"Don't Tread on Me": Christopher Gadsden and His Flag

Christopher Gadsden of South Carolina is best known today as the designer of the iconic "Gadsden Flag." The flag features a rattlesnake on a bright yellow background, with the words "DONT TREAD ON ME" at the bottom. The snake is coiled to strike. 

The flag's message was directed towards the British government: Step on the liberties of the American people at your peril. The snake has thirteen rattles, symbolizing the thirteen colonies that were soon to declare their independence. [Image: Gadsden Flag]

Gadsden displayed the flag at a meeting of the South Carolina Provincial Congress in February 1776 to great acclaim. It became a popular symbol of Patriot resistance. In recent years it has been appropriated by far right groups to show their defiance of ... whatever they are currently defying, usually the federal government and other conspirators against "freedom."  It featured prominently in the January 6 insurrection that led to the storming of the Capitol Building in Washington, DC. [Image: January 6, 2021]

There is much more to Gadsden's story than his flag, however. First, a little background. Gadsden was born in Charleston, South Carolina in 1724. His father, Thomas Gadsden, was a former British naval officer who had been appointed as customs collector for the port of Charleston. 

Thomas sent young Christopher to Bristol, England to be educated. Returning to America in 1740, he worked briefly as an apprentice in a Philadelphia counting house. He inherited a sizeable fortune when his parents died in 1741. During King George's War (1744-1748) he served as a purser on a British naval vessel. Afterwards, he became a merchant and planter. 

In 1767 he built a large wharf in Charleston. Gadsden's Wharf became a major receiving point for enslaved Africans. More than 100,000 were landed there between 1767 and 1808, when the legal slave trade ended. 

During the construction of the wharf, Gadsden quipped that he was going to "fill the foundation with imported Scotchmen, who are fit for nothing better." It was a joke, but it reflected his dislike of Scots, in particular Scottish merchants, who he viewed as undeserving beneficiaries of British trade policies. His dislike of Scots may also have derived from his service in the Cherokee War of 1760, when he clashed with Highland Scots officers. 

In the years leading up to the Revolution, many colonials accused Scots of conspiring to undermine their freedom. [Image: Scots Lord Bute and Chief Justice Lord Mansfield (in center) conspiring against American liberty, 1775. In fact, neither had any influence over British colonial policy at the time] 

  

In 1757 Gadsden was elected to the South Carolina Commons House of Assembly. He soon began to clash openly with the royal governors over British trade and taxation policies. In 1766, the assembly appointed him to represent South Carolina at the Stamp Act Congress in New York City. He was one of the most radical delegates at the Congress and formed an alliance and friendship with the equally radical Sam Adams of Boston, leader of the Sons of Liberty in Boston. Gadsden has often been called the "Sam Adams of the South."

Gadsden became a leader of the Charleston Sons of Liberty, who terrorized the town looking for stamps and other evidence of pro-British leanings. Among the houses they raided was that of planter and slave trader Henry Laurens. According to Laurens, they frightened his sick wife Eleanor half to death. He threw them his cellar keys and told them to help themselves to wine. They found no stamps, apologized and left. Laurens subsequently supported Gadsden and the Liberty Boys, but with some hesitation. 

In 1771, future Patriot William Henry Drayton called Gadsden a madman who ought to be in Bedlam. But Drayton was then defending the British Crown. After he abruptly switched sides in the early 1770s, the two became allies in the Patriot cause. 

As the conflict with Britain escalated, Gadsden was elected to the First and Second Continental Congresses in Philadelphia. In early 1776, he left Congress to assume command of the newly formed 1st South Carolina Regiment and serve in the South Carolina Provincial Congress. It was then that he first displayed his famous flag. He also brought a pamphlet written by a recent immigrant from England, calling for American independence, Common Sense by Thomas Paine. It was less well received. 

The interim President of South Carolina, John Rutledge, appointed Gadsden brigadier and commander of the state's military forces. In 1778 Gadsden helped draft a new state constitution under which he became lieutenant governor.  

When the British besieged Charleston in the spring of 1780, Rutledge left for the backcountry to rally resistance. Gadsden remained to help coordinate the defense of the city. 

By the middle of April, however, the British had nearly encircled Charleston. Benjamin Lincoln, the commander of the Southern Continental Army, decided that his only option besides surrender was to flee with his army while escape remained possible. 

Word got out to Gadsden. He and several of his councillors stormed into Lincoln's headquarters as he was discussing his proposals with his officers. Gadsden accused Lincoln of cowardice. Lincoln agreed to stay.  

In early May, the British unleashed a ferocious bombardment of the city. Gadsden led another delegation to see General Lincoln. This time, he demanded that Lincoln surrender to save the property and lives of the citizens. On May 12, Lincoln surrendered. It was the worst defeat for the Patriot forces in the war. The entire army, more than 5000 men, was made prisoner. 

The militia and many civilian leaders were initially given parole; that is, allowed to go free, as long as they did not continue to oppose the Crown. A few weeks after the surrender, however, the British arrested Gadsden and about twenty other rebel leaders on the grounds that they were plotting further resistance. 

Shipped to the British stronghold in St. Augustine, Florida, they remained prisoners until the following summer. The commander in St. Augustine offered them parole and the freedom of the town. Gadsden alone refused it. The British, he argued, had already violated their original promise of parole. 

In July 1781, the British released the prisoners on parole and sent them to Philadelphia. Gadsden returned to South Carolina in time to serve in the Jacksonborough Assembly in early 1782. At the time,  Charleston was still under British occupation. The Assembly elected him as governor, but he declined the office due to poor health. 

One of the most contentious items on the Assembly's agenda was drawing up a list of Loyalists to be punished after the war, which was nearing its end. Proposed punishments ranged from banishment and confiscation of property to amercements or fines. 

Gadsden shocked the assembly by urging leniency towards Loyalists. His words had little effect on the majority of delegates, who shouted him down. They demanded severe punishments. Some accused Gadsden of trying to protect Loyalists in his family. 

Thousands of Loyalists left South Carolina with the British or shortly thereafter. (Some were later able to get their punishments reduced and returned.)

Gadsden lived for another 23 years. He sat in the state convention of 1788 that ratified the United States Constitution. After 1798 he lived in Charleston at the house he built at 329 East Bay Street. He died in 1805 after falling from a horse. [Image: Gadsden House and Gadsden in old age]

 

 Further Reading: 

John Drayton, Memoirs of the American Revolution 2 vols., Charleston, 1821. Based on documents John's father William Henry Drayton had collected prior to his death.

The Papers of Henry Laurens. 16 vols., Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1972-2003. Volumes dealing with the 1760s and 1770s.

Stanly Godbold, Jr., and Robert Woody, Christopher Gadsden and the American Revolution (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1983).

Daniel McDonough, Christopher Gadsden and Henry Laurens: The Parallel Lives of Two American Patriots (Susquehanna University Press, 2000).

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