Page "Stede Bonnet" Paragraph 30

Bonnet's flag is traditionally represented as a white skull above a horizontal long bone between a heart and a dagger, all on a black field.

Despite the frequent appearance of this flag in modern pirate literature, no known early-Georgian period source describes any such device, much less attributes it to Bonnet.

This version of Bonnet's flag is probably one of a number of pirate flags appearing on an undated manuscript with unknown provenance in Britain's National Maritime Museum, which was donated by Dr. Philip Gosse in 1939.

Bonnet's crew and contemporaries generally referred to him flying a " bloody flag ", which likely means a dark red flag.

There is also a report from the 1718 Boston News-Letter of Bonnet flying a death's-head flag during his pursuit of the Protestant Caesar, with no mention of color or of any long bone, heart, or dagger.