature cruel behavior and ferocious appetites, but the stories of the Barbary corsairs are among the darkest. The corsairs made entire villages vanish in the dead of night. Legends in their own time, they were feared by children and adults alike. Most of the outrage surrounding the corsairs stems from the fact that they regularly kidnapped and enslaved Christians. The Western world did not take kindly to the idea of Muslim corsairs enslaving Christians, ignoring the fact that a vast number of the Barbary corsairs were not native Muslims but in fact renegadoes, European-born Christians who joined the Barbary ranks to take part in the more exciting pirating happening in the Mediterranean.

The truth is that corsairs did routinely enslave Christian men, women, and children. However, European Christians at this time were also enslaving Muslims. Historian Salvatore Bono has suggested that there were roughly as many Islamic slaves in early Christendom as there were Christian slaves in early Islamdom. The elder Barbarossa brother himself was enslaved by a Christian order of knights. So, slavery alone did not merit the Barbary pirates' monstrous reputation. Given that most early Western sources on Barbary corsairs were written by Christians, it is possible that Islamophobia (and the desire for Muslim-held land) caused the Barbary reputation for cruelty to be exaggerated.

* * *

Even if a ship did have trained fighters, the widespread, fearsome reputation of the Barbary corsairs made all but the bravest of men surrender quickly. The stories about the ruthless Barbary pirates, mostly exaggerated xenophobia, did a lot of the corsairs' work for them. Because people were so afraid of the Barbary pirates, they gave up without a fight, basically handing over their treasure. After the crew was subdued, the corsairs would strip the ship of any valuable cargo: mostly gold, supplies, and slaves.

Sayyida's piratical work didn't just revitalize her town, it repaid the Spanish for kicking the Muslims out of Granada. Time had passed, but the wounds had not healed, nor had her desire for revenge cooled. Sayyida made sure that the Spanish knew they were not forgiven for what they had done, and that she would make them pay for it. She built her town into a successful new home, but she did it with money stolen from those who had stolen from her. Her success must have felt doubly sweet — she did not just help her own people but also hurt those who had hurt her.

Sayyida had, by her mid-40s, accomplished a successful political and piratical career. But she had one more achievement in her, one that would gain her a special footnote in the history books. During a tour of his kingdom in 1541, Sultan Abu al-Abbas Ahmad ibn Muhammad of the Wattasid dynasty met Sayyida in Tétouan. The king of Fez was so taken with her that he immediately proposed marriage. Sayyida accepted his proposal but refused to make the 170-mile journey to Fez for the wedding, insisting that it take place in Tétouan instead. The sultan, astonishingly, agreed to this demand and traveled to her instead. The pair was married in Tétouan — the only time in Moroccan history that a king was married outside his capital city. On her wedding day, the sultan's bride to be might have reflected on how far she had come, or maybe she dreamed of what she still hoped to do.

Despite her new status as wife of a sultan, Sayyida was not destined to rule much longer. Her son-in-law from her first marriage, Moulay al-Mandri, became involved in the inter-dynasty warfare of the region. He sensed that the political tide was turning and that his mother-in-law's new husband was not going to remain in power for much longer. He believed it was in his own best interest to sever ties with the Wattasids and join the rival Saadis instead. (It turned out that he was right. The sultan was captured by the Saadis in 1545, and the Wattasid dynasty ceased to exist nine years after that, in 1554.) In 1542, Moulay arrived in Tétouan with an army, ready to remove Sayyida from power, forcibly if necessary. Sayyida stepped down, and just like that, her 40-year career as governor, pirate, and sultana was over. Exactly what happened to her afterward is unknown. Most sources say she returned home to Chaouen, where she retired and lived peacefully until her death.

Sayyida went into the pirating business for revenge, but she was also a brilliant woman who used her skills to make her new home country a better place. Her methods were unorthodox, but she did what had to be done to revitalize Tétouan.

Learn More Abulafia, David. The Great Sea: The Human History of the Mediterranean. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011.

Konstam, Angus. Piracy: The Complete History. Oxford: General Military, 2008.

Mernissi, Fatima. Forgotten Queens of Islam. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1993.

Peirce, Leslie. The Imperial Harem: Women and Sovereignty in the Ottoman Empire. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993.

Wilson, Peter Lamborn. Pirate Utopias: Moorish Corsairs and European Renegadoes. 2nd ed. Brooklyn: Autonomedia, 2003.

CHAPTER 2

Jeanne de Clisson

Since the beginning of time, wars have been waged primarily by men. In the past, men ordered other men to go fight, and women and children stayed behind with no say in the matter. Women were forced to wait and pray, hoping that the men they loved — brothers, fathers, husbands, and more — would not pay the ultimate price for another man's decision.

One woman, Jeanne de Clisson, decided that she was through living in a world where men could kill other men during war and get away with it. When a man she loved was killed, she killed back. Her quest for revenge earned her the nickname the Lioness of Brittany.

Jeanne was born Jeanne de Belleville sometime around 1300. Historians say she was one of the most beautiful women of her day. Her parents were wealthy nobles, and she grew up in the family castle called Belleville-sur-Vie. The castle and fortress were on the western coast of France, around 170 miles from Brittany. Jeanne enjoyed a peaceful childhood. As the young girl played on her family's estate and visited the beaches in summer, she had no idea how important the faraway province of Brittany would become to her in just a few years.

Jeanne later married a Breton nobleman, and the couple had two children before he died in 1326. Four years later, Jeanne married Olivier de Clisson. He was a very wealthy nobleman from Brittany who owned large estates all over France and Brittany. It is unknown how they met, but Jeanne and Olivier seem to have married for love, which was very rare in that time.

The Clissons had five children together. They lived a happy, mostly uneventful life at their many homes across western France until the War of Breton Succession broke out. That was the beginning of the end of the Clisson family's life as they knew it.

* * *

WAR OF BRETON SUCCESSION

Brittany, now part of western France, was once its own state. In the Middle Ages, it was ruled by a duke. The people of Brittany are called Bretons, and although in Jeanne's time some were loyal to England and some to France, most Bretons felt that they were Breton above all. They had their own language and culture separate from both of the other countries, and they took great pride in having their own rulers.

Naturally, both France and England sought Brittany as their ally. They were very invested in who was on the ducal throne in Brittany, because his allegiance would be a huge benefit to whichever country he chose. So, when John III, Duke of Brittany, died childless in 1341 and the line of succession was thrown into doubt, a war erupted in Brittany. This war lasted for over 20 years and played a major part in the foundation of the Hundred Years' War. The two sides of the war were the French-backed House Blois, who claimed John III's niece Joan was the rightful heir, and House Montfort, who claimed John III's half-brother, also named John, belonged on the throne. The English-backed Montfort eventually won the duchy and kept it in his family for almost 200 years.

(Continues…)


Excerpted from "A Pirate's Life for She"
by .
Copyright © 2020 Laura Sook Duncombe.
Excerpted by permission of Chicago Review Press Incorporated.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

Table of Contents

Introduction,
Part I Revenge,
Sayyida al-Hurra,
Jeanne de Clisson,
Lagertha,
Part II Escape,
Alfhild,
Margaret Jordan,
Charlotte Badger,
Mary Read,
Part III Glory,
Artemisia,
Teuta,
Part IV Adventure,
Rachel Wall,
Sadie Farrell,
Anne Bonny,
Part V Power,
Lady Mary Killigrew,
Maria Cobham,
Grace O'Malley,
Cheng I Sao,
Epilogue,
Notes,
Selected Bibliography,

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