Flags: Black vs. RED

[the Royaliste]

As my Jolly Roger was rather threadbare, my first mate drug out of his sea chest, a fine, old, hand-stitched Jolly roger that has flow over three notorious square-riggers before me. I am quite honored as it is patched and many moons old. Just like the black pearls. I' ve flown a small Edwin Teach flag from a burgee halliard, but the large one flies from my main, as Claire from Tales of the Seven Seas pointed out. I also fly a red duster, the original 'jolie rouge' ('blood red) as flown historically prior to 1700, the time at which 'black flags' began appearing. Gary, the Royaliste

[Darkmalkin]

Hmmm, interestingly enough, I just read that the French had a red banner that was called the "Oriflamme" that they used at the Battle of Crecy, circa 1343 or so, where the cream of French knighthood were cut down like corn by English longbows. This plain red standard meant that no quarter would be given.

[TalesOfTheSevenSeas]

On red flags vs. black...

The red field behind a pirate's flag meant that he gave "no quarter" or would give no mercy to anyone who did not comply with his orders and put up a fight against his pirates.

The black field was intimidating and the skull implied death, but there was still a chance that the pirate might choose to be merciful if your crew if he conquered your ship after you fought him.

From what I've read, the usual best option was to let the pirates board, don't put up a fight and hope that you survivied it in one piece. Sometimes money and valuables were hidden beneath planks of the ship, sewn into clothing linings or even swallowed just before the pirates came on board.

Unfortunately for the captives, sometimes the pirates used brutal means to extract the locations of more valuable items from their captains. There is a narrative of a captured captain being relieved of his forearms, who then breaks down and tells where the valuables are hidden on the ship. (Captured by Pirates; 22 Firsthand Accounts of Murder and Mayhem on the High Seas)

There is also an interesting account of pirates in the 1200's written by Marco Polo of pirates using something called "tamarindi" which was made with sea water and produced "violent purging" that would remove any swallowed jewels in a hurry!!

[Charity]

I found a little article about the city flag of Vlissingen (Home to Piet Heyn and other famous priveteers) and there was some interesting info in it.

It says for excample (I am not claiming this was the way it was all over but it might be.) that the priveteers had the red flag and the pirates the black one with a specific mark as to make it clear who one was dealing with (as most Jolly Rogers)

Vlissing Privateers used the Jacoba Jar for it as seen on the photo.

The red flag appears on many a painting of the 17th century so they tell.

Info in Dutch

The Flag

[Gentleman of Fortune]

I have heard/read that Pirates (or Privateers) would use the "black" flag to scare the prey into submission. After all, I assume that the pirates would rather have easy pickings than acutally get into a fight.

But if the prize ship refused to surrender, the red flag, meaning "no quarter would be given" would be raised to signal their impeding attack.

Anyone else have more info (I expect Foxe will chime in as he has done a lot of research on Pirate flags).

GoF

[Fox]

It's certainly true that the black flag was one of the flags associated with piracy, and that by the late 17th century red flags were used to mean "no quarter". Confusingly, English privateers were required to fly a red ensign, but this was not connected to the "bloody" flag of no quarter - just a coincidence. I don't know if the red flag meant "no quarter" in Piet Heyn's time, certainly Nathaniel Butler writing at about that time makes no mention of it. Although "bluddey flags" are recorded at least as early as the 16th century it's difficult to establish whether they were used to signify "no quarter" or not.

Many European privateers used their municipal or civic flags as identification and so it's probable that many Vlissingen (or Flushing) privateers flew the flag you've illustrated. Any connection with the "no quarter" red flag is probably as coincidental as the English privateers' red ensign though. Privateers from other Dutch towns and cities flew different, non-red flags. In France the flag flown by all privateers was a blue flag with a white cross: the town of St. Malo in Brittany was such a great centre of privateering that the town actually adopted a variant of that flag as its municipal ensign.

The exact use of black and red flags by pirates is impossible to determine as different pirates seem to have used them in different ways. At least one record of a pirate attack (coincidentally, recorded by a Dutch commodore) mentions that the red flags were put out first, then taken down and replaced with black. In other cases the red flag seems to have meant "surrender now or receive no quarter", and in still others it meant "too late, you should have surrendered when we hoisted the black flag". In general though I think the red flag seems to have been used most often as a final warning, a final chance to surrender.

[Matusalem]

[/b]

After reading my 2 new books on Pyracy fromDover books, there is several mentions of black flags, though nothing I read mentioned anything of jolly rogers, or skulls, etc.....just black flags (Henry Rollins should be proud)

I also know that some people mention that the most common pirate flag was red.

I've seen the webpages on jolly rogers, including red ones. It's just the fact that do you necissarily not need any graphic illustration on a black flag?

[Fox]

There are examples of plain flags both black and red. Most of the specific pirate flags that we know of come from post-1718 or so, and while many of them were black there seems to be a much stronger trend for black flags in the early 1720s onwards. By the middle of the decade "sailing under a black flag" had become a euphemism for piracy, so strong was the connection.

However, for many of the earlier flags we know about the descriptions only mention the devices, not the colour, so we are free to speculate based on what evidence there is.

The earliest skull and cross-bones pirate flag I know of was carried by some French buccaneers in the 1680s, and was red. In 1700 Emmanuel Wynne's flag was probably the earliest recorded black jolly roger. However, in 1718 George Shelvocke described yellow as the common colour for pirate flags.

It's also worth noting that even in the 1720s, once black had become the most common colour for jolly rogers, there were still pirate flags of other colours (such as blue), and many pirates (Dulaien, Bonnet etc) flew red flags in addition to their black jolly rogers.

[pyrateleather]

Foxe,

I read a while back that you had a book in the works... Has it been published or any more info??? Your website has a lot of great info!

[oderlesseye]

Aside black vs red.... Eye was wondering if there was a flag confiscated

from Blackbeards ship after the final battle where his head was cut off.. Does the flag excist? And where?

Secondly....

Most athentic flags ole' piracy GAOP are not in exsistence? Is this true? Or is there a collection somewheres? Help if ye can..

[Fox]

Short answer: to my knowledge there are no genuine surviving pirate flags from the GAoP era.

The book is progressing, we're just sorting out the exact placing of the illustrations in the text. News here when I've got it.

[Matusalem]

Short answer: to my knowledge there are no genuine surviving pirate flags from the GAoP era.

....because if there ever were, they would have been quite the prize for anyone to behold. Even an 18th century navy would have considered such a prize worthy of display, and inevitably the entire world would see such things. I've seen many things at both the US and British National archives, including the entire Smithsonian, and never was a single pyrate flag. No photo in any books, no university collections, no museums, not even maritime museums in Mystic, New Bedford, or Nantucket, or St. Agustine, Baltimore, New York, Norfolk, Key West, Galveston, or Tampa. Have I seen Half a dozen real battlefield Stars&Bars from the early 1860's?, YES....Real 1700's jolly rogers, NO. Somehow I don't think this is something one stores in a dusty old trunk up in the attic.

I would love nothing more than to be proven wrong.

Thankfully we have what's left of the Queen Anne's Revenge, and the Whydah.

[Fox]

There are a handful of other surviving pirate flags. Some Barbary pirates' flags in Tunis, a 19thC Chinese pirate flag in the NMM, a couple of 19thC jolly rogers, and Barbarossa's flag - just no GAoP era ones.

[oderlesseye]

Well then I'll just have to make my own...

Eye found a flag shop that will make what

ever desighn I want for $150.00

sux no flag from GAOP exsist! Thanx for the reply..