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The Florida state flag has remained the same since it was created in 1900, featuring a red “X” of St. Andrew’s on a white field with the state seal in the center. The red diagonal lines represent the branches of the tree from which St. Andrew was lynched. The historic seal depicts a Seminole Indian woman scattering flowers along a green land that meets a blue beach with a bright sun and steamboat in the distance. The flag has gone through various styles before its current design.
The flag that flies over the southern state of Florida in the early 21st century is the same flag as it was a century earlier. Created three years after the end of the Civil War, the modern state flag originally featured only the state seal on a large white field. In 1890, however, then-Governor Francis Fleming suggested that the flag, flung on a pole, might resemble the white flag of surrender. By 1900, the modern flag was complete, when the legislature, followed by the voters, amended the state constitution to add the red “X” of St. Andrew’s from corner to corner.
This isn’t the only time the Florida state flag has included a blood red cross. The Cross of Burgundy flew over Florida when the state fell to the Spanish Viceroyalty between the 14th and 17th centuries. St. Andrew was the patron saint of the Spanish colonial viceroyalty, the House of Burgundy, and the “X” of the cross, or saltire, is hooked into that version of the flag, as if twigs had been cut from two branches superimposed.
According to the Florida Division of Historical Resources, these red diagonal lines on the Florida state flag were meant to represent the branches of the tree from which St. Andrew was lynched. The state of Alabama also bears the saltire diaganol, but does not include the state seal of him. No other state flag follows this symbolic pattern.
The historic seal in the center of the Florida state flag, officially adopted by voters in 1868, is a reflection of some of Florida’s attributes. A Seminole Indian woman is scattering flowers along the green land that meets a blue beach. On the distant waters there is a bright sun and a steamboat. Originally, the Native American woman was dwarfed by a cacao tree, but in 1953, the Sabal palm was adopted as the state tree, replacing the cacao tree on the seal.
Between the end of Spanish rule in 1821 until the end of the Civil War in 1865, the Florida state flag had a few styles, none of which resembled the modern version. Shortly after the state was adopted as the 27th state of the United States in 1845, the Florida state flag was the same as the historic “lone star” flag of Texas. Following the success of the union, several versions were adopted and then discarded, until the eventual loss to the north and the dawn of the modern American era.
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