Charlotte de Berry

Charlotte de Berry
Born 1636
Type	Pirate
Place of birth	England
Allegiance	Pirate
Rank	Captain
Base of operations	Caribbean Sea
Later work	became godmother and aunt to her sisters unknown daughter

Charlotte de Berry (born 1636 in England - Unknown) was a (possibly fictional) female pirate captain.

In her mid to late teens she fell in love with a sailor and, against her parents' will, married him. Disguised as a man, she followed him on board his ship and fought alongside him. Her true identity was discovered by an officer who kept this knowledge to himself, wanting de Berry. He assigned her husband to the most dangerous jobs, which he survived thanks to his wife's help. The officer finally accused Charlotte's husband of mutiny, of which he was found guilty based on an officer's word against that of a common sailor. He was punished by being flogged through the fleet, which, as the officer had hoped, killed him. The officer then made advances towards Charlotte, which she refused. The next time they were in port she killed the officer and sneaked away, dressing again as a woman and working on the docks.

While de Berry worked on the docks, a captain of a merchant ship saw her and kidnapped her. He forced de Berry to marry him and took her away on his trip to Africa. To escape her new husband, who was a brutal rapist and tyrant, de Berry gained the respect of the crew and persuaded them to mutiny. In revenge, she decapitated her husband and became captain of the ship.

After years of pirating, de Berry fell in love with a Spaniard. However, they were shipwrecked after days of hunger, they drew straws to see who would be eaten first, unfortunately, it was de Berry's husband. The survivors of her crew were rescued by a Dutch ship, and when that ship was attacked by pirates, they bravely defended their rescuers. While the others celebrated victory, Charlotte jumped overboard in order to join her dead husband. No one knows if she survived or not.

Background

The earliest known reference to Charlotte de Berry comes from 1836, two centuries after her birth, when she appeared in Edward Lloyd's History of the Pirates, a "penny dreadful" or "penny blood" - cheap stories with a fairly gory or shocking theme written to entertain the masses.

Although Lloyd intended his readers to take the story of de Berry seriously, it is difficult to believe that any part of it is true, many of the incidents and events mentioned strain credulity - exactly the kind of thing one would expect to find in a penny dreadful, and nothing like the genuine stories of pirates from the mid-seventeenth century. Many of the incidents included in the story have similar parallels with other events and stories floating around in the early 19th century, and it is the lack of credibility of Lloyd's story, together with the total and utter lack of any evidence whatsoever prior to 1836, which can lead to the conclusion that Charlotte de Berry is entirely fictional and was invented in the early 19th century to provide subject matter for cheap, shocking literature.

Since 1836 de Berry's story has appeared in print in a number of books, but in every case it is a re-telling of the 1836 yarn.^{[citation needed]}

References

• Platt, Richard. Eyewitness Guide to Pirates, London, 1995. ISBN 0-7153-6035-X
• Lloyd, Edward. History of the Pirates, April 30, 1836.

External links

• Charlotte de Berry at bonaventure.org.uk
• Brief biography of Charlotte de Berry

Persondata
Name	Berry, Charlotte De
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	1636
Place of birth	England
Date of death
Place of death	Unknown