Historical novelists engage in research to ensure the authenticity of facts, and read as many related books, non-fiction and fiction, as possible. In my blogs I share the more fascinating fruits of my labours.
(blog posted 25 January 2023)
Illustration: Bloodskull’s pirate flag design © Devon Caperich October 2022
In the first book about Tomasina’s maritime adventures, she is forced to sew a version of the Jolly Roger following Bloodskull’s unique design, namely a black flag with a ‘red skull, just above the midline of the rectangle. A white strip in the shape of a cutlass [was] placed at an angle under the skull and a long-bone crossed it’.
For many centuries, flags have been, and still are, important for signalling at sea. Amateur sailors are familiar with them when racing, because they distinguish between several classes of boats competing along the same or a similar course. Our yacht, for example, shows the Number One pennant, a white elongated triangle containing a red circle, and we know that only yachts flying the same pennant are our competitors.
Many flags indicate the vessel’s national affiliation. At time of war these are raised to denote friends, enemies or neutrals. There are however flags of convenience, such as that of the Isle of Man, that disguise the vessel’s ownership. A plain yellow standard has long been used to signify a quarantine vessel, warning others to keep away because there is sickness on board. By the eighteenth century, two other plain coloured flags, black and red, indicated ‘danger’ and ‘no mercy given’ respectively.
The name, the Jolly Roger is the one most associated with pirates and the ‘golden age’ of piracy. Its derivation is uncertain although it is mentioned by that source of all things piratical, Charles Johnson’s 1724 General History of Pyrates1. This indicates the term was being used by the 1700s. One explanation is it is a corruption of the French ‘jolie rouge’. Another possibility is that it is a distortion of Old Roger, a common nickname for the devil or a vagabond.
Barbary pirates raiding the coasts of Western Europe flew black flags or as in a raid on Cornwall in 1625, dark green decorated with a skull2. Early evidence of a decorated flag used by pirates of the ‘golden age’ is in the 1687 Bibliothèque nationale de France, which describes buccaneers on land using a red flag with a skull-and-crossbones embellishment. A little later in 1700 a Captain Cranby reported engaging pirate Emmanuel Wynn who displayed a black flag with a white death’s head (a skull), crossed bones and an hourglass. Another source for the design of pirate flags is Johnson’s General History. He records that in 1720, Bartholomew Roberts and his crew sailed into Trepassi, Newfoundland ‘with their black colours flying, drums beating, and trumpets sounding. There were two-and-twenty vessels in the harbour, which the men all quitted at the sight of the pirates, and fled ashore’ (p.186).
Controversially, it seems that several of the flags associated with notorious pirates of the age were twentieth century inventions. One of the most popular designs, a skull over two crossed cutlasses, attributed to Jack Rackham, did not appear until Hans Leip produced his Log of the Satans in 1959. According to meticulous maritime researcher E T Fox3, some of the most popular made a first appearance in the Mariners’ Mirror of 1912, including Blackbeard’s design of a horned skeleton holding a spear and hourglass. Nevertheless, Blackbeard certainly did use a Jolly Roger of some sort. A 1717 newspaper report about Bloodskull referenced his flags on the Queen Anne’s Revenge, plus an accompanying sloop, as ‘Black Flags’ with ‘Deaths Heads’.
Nowadays the skull and crossed bones is the symbol that epitomises pirates. However, its association with death goes way back into the mists of history with possible links to Egypt’s Osiris, and ancient Sumerian and Indian cultures. In the West, it can commonly be seen on graves especially in Scotland. The Peebles cemetery and Elgin Cathedral are both full of Medieval tombstones decorated with the symbol. However, its connections with ships, probably derives from the time of the crusading Knights Templar. They adopted the symbol and because, by the thirteenth century, they had the largest European naval fleet, the concept of it being a maritime symbol for ‘danger beware’ to enemy vessels was established.
Pirates have invariably tried to ensure that the prey vessels and cargo are captured undamaged, therefore intimidatory tactics are better than a violent engagement. Incidentally the increasing preference for the black flag might have been to distinguish it from the British merchant navy’s red ensign.
In conclusion, despite misleading myths and modern elaborations, there is ample evidence to show that pirates of the ‘golden age’ flew a variety of Jolly Rogers designed to indicate that their intentions were far from friendly, so their adversary would do well to surrender without resistance.
References
1 Johnson, C. (1724) A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pirates. Edition 2002 London: Conway Maritime Press.
2 Milton, G. (2004) White Gold. London: Hodder & Stoughton
3 Fox, E. T. (2015) Jolly Rogers: The True History of Pirate Flags. Fox Historical.