TRUE TREE or FAKE SNAKE - A Picture Worth 1000 words? Symbols, pictures, words - worth what?

Is Truth worth anything in America today?

Is Liberty a symbol worth anything in America anymore?

Is an evergreen Tree of Liberty a symbol of enduring positive value in America?

Is an universal symbol of evil - the snake - and a poisonous snake at that, a symbol that America should select to represent her around the world?

As the man who founded America's Navy in the Autumn of 1775 by commissioning 7 ships that proceeded to capture British merchant ships even while Congress sat around debating the question of the need of a Navy or whether creating a Navy would offend the British, Commander-in-Chief George Washington later wrote to his number two -- Lincoln (General Benjamin Lincoln) on 29 June a.d. 1778:
"We may, now and then, get bewildered; but I hope and trust that there is good sense and virtue enough left to recover the right path."

These three pages of lots of flag images and plenty of words of explanation tell us why we should NOT BE FLYING THE "Fake Snake" Navy Jack Flag, from a well documented historical perspective -- basically the Snake Navy Jack is a fraud, or a legend, or a lie that well meaning but poorly informed Navy officers and others keep digging up over the years so the legend never dies.

When in today's Navy will there be: "good sense and virtue enough left to recover the right path."?

We have an hand written letter by the aide to the founder of the American Navy, Commander in Chief, General George Washington, namely Colonel Joseph Reed, that describes the "TRUE TREE" Liberty Tree first Navy Flag.

We also have the same First Navy Flag, Liberty Tree flag (or Pine Tree flag in simplistic notation), also called the "Washington Cruisers Flag" described by an Admiral of the British Navy.


There is NO SUCH DOCUMENTATION for the FAKE SNAKE Navy Jack Flag. In fact, an article written by CDR Eric Berryman, USN (retired) telling of how the flag was fabricated for the Bicentennial clearly reveals that there was a lot of "By Guess and By Golly".

The "Snake" Flag may be a "nice" design done by these well-meaning Naval Officers, but it still is an historical fraud, or fiction -- a FAKE SNAKE Navy Jack Flag!


The sixth page of the Point Paper tells how the myth, or fiction, or fraud, of the FAKE SNAKE Navy Jack Flag was created and perpetuated over the past two centuries and more.

Fortunately, flag expert Peter Ansoff in the year a.d. 2004 wrote a comprehensive article for the flag journal RAVEN, that effectively debunks the claims of CAPT Brayton Harris, CDR Eric Berryman, and other Naval Officers and even some submissive Naval Historians who promote as valid the FAKE SNAKE Navy Jack Flag first fabricated on fabric in time for the Nation's Bicentennial.

In the Introduction to Rebels Under Sail by Northeastern University professor William Fowler, he writes: "Naval historians should be especially aware of contracting Bicentennial fever..." which is what these well-meaning Naval Officers did, that has become a contagion of cancerous falsehood that while in remission from a.d. 1977 to its flare-up again when re-introduced by one of the "carriers", Captain Brayton Harris when he re-introduced the "Fake Snake" flag after the 9-11 Terrorist Attacks. His motives were Patriotic, his History unfounded.

Unfortunately, that a.d. 2004 flag journal publication was AFTER the 9-11 Terrorists Attacks on America, and so a well meaning Captain Harris recommended that "his baby", the FAKE SNAKE Navy Jack Flag he and others created for the Bicentennial to be dragged out of the garbage can, or snake graveyard, and put back on the bows of our Navy ships.

And due to the all too natural expectation of officers and leaders that the proper staff work of checking the Navy History of the Fake Snake Navy Jack Flag had been done in the mid-1970s, no one really did due diligence in a.d. 2001.

Interestingly, even the coffee table book "NAVY" published by the Naval Historical Foundation shows the first Navy ship commissioned, the Hannah, and if you look real close you can see depicted the Liberty Tree proudly flying from her mast.

Yet aside from the history of the Navy flags, whether the FAKE SNAKE, or the TRUE TREE First Navy Flag, let us look at the simple symbolism of either flag...

Do we really want America to be represented by a snake on its belly in retreat?

Especially when bad people like terrorists are sometimes called "snakes in the grass".

(The four true history American Revolution Army flags with rattlesnakes ALL have the snake coiled, ready to strike and defend...)

Do we really want America to be represented by a SNAKE where in just about every culture in the world is a SYMBOL of EVIL?


Or do We, the People of the United States of America want our Navy ships to proudly fly a symbol of LIBERTY FOREVER ! -- as represented by an Evergreen Tree of Liberty?

The leaders of the Navy tell me that the people like the Fake Snake flag, but I believe they do so MAINLY because they TRUST their LEADERS to have told them that the Snake Navy Jack Flag is true, when in historical fact it is a lie, a fiction, a fraud, a fake, a FAKE SNAKE flag.

So essentially because NOW the Navy leaders KNOW the truth, they are involved in foisting a fable, promoting deception upon the trusting American citizens and those Patriots who are willing to give their lives for Truth and Liberty who serve on our Navy Ships!

Please vote your choice on the poll box on the right side, and please click the envelope icon to send the page to your friends, click the comments link below to express your thoughts on this very important symbolic issue for America and her Navy that represents America all around the world.

Thank you.

For America's future (building up on our past),

James Renwick Manship, Sr.

Director, First Navy Flag.US
a project of
W.I.S.E. - Washington Institute for Statesmanship Education