Jack Rackham (Callico Jack)

Jack Rackham (Callico Jack) 12” X 18”   These are high quality pirate flags. They are Outdoor quality- screen printed.  The flags listed here are double sided (two pieces of nylon) and silk screened on both sides.   John Rackham is most remembered for two things: his Jolly Roger, featuring a skull and crossed cutlasses, which helped to popularize the design and associate it in popular culture with piracy; and employing the two notorious female pirates of the Golden Age of Piracy – Anne Bonny and Mary Read – in his crew.   Rackham originally sailed under Charles Vane, an English pirate captain. In 1718, Vane engaged a vessel which turned out to be a French warship and was forced to retreat. Vane's crew, led by Rackham (who was the ship's quartermaster) voted to remove him as captain on the grounds of cowardice; Rackham was installed as captain in his place.[2]   He made a career of plundering small vessels close to shore, which proved his undoing as he cruised Jamaica in the autumn of 1720. He captured numerous small fishing vessels, terrorizing fishermen and women along the northern coastline before coming across a small vessel filled with other English pirates. The nine armed men were invited aboard, but were almost immediately under attack by an armed sloop sent out by Governor Nicholas Lawes.