Jolly Roger

Jolly Roger is the traditional English name for the flags flown to identify a pirate ship preceding or during an attack, during the early 18th century (the latter part of the Golden Age of Piracy). The flag most commonly identified as the Jolly Roger todaythe skull and crossbones symbol on a black flagwas used during the 1710s by a number of pirate captains, including Black Sam Bellamy, Edward England, and John Taylor. It became the most commonly used pirate flag during the 1720s, although other designs were also in use. Name Use of the term Jolly Roger in reference to pirate flags goes back to at least Charles Johnson's A General History of the Pyrates, published in Britain in 1724. Johnson specifically cites two pirates as having named their flag "Jolly Roger": Bartholomew Roberts in June 1721 and Francis Spriggs in December 1723. While Spriggs and Roberts used the same name for their flags, their flag designs were very different, suggesting that already "Jolly Roger" was a generic term for black pirate flags rather than a name for any single specific design. Neither Spriggs' nor Roberts' Jolly Roger consisted of a skull and crossbones.