We have a test for those who think Minnesota’s old flag was just fine and should not have been replaced: Tell us what is in the middle of it and what it represents. Tell us what shaped its design. If you are passionate about continuing to use it, you should at least have this fundamental knowledge.
Can you justify to the Native American citizens of our area why they should not be offended by it? Why they should have to see it flying in your yard or on a public building?
You can certainly disagree with its design. We are not entirely satisfied with it. But if you fly the old flag, you support the history and sentiments of those who are responsible for its design. You agree to let the flag’s racist message continue to be flown.
Maybe knowing a little history helps.
Native American presence in our state dates back more than 11,000 years. In southwestern Minnesota, near Comfrey, the Jeffers Petroglyphs are a site with more than 5,000 stone carvings etched into quartzite. The site, which covers about 160 acres, is sacred to Minnesota tribes. The carvings are estimated to be 7,000 to 10,000 years old.
Not far from us in western Minnesota, an amateur archaeologist found the skeleton of a man in a gravel pit near Browns Valley in 1933. Carbon dating indicates he lived here 9,000 years ago.
Today’s Dakota (Sioux) tribes have been in Minnesota for more than 1,200 years. They are the descendants of America’s true native people. It wasn’t until around 1660 that French fur traders brought the first Europeans to the region.
Disagreement over the design of the state’s flag has a long history.
When Minnesota became a territory in 1849, our first territorial governor, Alexander Ramsey, and Henry Sibley, who would represent the territory in Washington, D.C., argued over the design of a state seal. It would be used to officially mark the government’s stamp on territorial documents and eventually become part of the state’s flag.
Governor Ramsey wanted imagery and language that “emphasized the peaceful co-existence” between Native Americans and settlers. Sibley disagreed. A fur trader, he wanted a design fitting his vision of a future Minnesota and America.
“It was popular at the time for territorial seals to celebrate the idea of manifest destiny — that white Americans were ordained by God to settle across North America,” The North Star Flag website says. That settlement meant removing Native Americans from their land.
Captain Seth Eastman, the commanding officer at Fort Snelling in St. Paul, produced the first rough draft of a state seal in 1849. It included a farmer, a tree stump representing agriculture taking over the prairie, and a Native American riding away on a horse, looking back over his shoulder.
As the design took shape, Ramsey sought to replace the stump with a tepee to represent Native Americans continuing to live alongside settlers. Sibley eliminated the tepee and placed a rifle leaning against the stump with an axe buried in its top as the farmer plowed his field. The symbolism is clear — if necessary, settlers would use violence to claim the land.
To add voice to her husband’s imagery, Capt. Eastman’s wife, Mary, wrote the following poem:
Give way, give way, young warrior,
Thou and thy steed give way;
Rest not, though lingers on the hills
The red sun’s parting ray.
The rock bluff and prairie land
The white man claims them now,
The symbols of his course are here,
The rifle, axe, and plough.
This is the first stanza; seven more follow. “The Red man’s course is onward…And Minnesota’s land / Must pass with all its untold wealth / To the white man’s grasping hand.”
Her poem makes clear the intent of Eastman and Sibley’s design of the seal. Their imagery and its intent were supported by Minnesota’s Territorial Legislature. Minnesota became a state May 11, 1858, and continued to use the seal for its official documents.
It became the centerpiece of the state flag when it was adopted in 1893. There were tweaks to the flag’s design in the past, but the seal’s imagery remained. In 1957, the now-retired state flag, in royal blue with the state seal in the middle, was adopted.
While the imagery portrayed in the center of the state flag is the primary reason for its replacement, there were other problems as well.
Minnesota’s flag design was consistently ranked among the worst by those who study flags. In a 2001 study of flags from America’s states and territories, and the 10 Canadian provinces, more than 70 flags in all, our old one ranked sixth worst. Why?
Vexillologists (people who study flags) say what makes an effective flag is simplicity, meaningful symbolism, and the use of two or three basic colors. You want a flag that is unique and memorable. Minnesota’s old flag broke all those rules.
“In the Minnesota flag, there are three dates, there’s the state tree, the state flower, there’s a motto, there’s a scene with the river and St. Anthony falls, there’s a farmer, there’s an Indian. You can’t remember them all,” Lee Herold, who owns Herold Flags in Rochester, told MinnPost reporter Peter Callaghan in 2023.
In May 2023, the Minnesota Legislature created a 13-member commission to redesign the state flag and seal, eliminate offensive imagery, and simplify its look. The commission had an equal number of members from the Republican and Democratic parties from the state House and Senate. It had Native American representation and people with cultural, arts, and history backgrounds.
There was a statewide competition for the new design, with 2,128 flag proposals submitted. The new flag comment website page received over 236,000 views. The winning design, approved by the commission, became the state’s official flag May 11, 2024.
Disagree with its design. Ask the Legislature to create a new one. But don’t fly it to protest the change that saw its offensive and racist imagery removed.
