50 Pesos Mary Read

Mary Read was an English-born sailor who, disguised as a man, served aboard the sloop commanded by the pirate "Calico Jack" Rackham in the Caribbean during the early eighteenth century. When Rackham's vessel was taken by a Jamaican naval sloop in 1720, Read was among the few crew members still fighting — most of the men had retreated below decks drunk. She died in a Jamaican prison in 1721, likely of fever, before she could be hanged.

Cuba issued this coin as part of a series honoring Caribbean pirates, a subject with obvious geographic relevance to the island.