The strange and violent history of the American flag

The flag of the United States of America was officially adopted in 1777, a year after independence was declared from Britain. The flag carried 13 stars and 13 stripes: they represented the 13 British colonies that became the first states of the new union. Yet the 13 horizontal red and white stripes of the first American flag (as well as the similar, but unofficial ‘Grand Union’ flag that preceded it) were not unique. In fact, they were shared with those of an unlikely organisation: the East India Company.

Four years previously, on December 16 1773, the Boston Tea Party revolt had signalled the approach of the American Revolution. The protest – in which 342 chests of British-owned tea were thrown into Boston harbour – was headed by a nascent group of revolutionaries called the Sons of Liberty, who, since the Stamp Act of 1765 had aggressively fought taxation from the British with displays of civil disobedience. The group’s motto was “No taxation without representation”, and its flag had nine red and white vertical stripes, said to represent the nine colonies that protested the imposition of the Stamp Act.

The tea that was destroyed at Boston in 1773 belonged to the East India Company, which held a monopoly on the import of tea and many other tradeable goods across the British Empire. And the East India Company’s flag had red and white stripes too, albeit horizontal and emblazoned with the Union Jack in the canton (the rectangle at the top left). Whether the red and white stripes of today’s US flag are derived from the flag of the East India Company or from that of the Sons of Liberty is a question contested to this day.

Why, you might wonder, would a flag of revolutionary colonists be so much like a symbol of empire in the first place? It’s not so unlikely – given the East India Company’s grievances with the Crown over tax policy, many colonists felt that the Company could be a powerful ally in the American Revolutionary War. Benjamin Franklin himself was recorded as personally endorsing the adoption of the Company’s banner as the flag of the fledgling United States.

As for the flag of the East India Company itself, it’s thought to originate from the flag of the Majapahit Empire, which existed from the late 13th century to the 16th century, and was based on the island of Java, now in Indonesia. It was from this region that the East India Company began to import coffee to Europe. The naval jack of the Indonesian Navy, of nine equal horizontal stripes of red and white, is inspired by the flag of the Majapahit Empire – raising the intriguing prospect that the American flag may ultimately derive from the flag of Indonesia.

In 1777, there were no official rules on how to place the stars on the blue background of the new American flag. Sometimes they were placed in rows, sometimes in a circle, sometimes in the shape of a star. After the United States expanded by two more states – Vermont and Kentucky – two more stars and two stripes were added to the flag. As the number of states continued to grow, the flag was getting crowded and, in 1818, the Americans returned to 13 stripes, increasing only the number of stars with each successive state.

In 1861, during the American Civil War, the Confederate troops petitioned for a new flag – a different version of the Union’s Stars and Stripes. Since its inception, the infamous battle flag – in its many different manifestations – has persisted as a symbol for the states of the American South. As armed insurgents stormed the US Capitol in January 2020, many flew the banner in defiance.

Today, the American flag is the most frequently changed national flag in the world. It last did so in 1959, when Hawaii became the 50th state. Another change may yet come. In 2017, an independent referendum was held in Puerto Rico, in which Puerto Rican citizens voted by 97 per cent to become a US state. Then, in 2020, the House of Representatives in the US Congress voted to make the District of Columbia the 51st state. In celebration, the mayor of the District hung US flags with 51 stars on the streets. (The measure was declared unconstitutional.)

The unofficial name for the American flag – “the Stars and Stripes” – is derived from a phrase in a poem written by lawyer Francis Scott Key, which is now officially recognised as the US national anthem. Key had been a slave owner, and was a member of the American Colonisation Society (ACS), who considered the growing number of freed slaves a threat to American society. In 1822, this group collectively bought a small territory on the west coast of Africa from the leaders of local tribes, and organised the transportation of freed slaves there.

The settlement was named Liberia, and when that country declared independence in 1847, it developed its own flag. Unsurprisingly, it’s very similar to the American one. Yet there’s only one star on the canton, representing the first independent republic in Africa, and instead of 13 stripes, there are 11, to reflect the number of signatures on the country’s declaration of independence.

Liberia’s flag is the second most commonly seen in international waters, flown as a “flag of convenience” by cargo ships. Because of simplified flagging regulations, more than 10 per cent of the world’s fleet sail under the Liberian flag: they pay a fee in Liberia to do so, offering the country a vast source of revenue for the country. Until the 1990s, Liberia was top of the list of Flag States, but was displaced by Panama, because of its many wars.

On almost precisely the other side of Earth from Liberia, out in the Pacific Ocean, are the Marshall Islands, which were administered by the US government from 1944 until independence in 1979. They include little Bikini Atoll, known for giving its name to the women’s two-piece swimsuit, as well as being the location of the first hydrogen bomb test in 1954.

There is a Bikini Atoll flag, adopted in 1987. It’s very similar to the American one, which is a deliberate piece of symbolism: the flag represents the great debt that the US government owes the Bikini Islanders, for testing the 15 megaton bomb on their atoll. The 1954 explosion completely destroyed the three islands, eloquently evoked by the three black stars in the flag’s upper right corner. The Marshallese words in black, printed upon one of the white stripes – “MEN OTEMJEJ REJ ILO BEIN ANIJ” – mean “Everything is in the hands of God.” This is said to be the reply that the then-leader of Bikini philosophically gave when the Americans asked them to vacate the islands so that they could test their bomb.

As for the flag of the Marshall Islands, which looks nothing like the Stars and Stripes at all, I find its design aesthetically pleasing. While not officially related, the symbolism of the 1979 flag is similar to that of the Brazilian flag: the orange-and-white diagonal line symbolises the equator, while the star above it represents the position of the islands in the northern hemisphere. That star has 24 points – and no other star on any national flag has as many as that.

How The Tricolor Got Its Stripes: And Other Stories About Flags is published by Profile on October 26