The Sons of Liberty Flag: The Rebellious Stripes, the Liberty Tree, and the Pine

The Sons of Liberty flag — the banner colonists knew as the “Rebellious Stripes” — was a field of nine alternating red and white vertical stripes, five red and four white. It was flown in Boston from a flagpole raised at the Liberty Tree in August 1767, where it served as a signal calling the Sons of Liberty to gather near Boston Common. Nearly everything else attached to it — what the nine stripes counted, how hard the Crown moved against it, which surviving banner is the original — mixes solid record with long tradition, and a man who wears the stripes ought to know which is which.

Nine Stripes, Five Red and Four White

The distinguishing mark of the Sons of Liberty flag is not the color. It is the count and the direction. The stripes run vertically, and there are nine of them: in the words of americanrevolution.org, “nine stripes - five red, and four white, arranged vertically.” Set beside the horizontal bars every American recognizes today, the difference is immediate. This was a protest banner, and it looked like nothing else flying in the harbor.

The colors were never standardized. Red and white were the common pairing, but green-and-white and yellow-and-white versions are also reported in secondary accounts. The stripes were the argument; the dye was whatever the maker had.

What the Nine Stripes Are Said to Count

The traditional explanation is that the nine stripes stood for the nine colonies that sent delegates to the Stamp Act Congress of October 1765 — Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland and South Carolina. It is worth stating carefully, because the reference states it carefully. The history page of the U.S. District Court for the District of Puerto Rico puts it this way: “A flag of nine alternating red and white vertical stripes (perhaps representing the nine colonies that attended the congress) was soon produced.”

Perhaps. That word is the difference between tradition and documentation. The nine-colony reading is the explanation handed down, and it may well be right — but no contemporary maker left a note saying so. Honest heritage keeps its qualifiers. 1765 is not a founding date. It is the year of the Stamp Act Congress, and the year the Sons of Liberty organized against the Stamp Act.

The Flagpole at the Liberty Tree

The flag's documented home is Boston. “On August of 1767, a flag pole was erected at the Liberty Tree in Boston,” the same court history records, and the striped banner was flown from it to signal gatherings of the Sons of Liberty near Boston Common. That detail tells you what the flag actually did. It was not decoration and it was not a regimental color. It was a summons. When the stripes went up, men left their shops and their benches and came.

The Liberty Tree and the organizing beneath it are a longer story; we told it in Who Were the Sons of Liberty? The Men of 1765. What matters here is the mechanism: a fixed place, a visible sign, and a body of men who had agreed in advance what the sign meant.

Outlawed — With an Honest Caveat

Sources report that the flag was outlawed during the British occupation of Boston. The picture is less cinematic than it sounds, and americanrevolution.org is candid about why: raising an unaltered British Red Ensign was also illegal for colonists, so how strictly flag laws were enforced is unclear. A banned flag is a good line for a caption. The truthful version is that the flag was contraband on paper, and Boston flew it anyway.

How Nine Stripes Became Thirteen

By about 1775 a thirteen-stripe version had appeared, arranged horizontally, for the thirteen colonies. That is the hinge of the whole story. The red-and-white stripe pattern carried forward into the Stars and Stripes of 1777 — which means the striping of the national flag began as a protest device flown from a tree in Boston. The nation did not invent its flag from nothing. It promoted one.

The Oldest Surviving Flag, and the Question About It

The oldest surviving example was given to the Massachusetts State House in 1893 and is still commonly called the original. It carries a real authentication question: its fabric is machine-woven, and machine-woven cloth was not commonly available in 1775. That does not make the flag a fraud, and it does not settle the matter — it means the claim sits in the category of legend rather than established record, and it should be labeled as such.

The Pine Tree Is a Different Flag

These two get conflated constantly, so let it be said plainly: the pine tree “Appeal to Heaven” flag, flown by Washington's cruisers in 1775, is a different flag from the Rebellious Stripes. Different design, different year. Both belong to the same revolution, and we gave the pine its own account in our history of the Appeal to Heaven flag. But a man who tells you they are the same flag has not read either story.

Why Men of Faith Still Wear the Stripes

A flag is a claim made in public. It says, before a word is spoken, where a man stands and whom he stands with. The Rebellious Stripes did that at the cost of being illegal. Anyone will fly a banner that costs nothing.

For a Catholic man, the appeal of this particular banner is not partisan and it is not nostalgic. It is the memory of ordered resistance: men who did not act alone, who agreed on a signal, and who answered a specific injustice rather than raging at everything. That is the pattern of any serious brotherhood, in a parish or in a colony — a fixed place, a known sign, and men who show up. The Sons of Liberty organized in 1765 against the Stamp Act and left the working model. Wearing the stripes is not a costume. It is a statement that a man intends to be findable when the pole goes up.

Wear the Standard

Our No Stamp Act — Sons of Liberty tee carries the protest that started it all, and it is built the way the argument deserves: a Bayside 5100 heavyweight blank, 6.1 oz cotton, printed to order in the USA, sizes S–3XL at $44.99 (2XL $48.99, 3XL $49.99). It sits alongside the rest of our patriotic shirts made in the USA, for men who would rather know the history than merely fly the colors. Nine stripes. One standard. Be findable.

Frequently Asked Questions

What did the Sons of Liberty flag look like?

It was a field of nine alternating red and white vertical stripes — five red and four white — and it was known as the Rebellious Stripes. The vertical arrangement is what separates it at a glance from the horizontal stripes of the later American flag.

What do the nine stripes on the Sons of Liberty flag mean?

The traditional explanation is that they represent the nine colonies that sent delegates to the Stamp Act Congress of October 1765: Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland and South Carolina. The U.S. District Court for the District of Puerto Rico history page states it as “perhaps representing” those colonies, so it is best treated as the received tradition rather than a documented certainty.

Where was the Sons of Liberty flag flown?

In Boston, from a flagpole erected at the Liberty Tree in August 1767. The flag was flown there as a signal for gatherings of the Sons of Liberty near Boston Common — a public sign that told men where and when to assemble.

Is the Appeal to Heaven pine tree flag the same as the Sons of Liberty flag?

No. The pine tree “Appeal to Heaven” flag was flown by Washington's cruisers in 1775 and is a separate flag with a separate design and purpose. The Sons of Liberty flag is the nine-stripe Rebellious Stripes banner associated with Boston in the 1760s.

Is there a Sons of Liberty shirt made in the USA?

Yes. The 1765 Apparel Co No Stamp Act — Sons of Liberty tee is printed to order in the USA on a Bayside 5100 heavyweight 6.1 oz cotton blank, in sizes S–3XL at $44.99, with 2XL at $48.99 and 3XL at $49.99.

Sources

• https://www.prd.uscourts.gov/rebellious-stripes-sons-liberty
• https://www.americanrevolution.org/sons-of-liberty-flag/