Under the Banner of King Death

The Golden Age of Piracy was briefer than you think, a scant seventy years (1660-1730). The typical pirate also looked differently than you might imagine. Despite the images presented by Peter Pan, Treasure Island, Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean, many pirates were not white men. Half the crews on the ships of William Lewis and Oliver LaBouche were Black, as were sixty members of Blackbeard’s one hundred man crew. Now, a comic by the same team that brought out 2021’s Prophet Against Slavery: Benjamin Lay, attempts to correct the mistaken impressions of pirates that readers may have.

Under the Banner of King Death: Pirates of the Atlantic is inspired by Marcus Rediker’s history, Villains of All Nations: Atlantic Pirates in the Golden Age (Beacon Press, 2004). David Lester illustrates a story based on Rediker’s work while Paul Buhle contributes a text afterward. Rediker and Lester are telling “history from below,” which focuses on the struggles of common people, not a few great men. It’s a historical tradition exemplified by such esteemed historians as Staughton Lynd, E.P. Thompson, and Howard Zinn. In this telling, pirates are as much rebels against the establishment as lawbreakers.

Rediker’s introduction describes the comic as an adaptation of Villains of All Nations, but strictly speaking, that is not the case. Under the Banner of King Death can more accurately be described as historical fiction, influenced by Rediker’s earlier book. Our three viewpoint characters are all fictional: Dutch sailor Ruben Dekker, escaped slave John Gwin, and Mary “Mark” Reed, a woman who dressed and lived as a man.

Nevertheless, some characters and situations are taken straight from history. For example, both the comic and Villains of All Nations begin with a hanging of an unrepentant pirate. Before he meets his end, he warns the assembled notables that unless merchant captains treat their crews with respect, mutiny and piracy will result. The difference is that the real pirate who offered this warning was Captain William Fly, while in the comic it’s changed to a fictional John Brown. Probably this is in reference to another rebel who too perished at the gallows.

Lester’s art has both positives and negatives. He is obviously inspired by older, pre-comic book art styles, which give his historical tales authenticity. The scratchy, raw pens and brushes give his compositions an immediacy to them that heightens the emotions and feelings of his characters. On the other hand, his handling of action, less important in Prophet Against Slavery, could use improvement. While his brushes are loose, his poses look stiff and he often resorts to a collage or montage during battle sequences. During the mutiny against Captain Skinner, the action is presented more sequentially and feels invigorating as a result.

The comic explains what encouraged sailors to go “upon the account” i.e. turn pirate, Piracy offered liberating opportunities for oppressed groups. Slaves escaping from the brutality of “New World” plantations became pirates, as did some Native Americans who were in the process of being displaced from their lands in favor of white settlers. In contrast to the abuse and mistreatment suffered by merchant sailors, Rediker has pointed out that pirates practiced a form of egalitarian, proto-socialism. They “drew on international maritime custom, in which ancient and medieval seafarers divided their money and goods into shares, consulted collectively and democratically on matters of the moment, and elected consuls to adjudicate differences between captain and crew.” From this viewpoint it’s understandable why no less than Oscar Wilde termed pirates “very fine fellows.”

Although I found the story engaging, the lack of clarity as to which incidents were real or fictitious was frustrating. The reviewer from Publishers Weekly went as far as to erroneously claim that the three principal characters were real. This not helped by the creators' use of the names of real people for fictional characters. For example, in the comic, William Snelgrave is a privateer, but the actual Snelgrave’s vocation was slave trader, although like his comic counterpart he was captured by pirates and spared when a member of his old crew spoke up for him. Likewise, there was a Mary Read (note the spelling), who dressed as a man, sailed as a pirate, and possibly had a lesbian affair with Anne Bonny, another female pirate. There was a real John Gwin as well, although he participated in a land-based slave rebellion, not piracy.

While the story may freely mix fact and fantasy, the book does provide some unembellished facts in the form of a timeline of notable incidents during the Golden Age of Piracy. Also included is an amusing glossary of pirate terminology. These range from the well known “Davy Jones’s Locker” and “Jolly Roger” to the obscure “skylark” and “chew the bullet.” Personally, I think that “anchor your arses” as a way to say “sit down” is due for a comeback.

Paul Buhle contributes an afterword exploring the changing “images of pirates through centuries of readers.” (Here I must specify that Paul is a social media acquaintance.) Although the last such afterward I read left me disappointed, I’m happy to say that this one spends less time meandering. When such well trodden stories as the suppression of EC Comics appear, there is relevancy to the topic of pirates in popular culture. I confess to never having read EC’s Piracy, but after reading Buhle’s description I will seek it out. I do find it odd that Buhle didn’t include perhaps the most famous example of pirate comics, that being “Tales of the Black Freighter,” the comic-within-a-comic from Watchmen.

Under the Banner of King Death ends very similarly to where it began, with another hanging. Public hangings of pirates were a common way to warn sailors against the dangers of piracy, to show them that the “merry and short” life of a pirate could end quite brutally. Yet we see that not all sailors will heed this warning and that repression breeds rebellion. As the last line of dialogue puts it: “It’s ours if we want it.” The comic encourages readers of the book who want to see a better world to go “upon the account” ... metaphorically speaking.

This book has received praise from the Marxist Socialist Worker and the anarchist Fifth Estate (surely a rarity for a publication with the imprimatur of the Unitarian Universalist church) but this is not solely a book for the radical left. Although the grisly violence will put off some, this is a corrective to many of the popular misconceptions about pirates. As history, however, it would work best as a companion to Villains of All Nations, not as a replacement of that slim volume.

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