How Sarah Kidd, the wife of a pirate captain, reinvented herself

Among English ballads exists a song about the 18th-century pirate Capt. William Kidd. Although not entirely factual, it describes a man who murdered another sailor before it concludes: “Take warning now by me, and shun bad company,” or else listeners might suffer the punishment that Kidd met at the end of a noose. 

But as history reveals, not everyone shunned Kidd’s charismatic company. Among his few, fast friends, there remained a courageous, resilient woman who was his anchor and the love of his life. “The Pirate’s Wife: The Remarkable True Story of Sarah Kidd” by Daphne Palmer Geanacopoulos gives a detailed view into the allure, mystery, and heartbreak that typified marriages to seamen, particularly at a time when the age of piracy was coming to an end. 

If you’re looking for a book about a swashbuckling femme fatale who wore breeches and fought alongside her lover, this is not that story. Rather, it’s a striking, thoroughly researched depiction of just how much persistence and inventiveness it took for a woman in Colonial America to retain security and dignity over the course of her life, when her place in society – as well as that of her seafaring husband – was repeatedly upended. 

For instance, by the time she married Captain Kidd in New York at the age of 20, Sarah had already been widowed twice. When Kidd took leave for Madagascar in 1696 with a ship, 154 crew members, and a letter signed by the King of England authorizing him as a privateer, his voyage was considered legal and respectable. The trip was supposed to take one year. By extension, Sarah received recognition and notable wealth. But by the time the captain returned three years later under the cover of night, most of his men had deserted, he was rumored to have killed a man, and an order was out for his arrest. 

Sarah, having waited patiently with two children all this time, was ushered to him in secret. As the wife of a wanted man, she was now considered an accomplice. She listened to the captain’s side of the story, and although he had clearly made some wrong decisions, Sarah was committed to protecting her family. When Lord Bellomont – the governor of New York, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire, who was also one of the investors of the voyage – required Kidd to provide a written statement of his activities abroad, Sarah helped to finesse the contents of the document. 

In order to immerse the reader in the high-stakes drama and the spirit of the time period, the author includes a transcript of Kidd’s original written statement. It’s just one of the many ways this work of narrative nonfiction comes to life in startling detail, complete with buckled shoes, curly wigs, and the vibrant red flag that flew from the captain’s vessel. 

Sadly, for all the Kidds’ efforts, Bellomont betrayed their trust, arrested them both, and hid the legal documents the captain had brought back with him, effectively sealing the sailor’s fate. 

The rest of the book goes on to describe how Sarah fought for her own release from prison, tried to save her husband as well, and after losing nearly everything, reinvented herself yet again. She managed to provide a new home and a new surname for her children, and even learned to write, so that she no longer signed legal papers with a mere “SK.”

The author explains, “Those bold pen strokes,” scratched on a few documents over the course of Sarah’s life, “revealed a narrative we have only imagined.” 

So often pirate narratives focus on the adventure, the treasure, or the sea dog himself. But it’s refreshing to find here a different perspective that focuses instead on the experience of the partner who’s left behind. 

Sarah’s struggle, “caught up in a world of politics, passion, and grisly eighteenth-century justice,” illustrates an “indomitable determination to survive and care for those she loved,” something the writer concludes is “a gift far greater than silver and gold.”