Gadsden Flag – Hopkins Flag – Dont Tread on Me Flags

Choose Your Size: Available in 12×18 inch, 2×3 ft, 3×5 feet, 4 x 6 feet, or 5×8 feet

Designs are embroidered on both sides but words/design shows backwards like all traditional flags do.

The United States Navy was preceded by the Continental Navy, and this flag is recorded as having been presented to its first Commander-in-Chief, Commodore Esek Hopkins, as his personal standard. In 1775, Christopher Gadsden, then a member of the Marine Committee of the Second Continental Congress, played a crucial role in outfitting the ships of the nascent Continental Navy. This committee was tasked with creating a flag for the navy’s commander-in-chief to be flown from the mainmast of his flagship. They decided on a yellow flag featuring a snake and the inscription “DON’T TREAD ON ME.”

The Journal of the South Carolina Provincial Congress, dated February 9, 1776, records:

“Col. Gadsden presented to the Congress an elegant standard, such as is to be used by the commander in chief of the American navy; being a yellow field, with a lively representation of a rattle-snake in the middle, in the attitude of going to strike, and these words underneath, ‘DON’T TREAD ON ME!'”

This description led to the flag being known as the Gadsden Flag.

Historical records indicate that this flag was flown aboard one of the first ships in the United States Navy—the Alfred—on January 4, 1776, making it one of the oldest recorded flags of the nation, predating the adoption of the Stars and Stripes in June 1777. Notably, the renowned American naval officer John Paul Jones served as First Lieutenant on the Alfred under Commodore Hopkins and later commanded the ship as its captain.

Christopher Gadsden himself was a key leader among the South Carolina patriots during the American Revolution. In 1765, he helped found and lead the Sons of Liberty in his state. He also served as a delegate to the Continental Congress and eventually rose to the rank of brigadier general in the Continental Army during America’s fight for independence. Far from being merely an armchair patriot, Gadsden endured nearly a year in solitary confinement in the dungeon of the old Spanish fort of San Marcos in St. Augustine, imprisoned by British General Cornwallis. After Cornwallis’s defeat, he was released and returned to his duties in the struggle for liberty.

Although in current times we use the ‘ in the words Don’t Tread on Me, back then they didn’t, so the words are historically accurate as: Dont Tread on Me (as shown in pictures).