Queens of the High Seas

Yo-ho, a pirate’s life for she! Legends of Blackbeard and movie buccaneers like Captain Jack Sparrow give us the impression that piracy was a man’s world. But historians and the Nat Geo book Pirate Queens: Dauntless Women Who Dared to Rule the High Seas are righting the ship. Join the fleet of Zheng Yi Sao, a woman from southern China who at her peak commanded some 70,000 pirates during the early 19th century.
For more information on this episode, visit natgeo.com/overheard (nationalgeographic.com/podcasts/overheard).
Want more?
Check out Pirate Queens: Dauntless Women Who Dared to Rule the High Seas (amzn.to/3hoJtno), the new book from National Geographic Kids.
Subscribers can follow the trail of pirate queen Grace O’Malley (nationalgeographic.com/travel/article/on-the-t…)—also known as “Bald Grace”—who became a living legend in 16th-century Ireland.
An animated video breaks down the life of Zheng Yi Sao (ed.ted.com/lessons/the-most-successful-pirate-…), perhaps the most successful pirate of all time.
Also explore:
There are plenty of pirate myths, but National Geographic has the true stories of discovering Blackbeard’s ship (nationalgeographic.com/history/article/110829-…), the reason pirates practiced democracy (nationalgeographic.com/adventure/article/15070…), and what science has to say about the food pirates ate (nationalgeographic.com/culture/article/eat-lik…) (hint: it was usually terrible).
Go deeper with the books Pirates of the South China Coast, 1790-1810 (amazon.com/Pirates-South-China-Coast-1790-1810…) by Dian Murray and The Blue Frontier: Maritime Vision and Power in the Qing Empire (cambridge.org/core/books/abs/blue-frontier/blu…) by Ronald Po.
If you like what you hear and want to support more content like this, please consider a National Geographic subscription. Go to natgeo.com/explore (ngmdomsubs.nationalgeographic.com/pubs/NG/NGM/…) to subscribe today.

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