- The Gadsden Flag: A Unit Study by ren
19 y
5,335 9 Messages Shown
Blog: Education of a Starchild
Gadsden Flag History
Rattlesnake Symbol | Gadsden Flag History | Christopher Gadsden | Culpeper Flag
The origins of the Gadsden flag, U.S. Navy, and U.S. Marine Corps
Georgia $20 bill
The seal from a 1778 $20 bill from Georgia. The financial backing for these bills was property seized from loyalists. The motto reads "Nemo me impune lacesset," i.e. "No one will provoke me with impunity."
By 1775, the snake symbol wasn't just being printed in newspapers. It was appearing all over the colonies: on uniform buttons, on paper money, and of course, on banners and flags.
The snake symbol morphed quite a bit during its rapid, widespread adoption. It wasn't cut up into pieces anymore. And it was usually shown as an American timber rattlesnake, not a generic serpent.
We don't know for certain where, when, or by whom the familiar coiled rattlesnake was first used with the warning "Don't Tread on Me."
We do know when it first entered the history books.
In the fall of 1775, the British were occupying Boston and the young Continental Army was holed up in Cambridge, woefully short on arms and ammunition. At the Battle of Bunker Hill, Washington's troops had been so low on gunpowder that they were ordered "not to fire until you see the whites of their eyes."
In October, a merchant ship called The Black Prince returned to Philadelphia from a voyage to England. On board were private letters to the Second Continental Congress that informed them that the British government was sending two ships to America loaded with arms and gunpowder for the British troops.
Congress decided that General Washington needed those arms more than the British. A plan was hatched to capture the cargo ships. They authorized the creation of a Continental Navy, starting with four ships. The frigate that carried the information from England, the Black Prince, was one of the four. It was purchased, converted to a man-of-war, and renamed the Alfred.
To accompany the Navy on their first mission, Congress also authorized the mustering of five companies of Marines. The Alfred and its sailors and marines went on to achieve some of the most notable victories of the American Revolution. But that's not the story we're interested in here.
What's particularly interesting for us is that some of the Marines that enlisted that month in Philadelphia were carrying drums painted yellow, emblazoned with a fierce rattlesnake, coiled and ready to strike, with thirteen rattles, and sporting the motto "Don't Tread on Me."
An American Guesser
In December 1775, "An American Guesser" anonymously wrote to the Pennsylvania Journal:
"I observed on one of the drums belonging to the marines now raising, there was painted a Rattle-Snake, with this modest motto under it, 'Don't tread on me.' As I know it is the custom to have some device on the arms of every country, I supposed this may have been intended for the arms of America."
This anonymous writer, having "nothing to do with public affairs" and "in order to divert an idle hour," speculated on why a snake might be chosen as a symbol for America.
First, it occurred to him that "the Rattle-Snake is found in no other quarter of the world besides America."
The rattlesnake also has sharp eyes, and "may therefore be esteemed an emblem of vigilance." Furthermore,
"She never begins an attack, nor, when once engaged, ever surrenders: She is therefore an emblem of magnanimity and true courage. ... she never wounds 'till she has generously given notice, even to her enemy, and cautioned him against the danger of treading on her."
Finally,
"I confess I was wholly at a loss what to make of the rattles, 'till I went back and counted them and found them just thirteen, exactly the number of the Colonies united in America; and I recollected too that this was the only part of the Snake which increased in numbers. ...
"'Tis curious and amazing to observe how distinct and independent of each other the rattles of this animal are, and yet how firmly they are united together, so as never to be separated but by breaking them to pieces. One of those rattles singly, is incapable of producing sound, but the ringing of thirteen together, is sufficient to alarm the boldest man living."
Franklin portrait
Benjamin Franklin, portrait by David Martin, 1767. White House Historical Association.
Many scholars now agree that this "American Guesser" was Benjamin Franklin.
Franklin, of course, is also known for opposing the use of an eagle -- "a bird of bad moral character" -- as a national symbol.
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ren
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- Thanks for the great history stuff.. by kerminator
19 y
1,591
| Having served in the navy and being a student of history this is excellent keep it up....
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kerminator
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- Re: Thanks for the great history stuff.. by ren
19 y
1,677
| Thanks. I thought of this last minute when I heard the SCOTUS decision about property rights. The only other flag I think that ranks up there in terms of revolutionary significance is the 'CBF' or the confederate battle flag.
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ren
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- gadsden flag link for kids by ren
19 y
1,983
- Don't Tread On Me by ren
19 y
1,735
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don%27t_tread_on_me
n the fall of 1775, as the first ships of the Continental Navy readied in the Delaware River, Commodore Esek Hopkins issued, in a set of fleet signals, an instruction directing his vessels to fly a striped Jack and Ensign. In retrospect this has been taken as the first U.S. Navy Jack and has traditionally been shown as consisting of thirteen red and white stripes with a superimposed rattlesnake and the motto "Don't Tread on Me." No representation or example of the ensign survives: patriotic historians have inferred the design from Hopkins' message and a color plate depicting a "Don't Tread Upon Me" ensign in Admiral George Henry Preble's History of the Flag of the United States, 1880.
The rattlesnake had long been a symbol of resistance to the British in Colonial America. The phrase “Don't tread on me” was coined during the American Revolutionary War, a variant perhaps of the snake severed in segments labelled with the names of the colonies and the legend "Join or Die" which had appeared first in Benjamin Franklin's Pennsylvania Gazette in 1754, as a political cartoon reflecting on the Albany Congress.
In 1980 Edward Hildago, the Secretary of the Navy, directed that the ship with the longest active status shall display the First Navy Jack until decommissioned or transferred to inactive service. Then the flag will be passed to the next ship in line.
On September 30, 1998, USS Kitty Hawk (CV 63) became the oldest active status ship in the United States Navy upon the decommissioning of USS Independence (CV 62).
By an instruction dated 31 May 2002, the Secretary of the Navy directed all United States Navy ships to fly this flag in honor of those killed in the September 11, 2001 attacks and will be flown for the duration of the War on Terrorism.
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Gadsden Flag
The phrase "Don't tread on me" also appears below a coiled rattlesnake that is about to strike on the yellow Gadsden flag, named for its deviser, Christopher Gadsden of South Carolina, which is said to have been flown by the Culpeper Minute Men, of Culpeper County, Virginia.
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