Flag of Grand Union (USA 1775-1777)

The Grand Union Flag, also called the Continental Colours, flew during the transitional period in which the colonies were not yet independent but already at war. On 3 December 1775 it was raised on the Alfred, the first ship of the Continental fleet; on 1 January 1776 George Washington showed it before his headquarters near Boston. At that point the colonists were still officially fighting for their rights as British subjects, not for a state of their own. After the Declaration of Independence of 4 July 1776 the flag became a contradiction in itself, and in 1777 the Continental Congress replaced it with a version bearing stars.

Meaning

The flag unites two statements that soon ruled each other out. The thirteen red and white stripes stand for the thirteen colonies and come from the sign of the Sons of Liberty. In the canton, however, sits the British Union Jack — the avowal of the crown under which people still believed themselves to stand. That was precisely the message: the rising was against the parliament in London, not against the king. When the colonies broke away entirely a year later, the canton had to go; the stars took its place. The stripes, by contrast, remained and stand in the flag of the United States to this day.