Anne Dieu-Le-Veut

Anne Dieu-Le-Veut also called Marie-Anne or Marianne (born ca 1650) was a French Pirate, a so called Buccaneer, and together with Jaquotte Delahaye one of very few female ones. Her name means "Anne Gods-wants-it"; as it seemed that if she wanted something, it was as if God gave it to her.

She was originally one of the women called "Filles de Roi" ("King's Daughters")sent by the French government to Tortuga in Haiti to become wives to the local male colonists, as was a French policy in many other French colonies, such as Louisiana and Quebec, and she is believed to have been a criminal deported from France in this manner, as were many of those women. Her deportation to Tortuga was said to have taken place during the reign of governor Betrand d'Ogeron de la Bouere, which means it must have been in 1665-1668 or 1669-1675. In Tortuga she was married to the buccaneer Pierre Length.

In 1683, Anne's husband was killed in a bar fight by the famous buccaneer Laurens de Graff. She challenged Laurens to a duel to avenge her husbands death (other sources claims she heard him insult her), and while Laurens drew his sword, Anne drew her gun. Laurens then succumbed saying he would not fight a woman; he then proposed to her on the spot in admiration of her courage, and she accepted. In reality, the two were actually not married, as Laurens already had a wife he had abandoned many years ago, but they were from this point seen as man and wife. Others claim this event happened in 1693.

Anne is called a pirate because she accompanied Laurens on his ship and fought on his side during acts of piracy, sharing his work and the command on his ship in the same fashion as Anne Bonny did with Calico Jack. Unlike Anne Bonny, she did not disguise her sex, and her acts therefore aroused much attention and fascination. She was talked about as brave, stern and ruthless, and it was in these years that her name "Anne God-Wants" became known. Usually, it was considered bad luck to have a woman onboard a ship, but Anne was instead regarded as the bringer of good luck.

In 1693, her husband raided Jamaica, and was as a thanks rewarded with the noble title of Chevalier, the position of Major Lieutenant and the commission of Ile-a-Vache, but the year after, the English took their revenge on Tortuga, and Anne and her two daughters were taken prisoner by the English and kept as hostages for three years. She was said to have been treated with great respect. In 1698 they were reunited with Laurens.

After this, their fates become blurred; some say they became colonists in Mississippi, Alabama or Louisiana, others that they continued their piracy, or at least privateering.

The most famous story of Anne is as follows: as Anne and Laurens attacked a Spanish ship, a cannon ball took the life of Laurens, and Anne took his place as commander of his ship, as she had done before, hurled their crew of pirates on with fury in the fight against the Spaniards. However, the pirates were outnumbered, and they were all captured and taken first to Vera Cruz in Mexico, and then to Cartagena in Colombia, both of which were cities earlier sacked by Laurens, to be judged. Anne's fame was so great that when the French Marine Secretary of Pontchartrain heard of this, he wrote to Louis XIV of France and asked him to make the king of Spain intervene. Anne was then freed as a special service between kings, and she was never heard of again.

This story is not confirmed, but it could be at least partially true; if Laurens and Anne settled in Mississippi, it would not have prevented them from continuing their career of piracy, on the contrary, it would make it easier - as Tortuga was closed as a base for the buccaneers in 1697, Mississippi would have been a much better headquarters, and privateering against Spain would have been very possible during the Spanish war of Succession in 1700-1714. The fact that Anne was rescued by the intervention of an official from Pontchartrain in Louisiana confirms this, and she and Laurens were mentioned in Mississippi in 1700- and as one of the rivalling Spanish kings during that period was a French prince, it would have made it easy to receive a Spanish royal pardon from France.

If this truly happened when Laurens died, which is the part of the story that is most unlikely to be true, it could have happened in 1704, which is the traditional guess on Laurens death-year.

Anne’s daughter (she was said to have had two, born in the early 1690s) was said to have lived in Haiti, where she became known for having performed a duel with a man.