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Front Matter
Of Eagles and Chickens: Celebration, Contestation, and Entanglement in the Flags of American Sāmoa
Garrett Hillyer, doctoral candidate in Pacific Islands history
American Sāmoa, a territory of the United States, officially flies the Stars and Stripes of the U.S. as well as its own territorial flag, which features an American bald eagle along with some uniquely Sāmoan symbols and a red, white, and blue color scheme. More recently, an additional, unofficial flag has been flown in the Manu‘a archipelago—a district of American Sāmoa—that features a chicken, which has a deeply historical, regional, and symbolic significance, and that employs a red, green, and yellow color scheme reflective of other Manu‘a-specific material culture. This article charts the author’s experiences living and working in American Sāmoa and his efforts to understand the history and cultural significance of the territory’s many flags, as well as the ways in which these flags are interpreted and contested between and within islands and districts. Analysis of these flags is an opportunity for further discussions of colonialism and indigenous symbolism.
The Supposed “Cowpens Flag”: Vexillology and Historiography Create a New Understanding and Nomenclat
R. J. Rockefeller, historian specializing in early American history, world military history, and the study and practice of martial arts
In the early 20th century, the Society of the War of 1812 in Maryland gave to the state of Maryland a 13-star, 13-stripe national flag reputed to have been carried in 1781 at the Battle of Cowpens, in the American War for Independence. Other stories circulated about this same flag having later been carried in 1814 at the defense of Baltimore, Maryland, during the War of 1812. Both claims have been called into question by textile experts and historians, who dated the flag only to the mid-19th century. This article provides a meticulous study of previously unexplored documentary evidence, a close tracing of the flag’s provenance, and a reexamination of the flag’s materials and design, in order to reconsider previous conclusions about this “Cowpens Flag”. Presenting a methodological, historiographical, and material culture review of the artifact and of previous studies of the flag, it concludes that the flag in fact dates to the War of 1812. The stories of the flag being at the defense of Baltimore are true: specifically, Ensign Joshua Bachelor of the 27th Regiment of the Maryland Militia carried the flag at the Battle of North Point, Maryland. The “Cowpens Flag” misnomer should thus be replaced with “the Batchelor-North Point Flag”
Clinging to the Past: Saddam’s Takbir and the Rejection of Rifat Chadirji’s Unity Flag
John T. Andrews, historian and vexillologist focusing on the modern Middle East
This paper considers the impact of flag redesign efforts in Iraq following the collapse of Saddam Hussein’s government in 2003. During this period of political and social upheaval, occupying Western powers attempted many modifications to Iraqi governance under the aegis of the Coalition Provisional Authority. Primarily aimed at removing the vestiges of Saddam Hussein’s government, the project of de-Ba’thification attempted to change Iraq into a modern democracy replete with a national flag that symbolized this transformation. A forward-looking design created by the eminent architect Rifat Chadirji was soundly rejected, and Iraq instead approved a modest redesign of the Iraqi flag synonymous with Saddam Hussein and the Ba’th Party.
Bibliography of Flag-Related Books and Research Publications for 2020–2022
Scott D. Mainwaring, Raven editor and social media coordinator for NAVA
Flag-related scholarship takes place in many disciplines and is published in many places, beyond those sponsored by NAVA or other members of the International Federation of Vexillological Associations (FIAV). Periodically* Raven provides a bibliography of these works to call attention to the breadth and depth of vexillology (by this or any other name). Although numerous on-line collections have been consulted, this list is certainly not comprehensive. Nevertheless, hopefully it gives a sense of the many aspects of flags, their effects and uses, and how much more there is to be known. An expanded version of this bibliography can be found at <nava.org/raven>.
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Scott D. Mainwaring, Ph.D., editor
Editorial Board:
Perry Dane, J.D., Rutgers University
Scot M. Guenter, Ph.D., San José State University
Steven A. Knowlton, MLIS, MA, Princeton University
Anne M. Platoff, Ph.D., University of California, Santa Barbara
Kenneth W. Reynolds, Ph.D., Department of National Defence (Canada)
Peter Ansoff, Annandale, Virginia (ex-officio)
Raven is a benefit of membership in NAVA.