A sailor named James Bonny from Blackpool married Anne in 1718 knowing of her family plantation wealth but not knowing Anne's father had disowned her. James Bonny took Anne to the Bahamas where he worked with Governor Woodes Rogers, turning in any sailor he didn't like as a pirate for a reward.
Anne left husband James and quickly caught the eye of one Calico Jack, a pirate of some renown.
The admiration between Anne and Jack was mutual. Calico Jack was a handsome man who knew how to spend money as well as steal it. Anne had a fiery spirit and temper that matched that of any man. It was rumoured that in her youth, she killed a servant woman with a carving knife because the servant annoyed her.
Calico offered to buy Anne from James Bonny but Bonny instead took the matter up with Governor Rogers, who said that Anne was to be flogged and returned to James Bonny. That night Calico Jack and Anne slipped into the harbour, stole a sloop the “William” and began a life of piracy together in 1719.

Anne fought in men's clothing, was an expert with pistol and cutlass and considered as dangerous as any male pirate. She was fearless in battle and often was a member of any boarding party.
In October of 1720 retribution was close at hand. The Governor of Jamaica, hearing of Calico's presence sent an armed sloop to intervene and capture the Captain and crew. Calico's ship Revenge, was caught by surprise and much to Anne's dismay, the drunken pirates were taken far too easily.
Anne and Mary Read, were also captured but upon capture confessed their "sex" and "pleaded their bellies". After being examined and found with child, Anne and Mary were tried separately and sentenced to be hanged in Spanish Town outside Kingston in Jamaica. When Calico Jack was granted a special favour to see Anne on the day he was to hang, Anne's words to him were, "I'm sorry to see you here, but if you'd have fought like a man you needn't hang like a dog.”
Mary Read escaped the hangman by dying from fever while in jail. Anne however, received several stays of execution. This was actually a common occurrence for women in Anne's circumstance. After the birth of the child the courts showed mercy on the woman for the sake of the child.
Had Mary Read not died in jail and had her child lived; it is likely she would have received a pardon as well.
James Bonny was born 1663 in Blackpool and died in 1724 in Bispham Blackpool. He married his first wife Alice in 1683 who had 3 children but died in childbirth 1690.
 Governor Rogers then passed an amnesty for all pirates which left James out of work and James returned to Black Pool. He is described as “a young fellow who belonged to the sea and was not worth a groat” in the original source book A General History of Pirates written in 1724 by Daniel Defoe under the ghost name of Captain Charles Johnson