Last modified: 2025-01-18 by ian macdonald
Keywords: american samoa | swains island | dove | stars and stripes |
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Unofficial Reconstruction
image by Wikipedia, contributed by Chrystian Kretowicz, 2 May 2008
accuracy: unknown
See also:
I just came across a mention of a flag for Swains Island at the Department of Interior website:
Mr. and Mrs. Stevenson also saw on Swains Island a remarkable variant of the United States flag (1891). Old Glory flew on the flag pole, but superimposed on the blue canton was a white dove. They learned that at one time a bird had come and cried over the community at night, foreboding pestilence, and the dove had been added to the flag to propitiate this omen of evil.
Mikael Parkvall, 8 April 2007
Swains Island (American Samoa)
area: 1.865 sq.km
population: 37 (U.S. Census 2005)
represented in the American Samoa's legislature by one non-voting
representative
Worldstatesmen by Ben Cahoon:
gives its history in the capsule. Wikipedia
has a good article on it
and at the Department of Interior page (above).
Chrystian Kretowicz, 2 May 2008
I found the below PDF story of the 98th anniversary of Swains Island joining
American Samoa that has photos showing a different version of the local Swans
altogether. The difference is the shape of the Dove. It looks like in the photo
version the dove is a bit more in flight side ways vs my version that was more
head-on looking, but more in flight looking that the wiki version that looks
like the dove is sitting on a branch.
Swains Island 98th Anniversary
Celebration:
https://www.americansamoa.gov
"On May 11, 2023, the Governor of
American Samoa, Honorable Lemanu P.S. Mauga led a
delegation traveling to
Swains Island to celebrate the 98th anniversary since Swains Island was
annexed by the United States of America and became a part of American Samoa"
which I found from the Swains Island wikipedia page
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swains_Island#/media/File:Flag_of_Swains_Island.svg
from
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swains_Island
Ben Cahoon, 27
December 2024
Unofficial Reconstruction
image by Tomislav Todorovic
Ben Cahoon's rendition of the flag, as described by Robert
Louis Stevenson after his visit to the island in 1891 is a
slightly different reconstruction of the same flag is done by Wikipedia's
contributor "Orange Tuesday". This flag doesn't appear yet on Wikipedia's page of Swain Island.
According to the author, his rendition of Swains Island flag
is based on the U.S. flag and the flag of Fiji.
Chrystian Kretowicz, 2 May 2008
The description of "Old Glory flew on the flag pole, but superimposed on the blue canton
was a white dove" does not provide lots of details about the shape of the dove, size,
if it was in flight or sitting (mine is in flight) or which direction
the dove faces.
Ben Cahoon, 2 May 2008