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The Pirate Flag & the Jolly Roger
The first time it was seen was in 1700, by the captain of Her Majesty's Ship, which was attacked
off the coast of Santiago, Cuba, by a French pirate named Emmanuel Wynne. The pirate ship displayed a
black flag with a white skull, two crossbones and a sand glass, symbol of the little time remaining to
the adversary to decide either to fight or surrender; or meaning that life is fleeting like sand. The
skull and crossbones are the death symbol which was used by a few European armies during the XV century,
before the pirates reused the idea.
The Jolly Roger expression, which designs the black flag by Anglo-Saxons sailors, is probably of French
origin. Historians think that French buccaneers and pirates of the Caribbean Sea used to call their red
flag « Joli rouge » with a lot of emphasize on the "e" of the word "rouge". This expression, used by
Anglophones would have been deformed to "Jolly Roger", which would have been kept for the pirate's black
flag. Some pirated hoisted this flag to persuade a pursued ship to surrender without fighting.
If the ship refused to stop, then the pirates would hoist their red flag to indicate that they would
fight with no mercy.
Pirate flags were often big pieces of sail sewed together at great points and their patterns were pretty basic.
Adorned with death emblems, the pirate flag, hoisted before boarding, gave the order to the coveted ship to surrender.
These flags were not always black, some were white but the worse ones were red, which meant "Death to all" or "No quarter".
Here are a few examples of well known pirate flags:
Edward TEACH, known as BLACKBEARD
Half-devil, half-skeleton, holding a sand glass and pointing a spear towards a red heart. |
Christopher MOODY
The sand glass is a common emblem on pirate flags. On Moody's one, as on numerous tombs, the sand glass has wings to accentuate the idea of the time's rapid flow. |
Henry EVERY
Every's ship, the Fancy, showed a skull with a bandanna and a buckle ear, which became popular elements of the pirate's outfit. |
Thomas TEW
The sabre always symbolised strength. Thomas Tew took this symbol for his flag.
Was it a good choice to choose this scimitar, because it was this kind of sabre who cut his head during
the attack of the Indian ship Futteh Mahmoom, in 1695. |
Jack RACKAM, known as CALICO JACK |
Bartholomew ROBERTS
He chose to clink glasses with Death. But its second flag showed two skulls,
one marked with ABH, "A Barbadian Head", and the other with AMH, "A Martinican Head", in reference
to the oath he made to himself to take revenge from those two Caribbean islands' peoples who dared
to draw up against him. |
Edward LOW
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Walter KENNEDY
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Edward ENGLAND
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Richard WORLEY
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Stede BONNET
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Emmanuel WYNNE
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Christopher CONDENT
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The pirate flag is still used by English submarines returning to their base. It is a tradition dating from the World War I, where a submarine's crew raised this flag when they successfully accomplished a mission.
American pilots have used the Jolly Roger flag on their planes since January 1rst, 1943. The skull and crossbones flag decorated a variety of F4U Corsair planes to the F-14 Tomcat of nowadays.
With many thanks to Olivier Rolko for his english translation help from https://www.pirates-corsaires.com/pavillon.htm
PIRATE FLAG STORE
Ahoy sailor! Get a Pirate Flag from the Sons of Pirate Shop and become a real pirate of the Caribbean. Choose from our large collection of Jolly Roger flags that belonged to famous pirates.
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