In 1850, California was declared a state. had declared war with Mexico, they swapped out the bear flag for the stars and stripes. Serious as they were, the flag flew for just under a month.
So the idea was to put an emblem on the flag that would scare the Mexican authorities, that these people were serious." It was described as you couldn't ride on a horse for a mile without seeing ten grizzly bears. "The grizzly bear at that point in time was extraordinarily common. "These were farmers and ranchers and adventurers, and they did not have great artistic skill," said Trinkle. On their hastily made banner was an uneven red star, a red line and a crudely drawn animal that in theory was supposed to be a grizzly bear. The Republic of California was formed and it needed a flag. They banded together and captured the city of Sonoma from the Mexican Government.
"There was at that point in time the possibility of a war between the United States and Mexico."Īnd one particular group of American settlers, based in Northern California, took matters into their own hands. "Once upon a time there were a number of Americans who had come to what was then Mexican California," said Trinkle. He said the flag’s story goes back to 1846, when California was still a territory of Mexico. He's a former director of NAVA and runs the Bear Flag Museum. To learn more about the bear on our state flag, I called the North American Vexillological Association (NAVA) and talked with William Trinkle. The study of flags - their history, meanings, and symbols - is a little known practice known as vexillology, named after the Latin word for flag, vexillum. KPCC's Kevin Ferguson asked those same questions. We might be biased - but California has one of the best state flags, no? The bold star on the left, the green patch of land… and - of course - the California grizzly bear, our state animal, forever trudging along.īut why a bear? Where did it come from? Does it have a name?
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