In April 1719, when Howell Davis and crew sailed into the Sierra Leone River, the pirates captained by Thomas Cocklyn were wary until they saw on the approaching ship "her Black flag," then "immediately they were easy in their minds, and a little time after" the crews "saluted one another with their Cannon (6). In this context, flags emerged as identifiers: The literally needed to hang together, or could find themselves hanging separately, which bred a sense of fraternity that spread among pirates and manifested in cooperative tendencies at sea and in port. Though they could be commissioned, if caught by an opposing party, they faced death. This group knew that they were operating on borrowed time and on the edge of the hangman's noose. In many ways this order was necessary to the survival of piracy. A council governed the crew, representing the highest authority aboard the ship. The Captain served at the mercy of the crew, and could be removed from his position for acts of cowardice, cruelty, or failure to act in the best interest of the crew. For example, spoils were systematically distributed:Ĭaptain and quartermaster received between one and one-half and two shares gunners, boatswains, mates, carpenters, and doctors, one and one-quarter or one and one-half all others got one share each (5). These seafaring groups were far from disorganized-they operated under strict codes of conduct that reflected a highly organized social order governing authority, distribution of plunder, and discipline. Pirates who seemed to have no loyalties to man or country were able to set their own terms, albeit under the guise of crime. While privateers often had better food and pay and shorter shifts, the long arm of the law was sometimes unforgiving and held them to strict standards. Food supplies often ran short, wages were low, mortality was high, discipline severe, and desertion consequently chronic (4). Some pirates had served in the navy where conditions aboard ship were no less harsh. Each ship was "a little kingdom" whose captain held a near-absolute power which he often abused (3). Merchant seamen got a hard, close look at death: disease and accidents were commonplace in their occupation, rations were often meager, and discipline was brutal. They're known for walking the plank, copious alcohol consumption, and lascivious tendencies, but these were skilled men drawn from maritime trades which had paid them poorly: Pirates have a bloodthirsty and lawless reputation. Their numbers included Francis Drake and Henry Morgan-hailed as Gentlemen of the seas. These men were national heroes: defenders of the nation on the high seas. Tensions between Old World powers were not limited to their respective shores-traces of these conflicts echoed in the Western colonies, and the English, Dutch, and French sanctioned piracy-commissioning them as privateers-as a means of protecting their claims and controlling the goods in the region. Pirates, many of whom were drawn to the trade because it offered a chance to make a sustainable wage, found the waters of the Caribbean particularly attractive: largely unsettled, they would not be bothered by governing bodies there were plenty of safe, natural harbors and many opportunities to liberate spoils from the trade vessels of the Spanish (2). The Spanish dominated the landscape but other colonial powers soon followed. Despite this historical legacy, the familiar skull and crossbones that many of us associate with piracy is a recent development, emerging in the late 17th-century with the rise of the pirates of the Caribbean.įollowing the discovery of the New World, the Caribbean quickly gained status as a center of trade with sugar, gold, and human capital flowing between the Old and New Worlds. The Senate approved "a comprehensive and systematic strategy and an astutely humane policy to the vanquished" to eliminate the Cilicians within a matter of months (1). Cilicians were active in the Mediterranean and tolerated by the Roman Empire for the slaves they provided, and were only reigned in when they gained such a presence as to become a threat to the Empire's grain supply in 67 BCE. Piracy has likely long been a feature of the open seas, following the earliest trade routes of the Aegean and Mediterranean. It's a fascinating discussion on the efficiency and power that good branding can deliver, but it overlooks the ways in which the power of the symbol as we recognize it draws in part in the acceptance and manipulation of the image by others. A 2011 article in The New York Times hails the ominous design as a magnificent exercise in collective hybrid branding, noting that economics drove pirates to adopt a version of this particular symbol to facilitate their intent to plunder. The "pirate brand" has long been tied to the skull and crossbones-the Jolly Roger-as a symbol of terror on the high seas.
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