THE FIRST American flag was a Dutch design, with irregular red-white-blue stripes. The designer lived on the island of Texel, where American fleet captain John Paul Jones had steered a hijacked and flagless British frigate for repairs. The British considered it piracy, threatened action, and within twenty-four hours the ship had a flag and was recognized by the Dutch as an American ship. End of a legal problem.
“Noord Americaansche vlag,” it reads below the 1779 design, now on display in a Chicago museum. Ambassadors Benjamin Franklin and John Adams, both at home in The Hague and Amsterdam, wanted it this way: “a flag with thirteen stripes, alternating red, white and blue.” Like the Dutch tricolor, but 13 instead of 3, in honor of the first thirteen American states.
The Texel designer did his best not to make it look too much like the Dutch flag, but at the top, he couldn’t escape the temptation. The John Paul Jones flag, also known as the Franklin flag, is still popular among collectors. US Mail created a stamp of it in 2002. And England promptly declared war on Holland for the fourth time.
