When a Colorado student named Jaiden at Vanguard school showed up for classes, he was told he’d have to remove his backpack with the Gadsden flag on it due to it being disruptive because of its historical ties to “slavery and the slave trade.”
That would be news to some of us who fly it proudly on our shirts, mugs, and hats we wear nearly every day.
It would also be news to some black conservatives as well.
Too bad for the teacher that it isn’t true. Nor is it true, as the school’s director Jeff Yocum claimed, that it is “tied to the Confederate flag.” These errors are embarrassing, especially for educators, but at least they provide us with the opportunity for a good history lesson for this quintessentially American and wholly noble symbol of American revolutionary fervor.
The Gadsden Flag, characterized by its vivid yellow field and a coiled rattlesnake with the phrase "Don't Tread On Me," was created by Christopher Gadsden of South Carolina, a fervent patriot and Statesman. Inspired by the rattlesnake's symbolism, which was already emerging as a representation of the colonies, Gadsden designed and presented the flag to the newly appointed commander-in-chief of the Navy. But why a rattlesnake? This choice can be traced back to a 1754 woodcut by Benjamin Franklin, where a snake, cut into eight sections, was used as a symbol of the colonies with the warning, "Join, or Die." Benjamin Franklin used the imagery of a segmented rattlesnake in his famous 1754 "Join, or Die" cartoon. The cartoon, initially aimed at rallying the colonies to unite against French and Native American threats during the French and Indian War. The rattlesnake was chosen on purpose since it is native to only the American lands. It’s a symbol of vigilance, autonomy, and, crucially, a measured warning against aggression.
Matched with the phrase "Don't Tread On Me," this symbol was a powerful message of growing colonial impatience with British oppression. That is, like the rattlesnake the colonists didn’t want to start a fight, but by God, would they finish it: a fitting metaphor for the American revolutionary spirit. So fitting was it, in fact, that when the Continental Congress formed the Marine Committee, an institution which would go on to create the Marine Corps itself, they presented the Gadsden flag to Esek Hopkins, first commander-in-chief of the Continental Navy, as a personal standard for his flagship.
Now, I fully expect that someone will claim that the Gadsden flag might not have started as a Confederate symbol, but it became one. That, too, is nonsense. Gadsden died in 1805, well before the formation of the Confederacy, and the flag was never used by the Southerners as a symbol. The one tangential tie to slavery the flag does have is Gadsden himself, who was a slave and plantation owner himself, but by that standard, Jefferson and Washington, along with practically every other 18th-century Southern aristocrat, would also have to be reckoned as Confederates. It hardly needs saying, but they are not.
Nor is the Gadsden Flag a symbol of Confederate yearning. Rather, it is today what it was the day it was created: a symbol of American resistance and liberty, born from the zeitgeist of a nation on the brink of asserting its identity. Today, you can find it adopted by patriot groups and LGBT groups alike. In both contexts, it sends the same message: that Americans of all political persuasions will not tolerate tyranny.
Which might explain why the ignorant and fearful tyrants at young Jaiden’s school hated it so much.
