Skull and bones flags free#

The earliest source listing this is from an unknown, undated manuscript that was gifted to the Maritime Museum of Britain in 1939. However, there is no contemporary source for this having been his flag. Stede Bonnet, “The Gentleman Pirate”īonnet’s flag is traditionally thought to have been a skull over a horizontal long bone and between a heart and a dagger (shown below). He and his crew captured several more ships around Bermuda and Saint Kitts later that year.

Skull and bones flags free#

Spriggs then took his ship, the Delight, and set sail for the Caribbean.įrancis Spriggs was still active by April of 1725, when he set some of the crew from his Caribbean conquests free on the island of Roatan off the northern coast of Honduras. Instead, it comes from one of Spriggs’ former sailing partners, Edward Low.Īlthough it’s unknown when Spriggs began his career of piracy, he and Low had split by Christmas of 1724. The design of Spriggs’ flag, a red skeleton on a black flag, doesn’t even originate from him. However, it lacks almost all of the symbols we’ve come to associate with Jolly Rogers. Spriggs’ flag was one of the first flags to be called a Jolly Roger. Francis Spriggs/Edward Low Francis Spriggs / Edward Low Flag, 1721 – 1724 Buy On Amazon Prime for $24.50 We’ll take a look at the top ten most famous real pirate flags of all time.

Many different pirates have used it, including “Black Sam” Bellamy, Christopher Condent and Edward England. The skull-and-crossbones design of the Jolly Roger flag has been used in many different styles and variations. This hourglass image was then picked up by other pirates and appears on several other flags. Wynn’s flag also used an hourglass image to symbolize that whoever saw it was running out of time. The earliest use of a black flag with a white skull and crossbones is credited to the French pirate captain Emanuel Wynn in 1700. They announced to anyone who saw them that the crew of the ship was pirates and that if they surrendered, they’d be given mercy. No matter how they looked, all Jolly Rogers had one purpose: to send a message. Bartholomew Roberts’ first flag was a caricature of him sharing an hourglass with Death. These first flags, flown by Bartholomew Roberts and Francis Spriggs, looked nothing like what we would expect a modern Jolly Roger to look like.įor example, Francis Spriggs’ flag was a red skeleton on a black flag. While pirates had been around as early as 1650, the first Jolly Rogers weren’t flown until after the Golden Age of Piracy. View Larger Share this Image On Your Site Famous Pirate Flags Infographic by Vispronet A Short History of the Jolly Roger Pirate Flag When it comes to pirates, perhaps nothing has captured people’s attention more than one of the most famous pirate flags in existence, the Jolly Roger. Almost since the end of the Golden Age of Piracy in 1720, pirates have captured the imagination of the public.