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California World History Library
Bloody Flag: Mutiny in the Age of Atlantic Revolution (California World History Library)
The global legacy of mutiny and revolution on the high seas.
Mutiny tore like wildfire through the wooden warships of the age of revolution. While commoners across Europe laid siege to the nobility and enslaved workers put the torch to plantation islands, out on the oceans, naval seamen by the tens of thousands turned their guns on the quarterdeck and overthrew the absolute rule of captains. By the early 1800s, anywhere between one-third and one-half of all naval seamen serving in the North Atlantic had participated in at least one mutiny, many of them in several, and some even on ships in different navies. In The Bloody Flag, historian Niklas Frykman explores in vivid prose how a decade of violent conflict onboard gave birth to a distinct form of radical politics that brought together the egalitarian culture of North Atlantic maritime communities with the revolutionary era’s constitutional republicanism. The attempt to build a radical maritime republic failed, but the red flag that flew from the masts of mutinous ships survived to become the most enduring global symbol of class struggle, economic justice, and republican liberty to this day.
Mutiny tore like wildfire through the wooden warships of the age of revolution. While commoners across Europe laid siege to the nobility and enslaved workers put the torch to plantation islands, out on the oceans, naval seamen by the tens of thousands turned their guns on the quarterdeck and overthrew the absolute rule of captains. By the early 1800s, anywhere between one-third and one-half of all naval seamen serving in the North Atlantic had participated in at least one mutiny, many of them in several, and some even on ships in different navies. In The Bloody Flag, historian Niklas Frykman explores in vivid prose how a decade of violent conflict onboard gave birth to a distinct form of radical politics that brought together the egalitarian culture of North Atlantic maritime communities with the revolutionary era’s constitutional republicanism. The attempt to build a radical maritime republic failed, but the red flag that flew from the masts of mutinous ships survived to become the most enduring global symbol of class struggle, economic justice, and republican liberty to this day.
302 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2020
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About the author
Niklas Frykman
6 books1 followerNiklas Frykman is Assistant Professor of Atlantic History at the University of Pittsburgh.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
November 28, 2021
Review to come.
February 10, 2024
This book presents a very compelling narrative of the surge of naval mutinies in the early 19th century, and the burgeoning labor movement that undergirded it, set against a well-developed and extensively-sourced survey of the brutal and oppressive conditions under which the sailors toiled. The Bloody Flag is another fascinating account of a revolution that surprised the revolutionaries.
Frykman provides a thorough context against which these rebellions are set: the dislocating forces of naval modernization that altered the relationship of seamen to their officers, the demoralizing impact of British naval impressment, and the astoundingly cruel strictures of shipboard discipline in the early 1800s.
The desperation of British and continental navies to grow and maintain their numbers under looming conflict forced these and more factors to culminate in a few notable widespread insurrections, and this book exhaustively examines the impressively forward-thinking social upheaval and radical goals envisioned by the mutineers, and how these were shaped by the traditional communal bonds of shipboard life.
Frykman provides a thorough context against which these rebellions are set: the dislocating forces of naval modernization that altered the relationship of seamen to their officers, the demoralizing impact of British naval impressment, and the astoundingly cruel strictures of shipboard discipline in the early 1800s.
The desperation of British and continental navies to grow and maintain their numbers under looming conflict forced these and more factors to culminate in a few notable widespread insurrections, and this book exhaustively examines the impressively forward-thinking social upheaval and radical goals envisioned by the mutineers, and how these were shaped by the traditional communal bonds of shipboard life.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews