The Nine Flags of Mississippi

The Nine Flags of Mississippi. . , Bourbon Flag of France (1682-1763) , The Bourbon Flag of Louis XIV, King of France, was raised in the Mississippi River Delta in 1682 by Rene-Robert Cavalier Sieur de La Salle who navigated the Great River from his base in Canada to the Mexican Gulf. He named the large watershed of this river La Lousiane for his King. In April 1699, Pierre Le Moyne Sieur d'Iberville established Fort Maurepas at present day Ocean Springs., British Red Ensign (1763-1779) , The British Red Ensign replaced the Bourbon banner in North America with the defeat of the French and their allies following the French and Indian War. From accords of the Treaty of Paris of 1763, France ceded its territory east of the Mississippi River to England. Both the territory west of the river and New Orleans were ceded to Spain. Spain also ceded Florida to England under this treaty, bringing Mississippi once again under British Control., Spanish Flag of Castile and Leon (1779-1785) , When the Mississippi Territory was established in 1798, the land south of the 31st parallel, which included most of the area between Natchez and the Mississippi Gulf Coast, became Spanish West Florida. During the American Revolution, Spain had captured this region from Great Britain. The Spanish pennant flew over the Mississippi Gulf Coast until the West Florida Rebellion of 1810., Republic of West Florida (74 days in 1810) , In 1810, a small group of Americans living below the 31st parallel in Spanish West Florida rebelled against Spain and established the Republic of West Florida. The flag adopted by that short-lived republic was a field of blue with one white star, an emblem that would later be heralded in song and verse as "The Bonnie Blue Flag". The Republic of West Florida was eventually annexed by the United States., U.S Star Spangled Banner (1798-1818) , In 1798, Mississippi became a U.S territory and this flag continued to fly as the Mississippi Territory was expanded. When Mississippi entered the Union on December 10, 1817 as the 20th American state, it was still the national flag, but the flag's canton added five stars in 1818 to reflect the addition of Mississippi and four additional states to the Union between 1796 and 1817., Mississippi Magnolia Flag (1861) , On January 9, 1861, Mississippi voted to secede from the Union. For a short time, the old Bonnie Blue Flag of 1810 became the informal symbol of the rebellious Mississippi. On January 26, 1861, the sovereign Republic of Mississippi created a new banner with the Bonnie Blue Flag in its canton and the Magnolia Tree in its field., Stars and Bars of the Confederacy (1861-1863) , On March 4, 1861, the first flag of the Confederate States of America was born in Montgomery, Alabama. The seven stars represented the states that had left the Union by March 1861. Mississippi was the second state to secede following South Carolina., State of Mississippi Flag (1894-2021) , The Mississippi flag was adopted by the state legislature in February 1894. The stars from the previous flag representing the Confederate States were replaced by the Beauregard Battle Flag, a banner carried into combat by the Confederate troops during the Civil War., New Magnolia Flag (2021-Present) , The Beauregard Battle Flag was excluded and the motto "In God We Trust" was added by the Legislature in June 2020. Designed by Rocky Vaughan, Sue Anna Joe, Kara Giles, Dominique Pugh, and Micah Whitson, the new flag was chosen by the Commission to Redesign the Mississippi State Flag, overwhelmingly approved by voters in November 2020, and adopted by the legislature in January 2021.