Congress made the following resolution: “The flag of the United States shall be thirteen stripes, alternate red and white, with a union of thirteen stars of white on a blue field ...” Official announcement of the new flag was not made until September 3, 1777. When it was first flown has not been determined. Historical research has failed to establish a factual foundation for the traditional story that the flagmaker Betsy Ross made the first American flag.
Early flags designed for use in the American colonies reflected the Old World origin of the colonists. In the British colonies many flags were adaptations of the British Union Jack (see Flags, National). The colors red, white, and blue, which symbolized colonial unity, were first used in a flag in New England in 1737. The flag was blue with a white canton quartered by a red cross. In one upper quarter of the canton was a globe symbolizing the New World.
As relations with Great Britain became more strained, the colonists designed a large number of flags expressive of their political sentiments and ideals. A favorite emblematic device in the flags of the southern colonies was a rattlesnake, usually depicted as coiled and ready to strike and having 13 rattles. In South Carolina it was emblazoned on a yellow flag and was accompanied by the inscription “dont tread on me.” Another South Carolina colonial flag consisted of 13 horizontal stripes, 7 red alternating with 6 blue; extending diagonally across the flag toward the upper corner near the staff was a rattlesnake depicted with its forked tongue projecting. A similar Virginia colonial flag differed from the latter South Carolina emblem in two respects: it contained 6 white instead of 6 blue stripes, and beneath the serpent was inscribed “dont tread on me.” Another Virginia flag was white and emblazoned with crossed swords and the motto “Liberty or Death.”
The idea of liberty appeared on many other flags besides that of Virginia. The word was inscribed on an otherwise plain red flag raised in New York by the Sons of Liberty, a secret patriotic organization, in defiance of a British regulation forbidding the display of any but the British flag. “Liberty” also formed the inscription of a Taunton, Massachusetts, flag consisting of a red field and a blue canton containing the British Union Jack. A favorite device in other colonial flags was the pine tree, called the liberty tree, on a yellow flag borne by the minutemen in 1775. In New England the liberty tree device appeared on a yellow flag bearing the inscriptions “An Appeal to God” and “Dont Tread on Me.” The tree also appeared in the white canton of a red flag that, with other emblems, was borne by the Americans at the Battle of Bunker Hill on June 17, 1775. The first American colonial flag with stars of which there is a record was that displayed in 1775 by the armed schooner Lee. The flag of the Lee was white. Near its center was a blue anchor partially enclosed by a scroll, and above the anchor was inscribed the word “Hope.” In the upper corner of the flag was a blue canton containing 13 five-pointed stars.
Who made the first American Flag
