Five Women Pirates Who Defied Gender Norms and Ruled the Seas

The article profiles five historical women pirates who challenged the male-dominated tradition of piracy. Queen Artemesia of Halicarnassus, the only female admiral in Xerxes' war council, led five ships during the Persian invasion of Greece in 480 BC and famously escaped the Battle of Salamis by ramming an allied ship. Queen Teuta of Illyria, after her husband's death, licensed naval ships to plunder and became known as the 'Terror of the Adriatic,' raiding Roman and Greek vessels until Rome declared war in 229 BC. Lagertha, a 9th-century Viking shieldmaiden mentioned in the 12th-century text Gesta Danorum, fought alongside Ragnar Lothbrok, later helped him win a civil war with 120 ships, then killed him to claim the Danish throne. Sayyida al Hurra, a Moroccan governor of Tetouan after the fall of Granada, allied with Ottoman pirate Barbarossa in 1515 to raid Christian ships, capturing Portuguese and Spanish crews. Anne de Graaf, a French woman on Tortuga (present-day Haiti), married buccaneer Laurens de Graaf and joined his attacks on Spanish ships; after his death, she took command and was captured. The article draws on sources including Laura Sook Duncombe's 'Pirate Women' and Fatima Mernissi's 'The Forgotten Queens of Islam.'