Flag of Florida

The white flag problem

Florida’s first flag under its 1868 constitution was simple: the state seal on a plain white field. It had an obvious weakness. Hanging limp on a still day, it could look like a white flag of truce or surrender.

In the late 1890s former Governor Francis P. Fleming, who had served from 1889 to 1893, suggested adding a red cross. In 1899 the legislature passed a joint resolution proposing a constitutional amendment to add diagonal red bars, and voters ratified it in 1900.

What it shows

• The white field. The original field of the 1868 flag.
• Red bars. Two red bars forming a diagonal cross, a St. Andrew’s cross, run from each corner of the flag to the rim of the seal. By law each bar is one-fifth as wide as the flag is high.
• The Great Seal. In the center, with a diameter half the height of the flag. It shows the sun’s rays over distant highland, a sabal palm, a steamboat sailing on the water, and a Native American woman scattering flowers, all ringed by the words “Great Seal of the State of Florida: In God We Trust.”

A seal that kept changing

The seal on the flag has been redrawn several times. The 1868 description called for a “cocoa tree” in the scene, which is not native to Florida. When the constitution was rewritten in 1968, the flag’s description became statute law, and in 1970 the legislature replaced the cocoa tree with the sabal palm, which had become the state tree. The present wording of the flag law also dates from 1970.

In 1985 Secretary of State George Firestone presented a corrected seal. It replaced a Native American figure dressed in the style of the Great Plains with a Seminole woman, drew a more accurate steamboat, and showed a proper sabal palm. That is the seal that appears on today’s flag.

The question of resemblance

Florida’s flag, like Alabama’s, has a red diagonal cross, and some people see a link to the Confederate battle flag, especially since the red bars were added in 1900, when Confederate imagery was common in the South. Florida’s official history gives a different explanation: Governor Fleming’s suggestion, and the practical need to keep the flag from looking like a white flag of surrender.

The flag in law

The flag’s description is in section 15.012 of the Florida Statutes, and the Department of State is its legal custodian. The seal on the flag is protected separately: under section 15.03, reproducing the Great Seal requires the Department of State’s approval, and violations are misdemeanors. That rule applies to the seal on its own; the flag is flown freely across the state.