The Fourth of July never fails to reinspire my patriotism and sense of community with my fellow Americans, even when those fellow Americans are a mob of drunken cretins and teenagers trying to get out of downtown Chicago at 11 pm.
When it comes to symbolizing freedom and the spirit of 76 I do think there's a better American flag. With all due respect to the stars and stripes, I prefer the yellow Gadsden flag with the coiled rattlesnake and the defiant "Don't Tread on Me" motto.
The meaning of Old Glory can get mixed up with the rights and wrongs of the perpetually new-and improved government. The meaning of "Don't Tread on Me" is unmistakable.
There's also an interesting history behind this flag. And it's intertwined with one of American history's most interesting personalities, Ben Franklin.
American unity
Benjamin Franklin is famous for his sense of humor. In 1751 he wrote a satirical commentary in his Pennsylvania Gazette suggesting that as a way to thank the Brits for their policy of sending convicted felons to America, American colonists should send rattlesnakes to England.
Three years later, In 1754 he used a snake to illustrate another point. This time not so humorous.
Franklin sketched, carved, and published the first known political cartoon in an American newspaper. It was the image of a snake cut into eight sections. The sections represented the individual colonies and the curves of the snake suggested the coastline. New England was combined into one section as the head of the snake. South Carolina was at the tail. Beneath the snake were the ominous words "Join or Die"
This had nothing to do with independence from Britain. It was a plea for unity in defending the colonies during the French and Indian War. It played off a common superstition of the time: a snake that had been cut into pieces could come back to life if you joined the sections together before sunset.
The snake illustration was reprinted throughout the colonies. Dozens of newspapers from Massachusetts to South Carlina ran Franklin's sketch or some variation of it. For example, the Boston Gazette recreated the snake with the words "Unite and Conquer" coming from its mouth.
I suppose the newspaper editors were hungry for graphic material, this being America's first cartoon. Whatever the reason Franklin's snake wiggled its way into American culture as an early symbol of a shared national identity.
American independence
The snake symbol came in handy ten years later, when Americans were again uniting against a common enemy,
In 1765 the common enemy was the Stamp Act. The British decided that they needed more control over the colonies, and more importantly, they needed more money from the colonies. The Crown was loaded with debt from the French and Indian War.
Why shouldn't the Americans-"children planted by our care, nourished by our indulgence, "as Charles Towshend of the House of Commons put it-pay off England's debt?
Colonel Isaac Barre, who had fought in the French and Indian War, responded that the colonies hadn't been planted by the care of the British government, they'd been established by people fleeing it. And the British government hadn't nourished the colonies, they'd flourished despite what the British government did and didn't do. In this speech, Barre referred to the colonists as "sons of Liberty."
In the following months and years, as we know, the Sons of Liberty became increasingly resentful of English interference. And as the tides of American public opinion moved closer and closer to rebellion, Franklin's disjointed snake continued to be used as symbol of American unity, and American independence. For example, In 1774 Paul Revere added it to the masthead of The Massachusetts Spy and showed the snake fighting a British dragon.
The birth of the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Marine Corps
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.
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 and emblem of vigilance.
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.
I confess I was wholly at a loss what to make of the rattles, till I went back and counted them and found 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.
It is 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.
W
