The Jolly Roger in popular literature

[Fox]

In "The origin of the Jolly Roger" Master Studley wrote

When was the standardized images of the common jolly rogers printed ie. Blackbeard's, Calico Jack's, etc... I think it was Time Life books in the 60's or 70's. We've all come to recognize them, but I feel they are through a 20th century artist's eyes.

Anyone who's been following the recent threads on pirate flags will know that most of the commonly depicted ones are modern inventions, and I recently stated that I didn't think the forgery was any earlier than the 1930s. However, it would be nice to track down exactly when they all started to appear, so I'm enlisting the pub's help. Can you post details of the oldest book in your possession which has pictures or descriptions of the following flags attributed to the following pirates.

Henry Avery

Blackbeard

Stede Bonnet

Christopher Condent (usually shown as a long pennant)*

Christopher Moody*

John Rackham (while we're at it, what's the earliest anyone has got for hi nickname - Calico Jack?)

Thomas Tew

To start us off, the earliest I've got for the complete set immediately to hand is a pamphlet called "Pirates and Hidden Treasure" published 1986. Interestingly it shows Avery's flag without the bandanna and earring - can anyone confirm when they appeared?

David Mitchell's "Pirates" (Thames and Hudson, 1976) shows Rackham's supposed flag attributed to him, and also shows Condent's pennant, but without actually attributing it to him.

*I'm pretty sure that the supposed Condent and Moody flags predate the others. The Moody flag dates to at least 1716. What is a modern error is their attribution to those particular pirates.

[Gentleman Jeff]

Does anyone know whether there is a flag attributed to "Black" Sam Bellamy of the Whydah?

[MadMike]

Foxe,

I'd like to add the following- when did the name "Black Bart" (Bartholomew Roberts) first appear?

As for the Whydah flag, it is described in Cordingly's book "Under the Black Flag" with the following-

'During the trial of the pirates from Sam Bellamy's crew, reference is made to the confession of Thomas Baker, who was examined on May 6, 1717. Baker said that Bellamy's men "spread a large black flag, with a death's head and bones across and gave chase to Captain Prince under the same colours" (page 118).

Does anyone have pictures from the oft-referenced French flag book of 1721 purportedly showing pirate flags?

Yours, &c.

Mike

[Fox]

No idea about the name Black Bart, add it to the list!

I think the "French flag book" of 1721 may be a mistake on Cordingly's part (good though he is there are some mistakes in UTBF). The pictures he describes match exactly to a drawing of pirate flags, labelled the same and dating to sometime after 1729. The depiction is a later drawing of the flags of Captain Dulaien based on a written description of them by the Mayor of Nantes in a letter of 1729. Cordingly may be confusing it with a 1721 edition of "Nieuwe Hollandse Scheeps Borou", or "La Connaissance des Pavillons" (the later more or less a reprint of the former) which show a flag marked "Pavillon des Corsairs) (flag of the pirates) - essentially the flag which has come to be associated with Moody.

[MadMike]

Foxe,

You'll be happy to note we can verify one GAoP legend-

Foxe wrote-

"John Rackham (while we're at it, what's the earliest anyone has got for hi nickname - Calico Jack?)"

From "A General History of the Pyrates" by Johnson, edited by Manuel Schonhorn (ISBN 0-486-40488-9)-

"John Rackham, alias Callico Jack (so called, because his Jackets and Drawers were always made of Callico) Quartermaster to Vane, was unanimously chosen Captain to the Kingston" Chapter XXVII, Appendix to the First Volume, 1728 (Schonhorn, 620).

Yours, &c.

Mike

[Fox]

Nice one Mike, thanks for pointing that out.

Now, anyone got an advance on 1976 for the flags?

[Phillip Black]

This thread intrigued me, so I dug through all my books and found an interesting contradiction. In the book by Douglas Botting, The Pirates circa 1978 (a Time Life book from the series, The Seafarers) that you mentioned, it begins by showing several woodcuts made for the 1725 edition of A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pyrates. Then later in the book it has a section on piratical flags that match the ones you've listed above.

What is strange is that they are different. Henry Avery's woodcut shows only crossed bones for the flag in the background. Stede Bonnet's woodcut shows the crossbones overlayed with a skull, but no dagger or heart. Bartholomew Roberts' flag is only half shown in the woodcut, but appears to match the flag shown later in the book of a skeleton holding an hourglass with a sailor? Of course the woodcut artist had license to create whatever he so wished based on Johnson/Defoe's notes...but still...

It is very strange, and I'll keep an eye out for this stuff in the future.

[Nelson Cooke]

I was wondering this: what percentage of pirates actually flew pirate flags?

I know about how the sight of the flag of the hourglass or red flag, etc., sent chills from sailors's toes to the uppermost hair on their cowlick, but if my intent were criminal and the target possibly armed, I'd fly a false flag.

[Phillip Black]

I don't know about percentages, but there seems to be plenty of references and stories of not just pirates flying false flags. It was a kind of cat and mouse game it seems. I think you are French, so I'll fly a French flag and hopefully you'll pass me by, etc. Howell Davis used to regularly fly the Union Jack along with a pirate flag, unless he was going into port. Then, he would try to pass himself off as a RN pirate hunter!

[Deadeye]

I know about how the sight of the flag of the hourglass or red flag, etc., sent chills from sailors's toes to the uppermost hair on their cowlick, but if my intent were criminal and the target possibly armed, I'd fly a false flag.

It is my understanding that the use of the Pirate flag was to intimidate your opponent before you even met them. If you were sailing in a sloop or brig, and trying to take a heavily laiden merchantman, they have little or no chance of running from you, and most merchantmen were poorly armed (so is my understanding) so a fight might have been out of the question. Intimidation was your best weapon it seems. If they gave up, you could take your prize whole, rather than in splinters, possibly damaging the plunder and wasting your crew's lives.

[Fox]

The use of false flags was pretty widespread - I've even got a few examples of legitimate ships flying pirate flags to make themselves more intimidating.

As to how many pirates flew pirate flags, it's difficult to say for sure. What we can say for sure though is that the practice was very widespread, and that by the mid 1720s the phrase "flying the black flag" was synonymous with "being a pirate".

Of the pirates of the golden age I have found records of flags for about 50 or so pirate captains - certainly most of the well known ones. I think it must have been fairly common, for even that short lived pirate Richard Worley seems to have had at least 2 different flags.

[DirectorDave]

Wait.

So what your saying is that Jolly Roger isn't the zombie pirate that came back from the dead to collect his stolen gold in Southern California as depicted in my horror film JOLLY ROGER? Damn it.

I thought we fact checked and everything. I think I'll have to fire some people in the morning.

(Sorry, I couldn't resist. I know this is a serious thread. I'll stop with my late night humor so you can go back to what's important. I just couldn't resist, that's all - Latt (producer, JOLLY ROGER)

[blackjohn]

(Sorry, I couldn't resist. I know this is a serious thread. I'll stop with my late night humor so you can go back to what's important. I just couldn't resist, that's all - Latt (producer, JOLLY ROGER)

There are serious threads here? When did that happen? I thought there were some scholarly threads, but I'm not sure that anything that transpires here falls under the category of "what's important."

[Swashbuckler 1700]

(Sorry if this post is difficult to read...)

Something interesting I found on Benerson Little's website http://www.benersonlittle.com/_i__center_the_golden_age_of_piracy__the_truth_behind_the_myths__i___center__105984.htm

I must say that while I have very little experience about Little's works he seems to be have also studied pirate flags quite a lot like Fox(e) For example he "agrees" that Jolly Roger is not likely related to the French Joli Rouge at all.

About popular pirate flags (you know by now the ones always printed and most of them are not even real (likely)) he has some things to say about them (It is really sad that those likely fictional pirate flags are so popular but the just as nice real original flags rarely appear anywhere...)

About John Rackham's pirate flag Little says:

The purported flag of John "Calico Jack" Rackham is yet another fanciful invention. There is one legitimate pirate flag known as depicting crossed swords from 1718 off the coast of Brazil: "a cadaver (skeleton) with scattered bones and crossed sabers," but it was not Rackam's for he was not in the area.

(I would personally also mention a not so legitimate but Gaop fictional flag mentioned in Defoe's book The adventures of Captain Singleton (1720) where a fictional pirate flag is described: "a black flag with cross daggers in it" but it is not still related to Rackham in any way )

Back to the flag mentioned by little. Who was the man using the flag that was used in Brasil in 1718... At least what I have read from Colin Woodard's Republic of pirates Captain Edmund/William/ Christopher Condent was sailing around that region at that time but I think he was not alone there....

Another issue related to flags (I was astonished when searching Twill that there is so few actual flag threads so I place this here. I hope it is ok) Came from Woodard's book I previously mentioned.

I have had an impression that All we know of Blackbeard's real pirate flag that it had a death's head in it. I think while I cannot say any sources that the background color of that flag was said to be unknown. However there is a quote in Woodard's Republic of Pirates page 242 (of the 2007 edition) about Blackbeard's flags when he attacked "Protestant Cesar" in winter 1717-1718:

"When Wyer spotted the pirates- "a large ship and a sloop with Black Flags and Death's Heads and three more sloops with bloody flags"- he called all his men on deck...."

In the end notes Woodard says that in that section of Protestant Cesar his sources were: Capture of Protestant Cesar: Report of William Wyer; GHP p. 72; TSB, pp. 44-45.

(GHP=General History of Pirates TSB= The Tryals of Major Stede Bonnet and Other Pirates, London Benjamin Cowse 1719)

But, I wonder where the quote he used is from. Woodard doesn't say of which source it was from (was it originally in GHP or TSB).

While Woodard used GHP ed. Manuel Schonhorn, Columbia, CS: University of South Carolina Press, 1972. I presume that the book was still pretty similar than the 1724 edition* and in that older version the page 72 matches as there is a description of the same Battle.

However, in that page (at least in the 1724 edition) there is not the quote used by Woodard (in 1724 GHP there is only said: " Teach hoisted his Black Colours, and fired a Gun, upon which Captain Wyar and all his Men, left their Ship, and got ashore in their Boat.")

So I presume the quote is originally in "The Tryals of Major Stede Bonnet and Other Pirates". Does this mean that we have an eyewitness testimony which says Blackbeard had black flags with death's heads besides bloody flags?

* can be found here: http://digital.lib.ecu.edu/17001

Edited January 2, 2014 by Swashbuckler 1700

[GregF]

The reference to "Black Flags and Deaths Heads" is from a report printed in the Boston News Letter, June 16 1718 regarding Wyer's encounter. The report describes both Wyer's initial engagement with some of Blackbeard's crew (off the island of Roatan) and the subsequent encounter near Belize. The report states, as quoted above, that Wyer saw a "large ship and sloop with black flags and deaths heads in them and three more sloops with bloody flags all bore down upon the said ship Protestant Caesar..."

I would be happy to send you a pdf of this edition of the Boston News Letter if you'd like.

Greg

[Swashbuckler 1700]

(Thanks for the offer... I think about it. But, as a note I am searching these things for fun and I don't have actual academical purposes...In any case it would be interesting to see that PDF so I think about it)

That is interesting. It seems that actually many of the flying gang had pirate flags with death's head and at least in Bellamy's, Blackbeard's and perhaps in Bonnet's cases (The sloop which had black flag in that attack I think, was, at least accordingly to Woodard, Stede Bonnet's Revenge, but she was not commanded by Bonnet in that battle I think (I think It was Blackbeard's man named Richards who had Revenge at his command) In any case The ship might have used Pirate colours of Bonnet in that battle) the colour of the flag was black. Also at least Bellamy's flag had crossed bones too (and perhaps the others had bones as well since the descriptions are not really detailed). Also e.g Edward England had similar flag than Bellamy.

It is clear that many pirate crews had very similar flags e.g many of Low's gang had rather similar skeletons with rather minor variation. This seems not to fit completely with the idea that e.g Angust Konstam has proposed: that every pirate captain/ crew had his/their own unique "brand mark"design of the jolly Roger.

It seems at least to me (with necessarily doesn't mean much) that the variation between different Jolly roger designs (colours varied so did symbols etc.) can be explained with different ideas. For example: Perhaps the symbolism was not yet clearly established as the pirate flags were still rather new phenomenon in the early 18th Century. Perhaps it was not necessarily always so personal matter for the pirates (of course e.g Robert's had his very personal and unique "ABH AMH" flag but...).

The main idea I mean is that it seems that different pirates had rather similar flags and that a design was no always "a brand mark" of one particular captain. Instead it seems that at least some pirates used common symbols....

Edited January 3, 2014 by Swashbuckler 1700

[GregF]

The only other point I would add is that while the design of flags may have been largely a matter of taste, the color -- black or red -- seems to have been significant, at least in the 1720s. A black flag was flown during the initial phase of an attack -- on approach -- as a warning that the vessel was under command of pirates. Often accompanied by one or more warning shots, this was a signal to crews aboard a targeted ship to surrender. In contrast, the red flag was raised when a crew did not surrender. The opportunity to surrender, and be given safe quarter, was gone and the pirates would now fight to the kill. The crews sailing under both Low and Spriggs exhibited this behavior. “When they fight under the Jolly Roger, they give quarter," wrote the sea captain Richard Hawkins, who was captured by Spriggs in 1723, "which they do not when they fight under the red or bloody flag.”

[Fox]

That's what Hawkins says... but a Dutchman named Roggewein said the exact opposite, and there's another account (I'd have to dig out my sources) that talks about the pirates alternating several times between black and red. Therefore, whatever Hawkins noted about Spriggs' company didn't necessarily hold true of other pirates.

As for Konstam's assertions about flags - that's one of my biggest bugbears with his work. He knows that it's not true. I know that he knows because I told him. Yet still he writes it...

I've got info on something like 80 pirate flags from the GAoP, if you include the fake ones and the probable/possible ones. To my knowledge, all of the flags known to be flown by the Lowther/Low group, except Lyne's, featured a skeleton piercing a heart, mostly on black, one on blue. All of the flags flown by members of the Flying Gang featured a death's head or a death's head and bones, though the exact design varied from company to company. FWIW, there is another witness account that mentions Blackbeard's death's head flag.

[Swashbuckler 1700]

Indeed....

I think this might not be news but.

I don't own any Benerson Little's book but I saw a good preview in Google Books. Fortunately it happens that there is also something about pirate flags.

Page 11 of "How History's Greatest Pirates Pillaged, Plundered, and Got Away With It: The Stories, Techniques, and Tactics of the Most Feared Sea Rovers from 1500-1800" says about popular Moody's flag: "The flag... commonly attributed without evidence to Christopher Moody, is actually a Barbary corsair design from the late 17th century."

I also wonder why there is two versions of "Moody's" pirate flag. One with a wreath on the skull and one without

I would guess that the design with a wreath is older as I am pretty sure I have seen old engraving image of it (possibly in Cordingly's "Pirates: Fact and Fiction" and if I am not mistaken he said it was a Barbary pirate flag).

It fits as a wreath might symbolize Western people in Barbary states (since Ancient Rome perhaps) and in that case it might be an European's skull depicted in the flag. Thus the skull in the flag would be a threat to Western mariners.

(Similarly I have thought that Avery's fake flag with skull would rather mean dead Indian/Muslim sailor with earring and bandanna (near turban). I have never though it was pirate's skull depicted in that flag (so I think that even if Avery's flag would have been real it still didn't suggest that pirates had much earrings...)

Another interesting thing about bloody flags:

It seems that in the 17th century Dutch navy used a red ensign (that looks a lot like Thomas Tew's fake flag. I think the one who invented the Tew's fake Jolly Roger got the idea from here).

For example in this Peter van de Velde's painting (circa 1670-1679) we see such a flag

Same here: Dutch ships bomb Tripoli in a punitive expedition against the Barbary pirates. circa 1670 (note it is not Barbary pirates using it but it is used by the Dutch man of war)

Edited January 4, 2014 by Swashbuckler 1700

[Fox]

The attribution of the "Moody" flag to Barbary Corsairs is also a (possible) error. In the original book in which the flag appeared it is described as a "pavillon des corsaires", which has led people to assume it's a Barbary corsairs' flag. However, the symbolism is quite unlike that of other known Barbary corsairs' flags, and the French word "corsaires" simply meant "pirates" without the more specific connotation that the word "corsairs" has in English.

[sea haugh]

Journal of "Greenwich" Cpt Kirby

8th August 1720

...."ye cassandra being the leeward most ship was engaged by ye small ship , they fought under a black flag at ye main topmast head with deaths head in it , ye red flag at ye main foretop mast head and st georges colours at ye ensign staff"

he states Edward England in the "Victory" french built 46 gun and Cpt Seegar in the dutch built 36 gun "Fancy"

[Swashbuckler 1700]

Journal of "Greenwich" Cpt Kirby

8th August 1720

...."ye cassandra being the leeward most ship was engaged by ye small ship , they fought under a black flag at ye main topmast head with deaths head in it , ye red flag at ye main foretop mast head and st georges colours at ye ensign staff"

he states Edward England in the "Victory" french built 46 gun and Cpt Seegar in the dutch built 36 gun "Fancy"

Thanks that is an interesting quote

But, were not Edward England the same man as captain Seegar?

Edited January 7, 2014 by Swashbuckler 1700

[Fox]

No, Edward England and Jasper Seegar were two different men, Seegar took over command from England. Somewhere there's a thread around here about Oliver la Buse with details of the England/Seegar/Taylor identifications

[Swashbuckler 1700]

Interesting (The England Seegar thing)

You know I have been wondering this thing for some time and now finally I have energy and time to put it here.

And when that happens there is going to be a long post. Hopefully this has something new at least to someone.

It is interesting that Bart Robert’s flag that is often said to be a like this



But, as it happens it is one of the modern inventions as some know.

However, Johnson mentions a rather similar flag which would look quite similar, but the meaning of it is completely different.
“The Flag could not be got easily from under the fallen Mast, and was therefore recover'd by the Swallow; it had the Figure of a Skeleton in it, and a Man pourtray'd with a flaming Sword in his Hand, intimating a Defyance of Death it self.”

Thought accordingly to Berenson little Ogle doesn’t mention that flag.

In any case the flag described by Johnson had a man defying the death rather than toasting with “him” like in the modern version.

Then there are the illustrations of Johnson’s books


Actually I am pretty sure that all 1720s illustrations describe that flag and not the modern one.

Illustration A


Here you can see that the figure of death has a spear and an hourglass, but he is not toasting with Robert’s figure. The figure of a man has a (flaming) sword and he is defying the death.


illustration B

Here the sword is hardly visible, but I am pretty sure it is still there. (The skeleton has, again a spear and an hourglass but the print appears to be worn) This appear to be just a colored (perhaps modern) of illustration A


Illustration C


This doesn’t show that flag, but the other flags Robert’s used accordingly to Johnson


Illustration D

This is same as illustration C but with colours


illustration E

This can be found on the web and it has perhaps edited with computer (see the distance between Roberts and his ships) but there is still a probable sword held by the figure of a man. It is greatly similar as A.


Illustration F


This shows nothing more than similar figure of “death” but now the figure of a man is not visible at all. I think this is just mean to be the same flag but we cannot see the man with the sword. The existence of spear is nothing new as it can be seen in other earlier prints as well.



Illustration G
This is in the Dutch book and shows only totally different and probably fictional flag
http://jcb.lunaimaging.com/luna/servlet/detail/JCB~1~1~1846~2850006:Bartholomew-Roberts-doodgebleeven-

I may be wrong but it seems that the modern version was created by someone who didn’t read the text of Johnson and who just looked at the picture and missed the sword which can be hard to see in worn old prints.

Also, is this an early 20 the Century book illustration about flags? At least here we can see the modern version of many flags but not persons now linked with them. There are only odd dates. (The 1719 flag is clearly the one described by privateer George Shelvocke)

Edited January 13, 2014 by Swashbuckler 1700