Fanny Campbell and Female Pirate Tales

Among the many stops on Boston’s Freedom Trail is Copp’s Hill Burying Ground, the second oldest cemetery in the city, in the North End of Boston. The location is also key in author Maturin Murray Ballou’s story of Fanny Campbell, a fictional female pirate and an important piece of American—and piratical—culture.

In 1844, Ballou published Fanny Campbell, the Female Pirate Captain, a story of an adventurous young woman from Lynn, Massachusetts. Her childhood love William Lovell departs on a sailing voyage through the West Indies where his ship the Royal Kent is overtaken by pirates. The surviving members of the Kent are forced to join the pirate crew and when they desert in Cuba are arrested as pirates. Nearly two years later, Jack Herbert, one of William’s companions, escapes from prison and reports William’s condition to his parents and Fanny. Fanny, dressed as a man named Channing, meets to organize with Jack near Copp’s Hill, and then the two set sail on board the ship Constance. Knowing the British captain intends to impress his American crew into the British navy, Fanny organizes a mutiny, thus becoming a pirate captain. Fanny sails to Cuba, frees William, and confides in him her true identity. After a voyage filled with mutiny, turmoil, and riches, Fanny and William return home to Lynn and marry.[1]

Before Fanny Campbell’s time were Anne Bonny and Mary Read, two of the most famous female pirates, who disguised themselves as men.[2] The real-life female pirates were likely part of the inspiration to write stories such as Ballou’s. Bonny’s and Read’s stories appeared in Captain Johnson’s 1724 General History of Pyrates, and, since one would not normally associate a woman with a pirate, a soldier, or another “male” profession, the stories caught the attention of the public.[3] While landlubbers clearly read the novel, sailors also embraced the tale. We know this because many pieces of Fanny Campbell scrimshaw, or carvings done in bone and frequently on sperm whale teeth, exist. These carvings are now worth thousands of dollars.[4] Fanny Campbell may well have been alluring because, without losing her femininity, she flaunts all conventions of her gender and becomes one of the guys. (Indeed, William is one of the very few who realizes Captain Channing is Fanny. Most characters are fully convinced Channing is male. The narrative even uses “he” and “him” pronouns for much of the novel.)

Fanny Campbell’s bravery inspired some readers to follow in her footsteps, such as Sarah Emma Edmonds, who served in the Civil War as a man after reading the story.[5] Other people, including respected Boston historian Edward Rowe Snow, even came to believe Fanny was a real person. Still others have suggested her story is historical fiction.[6] That the fictional Fanny has crossed over into historical accounts as both inspiration and as fact makes clear how great her impact was and how alluring the story of a female pirate captain is.

After Fanny Campbell comes countless more tales, both real and fictional, with wide societal appeal and piratical significance. In fact, the story’s popularity and impact arguably paves the way for the two most famous pirate stories of all—Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island (1883) and Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean (2003).

— Devon McCarthy

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[1] Maturin Murray Ballou. Fanny Campbell, the Female Pirate Captain. Boston: Frederick Gleason, 1844.
[2] Laura Lee Wren. “Anne Bonny and Mary Read: Pirate Queens.” In Pirates and Privateers of the High Seas, 51-60. Berkeley Heights: Enslow Publishers, 2003.
[3] Katherine Anderson. “Female Pirates and Nationalism in Nineteenth Century American Popular Fiction.” In Pirates and Mutineers of the Nineteenth Century: Swashbucklers and Swindlers, edited by Grace Moore, 95-115. Farnham: Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2011.
[4] Stuart M. Frank. Ingenious Contrivances, Curiously Carved: Scrimshaw in the New Bedford Whaling Museum. Boston: David R. Godine, 2012.
[5] Patricia Majher. Great Girls in Michigan History. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2015.
[6] Woertendyke, Gretchen J. Hemispheric Regionalism: Romance and the Geography of Genre. New York: Oxford University Press, 2016.

Pictured: Fanny Campbell: The Female Pirate Captain (Boston: F. Gleason, 1845), Scrimshaw (engraved sperm whale tooth) showing Fanny Campbell's popularity among sailors. Other scrimshaw of Fanny Campbell, likely produced by a whaler at sea between hunts. Other scrimshaw of Fanny Campbell, likely produced by a whaler at sea between hunts.

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