Ireland, 1704: After a scandalous trial regarding his affair with a maid and his illegitimate child, lawyer William Cormac turns his back on his homeland and becomes a cotton farmer in the New World. His daughter Anne grows up on the plantations of Carolina in great freedom, but without much human company. Her life is marked by upheavals: at seventeen, she marries the drunkard James Bonnie and moves with him to the Caribbean. In the port taverns she visits disguised as a man, she meets the pirate Calico Jack and sets sail as a pirate. Amidst the pirate crew, Anne experiences a tightly-knit communal life for the first time. Enchanted by this, she becomes a skilled robber and murderer. After a raid on a merchant ship, Mary Reed comes aboard, another woman in disguise, and Anne falls in love with her. The two begin a passionate affair.