Gadsden flag meaning explained and its revolutionary origins (2024)

Footage of a 12-year-old student being told they must remove a Gadsden flag patch from their bag due to "its origins with slavery" went viral on X, formerly Twitter, on Tuesday, racking up more than 9.1 million views.

The incident took place at The Vanguard School in Colorado Springs, with the educational establishment also emailing the child's family to say the Gadsden flag is "tied to the Confederate flag and other white-supremacy groups" and "tied to hate groups."

The school reversed course after the video sparked a furious backlash from conservatives, with Colorado's Democratic governor also retweeting a post criticizing the decision, saying the patch would be allowed to stay.

Newsweek has provided a brief summary of the history and meaning of the flag, which one historian has described as a "very malleable symbol."

Creation of the Gadsden Flag

Each Gadsden flag features a coiled rattlesnake against a yellow background, above the slogan "Don't Tread on Me."

The rattlesnake has long been an American symbol, dating back to 1754 when a cartoon depicting a chopped-up snake, with each chunk representing a different colony, was published in Benjamin Franklin's Pennsylvania Gazette during the French and Indian War.

Emblazoned with the slogan "Join, or Die," the cartoon shows the various colonies of what was then British North America to unite against the French threat.

The Gadsden flag was designed in 1775 by Christopher Gadsden, a delegate to the Continental Congress and later brigadier general, "as a nod" to Franklin's cartoon, according to The Washington Post. He presented a copy of his flag to Esek Hopkins, the first commander of the American Navy, while it was also used during the Revolutionary War by the newly formed United States Marines.

Speaking to Newsweek, David Bateman, an associate professor of government at Cornell University, commented: "The origins of the Gadsden flag are at best very tangentially related to slavery.

"It was a pro-revolutionary flag, not explicitly valorizing slavery, designed by a Charleston slaveowner who very likely believed the goals of the revolution and the preservation of slavery were compatible (if he gave the possible contradiction much thought at all).

"That puts Gadsden in the same category as most of the southern revolutionary founders, though probably not all the founders."

The Flag's Changing Usage

Though the Gadsden flag was eclipsed by other symbols of the fledging American nation, not least the Stars and Stripes, it continued to pop up in various uses over the following centuries.

Professor William Deverell, an American historian who teaches at the University of Southern California's Dornsife College, told Newsweek that the flag has been used by a variety of different groups.

"It has proven, over several centuries, to be a very malleable symbol," Deverell said. "Its roots are definitely in the American Revolution, on land and at sea. It's a compelling image, simple and clear. But who is doing the treading, and upon whom, is open to interpretation, era after era.

"There's no doubt that it has been grabbed as a potent symbol by the far right and small government activists across the nation. But it's used, also, by LGBTQ groups, especially in light of violent attacks (including one in Colorado Springs).

"My sense is that responses to this young student's patch could likely run the gamut of thoughts as to what it means to display it. Strikes me as entirely within the bounds of freedom of expression."

The Gadsden flag was adopted as a symbol by some confederates at the start of the Civil War, with the Cincinnati Daily Press warning in September 1861 that if "Jess Davis & Co" were to invade Delaware and Maryland "the coiled snake, and 'don't tread on me' will be sent at the head of the invaders."

Bateman agreed with Deverell that the Gadsden flag has been used by a variety of groups, arguing "a symbol's meaning is never defined solely by historical intent."

He continued: "In the 70s and 80s, the flag became a favorite of a libertarian movement that worked with white supremacists and played footsie with Nazis. A lot of libertarians, including some of the movement's intellectual lodestars, were the sort of smug philosophers who liked to play around with questions like 'was slavery ethical' or 'was abolition an unjustified expropriation of property.'

"The movement has thankfully distanced itself from that sort of thing, but it persists on the fringes of its respectability. More recently, the Tea Party and the radicalizing far-right adopted the Gadsden flag as their own after 2008.

"It suggested a lineage for the movement that connected them to a modern recasting of the American revolutionaries as more-or-less right-wing militiamen, gun-rights activists, or conspiracy theorists."

After being adopted by the Tea Party the Gadsden flag has made regular appearances at Donald Trump's rallies, and featured when hundreds of his supporters stormed Congress on January 6, 2021, in a bid to block the certification of President Joe Biden's election victory.

Bateman concluded by claiming the "contemporary meaning" of the Gadsden flag is as "as a symbol that connects the far-right—including actual white supremacists—to the broader conservative movement and to individuals and communities attracted to a rebellious and anti-statist posture."

He argued: "In order to be a bridge symbol connecting these diffuse threats, its meaning has to be ambiguous (the way a swastika no longer is, or the way that confederate flags were replaced by the thin blue line flag). That ambiguity probably means the school acted rashly, especially since their stated rationale for doing was inaccurate."

Update 8/31/2023 5:55 a.m. ET: This story has been updated with comment from Bateman.