HOIST THE JOLLY ROGER

Category: File - :Flag of Edward England.svg|thumb|200px|right|The traditional "Jolly Roger" of piracy.

The Jolly Roger is the name given to any of various flags flown to identify a ship's crew as pirates.Oxford English Dictionary, Second Edition 1989, under "Roger, n.2.4" records the first usage as: "1785 GROSE Dict. Vulgar T. s.v. Roger, Jolly roger, a flag hoisted by pirates." The flag most usually identified as the Jolly Roger today is the skull and crossbones, being a flag consisting of a skull above two long bones set in an x-mark arrangement on a black field. This design was used by four pirates, captains Edward England, John Taylor, Sam Bellamy and John Martel. Some Jolly Roger flags also include an hourglass, representing that the victims' time to surrender was running out. Despite its prominence in popular culture, plain black flags were often employed by most pirates in the 17th-18th century.Regular black flags mostly employed by pirates. Historically, the flag was flown to frighten pirates' victims into surrendering without a fight, since it conveyed the message that the attackers were outlaws who would not consider themselves bound by the usual rules of engagement?and might, therefore, slaughter those they defeated (since captured pirates were usually hanged, they didn't have much to gain by asking quarter if defeated). The same message was sometimes conveyed by a red flag, as discussed below.

Since the decline of piracy, various military units have used the Jolly Roger, usually in skull-and-crossbones design, as a unit identification insignia or a victory flag to ascribe to themselves the proverbial ferocity and toughness of pirates. Many aviation members in the U.S. military have also been known to use this pattern as a message to others, saying the wearer "may look at death with a smile on their face."

In a non naval context the Skull and crossbones motif has additional meanings, for example, to signify a hazard such as poison.

:"Walk the plank" redirects here. For other uses, see Walk the Plank.

Category: Image - :Pyle pirate plank edited.jpg|thumb|150px|right|Pirates' captive walking the plank, as painted by Howard Pyle.

Walking the plank was a form of murder or torture thought to have been practiced by pirates, mutineers and other rogue seafarers. The victim was forced to walk off the end of a wooden plank or beam extended over the side of a ship, falling into the water to drown, sometimes with bound hands or weighed down, often into the vicinity of sharks (which would often follow ships). The earliest known use of the phrase is the later half of the 18th century. Some writers in the 20th century speculated that walking the plank may be a myth created by cinema; however, the phrase "walking the plank" is recorded in English writer Francis Grose's "Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue","Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue", Francis Grose, 1788, Google Books (originally published 1785) which was published in 1788 (first published in 1785).

Swashbuckler or swasher is a term that developed in the 16th centuryOxford English Dictionary notes a first usage in 1560. to describe rough, noisy and boastful swordsmen. It is based on a fighting style using a side-sword with a buckler in the off-hand, which was filled with much "swashing and making a noise on the buckler". Today the term "swashbuckler" has changed, and refers to both a type of fictional character and to a fiction genre, especially in the world of film and video games.

A pegleg is a prosthesis, more specifically an artificial limb of carved wood fitted to the remaining stump of a human leg, as often seen in pirate movies. Peglegs have been replaced by more-modern materials, though some sports prostheses do have the same form.

:See also Halifax gibbet, a kind of guillotine.

Category: File - :Gallows at Caxton Gibbet.jpg|thumb|200px|right|The reconstructed gallows style gibbet at Caxton Gibbet, in Cambridgeshire, England.

A gibbet is a gallows-type structure from which the dead bodies of executed criminals were hung on public display to deter other existing or potential criminals. To gibbet a criminal is to display the criminal on a gibbet.Oxford English Dictionary, 3rd Ed., Oxford University. Electronic CD edition. This practice is also called "hanging in chains".

The word grog refers to a variety of alcoholic beverages. The word originally referred to a drink made with water or "small beer" (a weak beer) and rum, which was introduced into the Royal Navy by British Vice Admiral Edward Vernon (nicknamed "Old Grog" by the sailors) on 21 August 1740. Modern versions of the drink are often made with hot or boiling water, and sometimes include lemon juice, lime juice, cinnamon or sugar to improve the taste. Rum with water, sugar and nutmeg was known as bumboo and was more popular with pirates and merchantmen.

By contrast, in Australia and New Zealand, the word has come to mean any alcoholic drink.

In Sweden and some subcultures within the English-speaking world, grog is a common description of drinks not made to a recipe, but by mixing various kinds of alcohol and soda, fruit juice or similar ingredients; i.e. a highball with no defined proportions. The difference between the Swedish definition of grog and long drinks, mixed drinks or punches is the number of ingredients. The number of ingredients in drinks may vary, but grog typically has just one kind of liquor (most commonly vodka or brännvin) and one kind of a non-alcoholic beverage. The term Busgrogg (mischief grog) refers to a mix of beer or cider and vodka or brännvin.

In Fiji the term "grog" refers to a drink made by pounding sun-dried kava root into a fine powder and mixing it with cold water. Traditionally, grog is drunk from the shorn half-shell of a coconut, called a "bilo."

Grog has also been used as a metaphoric term for a person's vices, as in the old Irish song "All for Me Grog".

The Spanish Main was the mainland coast of the Spanish Empire around the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico. It included present-day Florida, Mexico, Central America and the north coast of South America. It is particularly strongly associated with that stretch of the Caribbean coastline that runs from Porto Bello through Cartagena de Indias and Maracaibo to the Orinoco delta. [http://blindkat.hegewisch.net/pirates/spmain.html]

From the 16th to the 18th century, the Spanish Main was the point of departure for enormous wealth shipped back to Spain in the form of gold, silver, gems, spices, hardwoods, hides and other riches.

Major ports were Cartagena de Indias in New Granada, Porto Bello on the Isthmus of Darien and Veracruz in New Spain. Silver was brought to the Spanish Main by the llama and mule trains from Potosi via the Pacific coast, while wares from the far east, that had arrived at Acapulco on the Manila Galleons, were also then transported overland to the Spanish Main. From there they were shipped to Spain by the famous Spanish Plate (Spanish treasure fleets). The Spanish Main was ripe territory for pirates and privateers.