Johanna Hård

Johanna Hård née Jungberg (3 December 1789 – 12 March 1851), was a Swedish pirate.

Life She was the daughter of farmer tenant Sven Haraldsson Jungberg (1736-1830) and Anna Britta Nilsdotter (1761-1825) in Hisingen in Gothenburg. In 1813, she married bookkeeper Fredrik Hård (1776-1817). As a widow, she lived on Vrångö Island. She had difficulty supporting herself as a widow, and was once arrested for smuggling after having sailed to Copenhagen and sold textiles against the custom regulations.

Johan Andersson Flatås, Anders Andersson, and Christen Andersson were beheaded for piracy and murder in 1824, and Carl Börjesson (d. 1835) was sentenced to forced labor. The evidence against Hård was insufficient for a verdict against her denial, and she was therefore released. She was confirmed to have lived in Stockholm from 1825, where she called herself a sea captain's widow. Apparently she managed to hide her past and eventually secured a position within the Royal Post Office, where she had a good reputation. She died in a charity hospital in Stockholm in 1851.

Legacy Johanna Hård was remembered in popular memory as one of two images; as the hardened criminal who persuaded her lover to abandon his honest profession to become a pirate; or as the poor destitute widow who did what she could to support herself.