Quiz

BuzzFeed Staff

BuzzFeed Staff, UK 

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We can't ALL be Ching Shih, terror of the China Sea.

Which Terrifying Pirate Queen From History Are You?

Mary and her husband, Sir John IV Killigrew of Arwenack castle in Cornwall, [used their control over a nearby harbour](https://books.google.co.uk/books?dq=Daring+Pirate+Women&hl=en&id=tbvZLaFhCWMC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA45#v=onepage&q=Daring%20Pirate%20Women&f=false) to prey on cargo ships that passed.   
They had a secret tunnel built from their castle down to the sea, which they used to sneak on board ships. In 1582 Mary and her servants raided the cargo on a Spanish ship moored near her house, killed the onboard guards, then sailed the ship out to sea where [they sank it](https://books.google.co.uk/books?dq=Daring+Pirate+Women&hl=en&id=tbvZLaFhCWMC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA45#v=onepage&q=Daring%20Pirate%20Women&f=false) .

Lady Mary Killigrew

Delahaye was a notorious pirate of Caribbean legend. To escape her pursuers, she allegedly faked her own death and took on a male alias, living as a man for many years.   
Delahaye [led a gang of hundreds of pirates](https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=SKgs8-pj4_YC&q=Jacquotte+Delahaye#v=snippet&q=Jacquotte%20Delahaye&f=false), who took over a small Caribbean island from the Spanish in 1656. She died a few years later in a shootout defending her island.

Jacquotte Delahaye

Mary Read joined the British Navy as a powder monkey, in disguise as a boy at the age of 13. She continued to serve in the navy as a man for a number of years, but fell in love with her bunkmate.   
After quitting the navy she resumed life as a man, and joined a gang of English pirates after they captured her. These pirates were led by John "Calico Jack" Rackham and his companion, the female pirate Anne Bonny, who both believed Read to be a man. The crew committed acts of piracy around the Caribbean until they were arrested in Jamaica. Both the women were saved from being hanged [because they were pregnant](http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/if-theres-a-man-among-ye-the-tale-of-pirate-queens-anne-bonny-and-mary-read-45576461/?no-ist=).

Mary Read

Grace O’Malley, also known as Gráinne Ní Mháille or The Sea Queen of Connaught, was a politically powerful Irish pirate who lived from [1530-1603](http://www2.h-net.msu.edu/reviews/showrev.php?id=11632). At one point, her “arch nemesis”, the English governor of Connaught, decided she should be hanged for her piracy – but at the last minute she was granted a reprieve from Queen Elizabeth I, because old Gracie had done a bit of spying for old Lizzie and they’d become pals that way.

Grace O'Malley

Sayyida al-Hurra, the Pirate Queen of Tetouan, lived from 1485-1542. Born to a prominent family, she fled Granada in 1492 with the Spanish Reconquista. To get revenge upon the Spanish for kicking her from her home, she became a big-time pirate, thievin’ booty from the Spaniards upon the high seas and coming to rule the entire Western Mediterranean, while her mate the [Turkish Barbaros of Algiers](http://www.ece.umd.edu/~sellami/JUNE96/kahena.html) ruled the Eastern Mediterranean. In later life she married the King of Morocco, but made him come to where she was in Tetouan for the wedding ceremony as a bit of a political _power move_. In her lifetime, she gained a reputation as “[the undisputed leader of pirates of the Western Mediterranean](http://ebooks.rahnuma.org/religion/History/Fatima.Mernessi_The-Forgotten-Queens-of-Islam-EN.pdf)” and a skilled administrator during her casual decades-long reign as governor of Tetouan.

Sayyida al-Hurra

Ching Shih was a fearsome pirate who ruled the China Sea in the early 19th century, commanding a fleet of [80,000 men and 2,000 ships](https://www.wpi.edu/Pubs/E-project/Available/E-project-050709-150551/unrestricted/A_Study_in_Maritime_Piracy.pdf), because holy shit what a badass. Eventually she retired from piratedom (as you do) and opened a “brothel and gambling house” where she enjoyed her golden years, having been pardoned for her various pirate crimes.

Ching Shih

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Which Terrifying Pirate Queen From History Are You?

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