Puerto Rico’s Old Flag: The Gag Law, 1952, and Blue Shades

The Puerto Rico old flag is the 1895 original: five alternating red and white stripes with a sky-blue triangle on the hoist side and a single white star. It was created by Puerto Rican exiles in New York as the banner of the independence movement, and it predates by more than half a century the navy-blue version the commonwealth government adopted as the island’s official flag in 1952.¹²

The shade of the triangle is the whole story. Change it, and you change what the flag stands for.

Where the Old Flag Came From

On December 22, 1895, 59 Puerto Rican exiles met at Chimney Hall in New York City. They made up the Puerto Rican section of the Cuban Revolutionary Party, and at that meeting Juan de Mata Terreforte presented a new flag that the group unanimously adopted as the banner of Puerto Rican independence. The prototype, just eight inches by five inches, was sewn by María Manuela (“Mima”) Besosa at the request of her father Manuel Besosa, one of the section’s directors.¹

The traditional reading of the design: the three red stripes stand for the blood of those who fought for freedom, the two white stripes for victory and peace, the triangle for the sky and coastal waters, and the star for the island itself.³ The flag was flown two years later during the 1897 Yauco Revolt against Spanish rule.⁴

The Cuban Sister Flag and the Choice of Blue

The 1895 design was modeled on the Cuban flag with the colors inverted. Cuba’s flag has blue stripes and a red triangle; Puerto Rico’s has red stripes and a blue triangle. The two are often called “sister flags,” and the mirroring was deliberate, meant as a visible statement of solidarity between two independence movements operating together in exile. José Martí, who led the Cuban Revolutionary Party, said openly that the party existed to win Cuba’s absolute independence and to promote and assist Puerto Rico’s.⁵

Historians disagree about the exact shade of the 1895 triangle. Some argue it was originally dark blue, matching the navy of the Cuban flag. Others describe it as sky-blue, chosen as a lighter shade to distinguish the Puerto Rican banner from Cuba’s.¹² Either way, by the twentieth century the sky-blue version was the one associated in popular memory with the independence cause, and it is the version people typically mean when they refer to the “old” Puerto Rican flag.

The Gag Law: When Owning the Flag Was a Crime

For nearly a decade in the mid-twentieth century, the flag itself was illegal. On June 10, 1948, the U.S.-appointed insular legislature passed Law 53, known as “La Ley de la Mordaza,” the Gag Law. It was enacted to suppress the independence movement.⁶

Under the Gag Law, owning or displaying a Puerto Rican flag was a criminal offense, even inside your own home. Police and national guardsmen could enter homes without a warrant to search for and seize flags. Penalties reached up to ten years in prison. The law was repealed in 1957.⁶ The effect was the opposite of what the authorities intended. Criminalizing the sky-blue flag turned it into a fixed symbol of resistance and pro-independence identity, and Pedro Albizu Campos and the broader independence coalition adopted it as their unifying emblem during those years.²

What Changed in 1952

When Puerto Rico became a commonwealth in 1952, the legislature formally adopted the 1895 flag as the island’s official emblem.⁷ The version it adopted was not identical to the original. The triangle was darkened from sky-blue to navy, a change described in multiple accounts as intended to make the flag more closely resemble the U.S. flag.²

That shift was more than cosmetic. The commonwealth also required that the flag be flown on government buildings only alongside the U.S. flag.² Historian Jorell A. Melendez-Badillo has described the change as effectively stripping the flag of its revolutionary meaning.⁸

Because the commonwealth never locked in a single precise shade, variants proliferated. A “royal blue” version, between sky-blue and navy, became common among people who wanted to express Puerto Rican pride without staking a political position. The Puerto Rican government has since specified the official color as #0066FF, a shade that matches neither the U.S. flag nor the Cuban flag exactly.⁴

Sky-Blue vs. Navy Today

The shade of the triangle has become political shorthand, though the boundaries are not rigid.

Sky-blue (light blue) is historically linked to the independence movement and the Puerto Rico Independence Party. This is the shade people usually mean by the “old” or “original” flag, and it carries the vision of Puerto Rico as a sovereign nation.⁴
Navy or dark blue is the official flag since 1952, traditionally associated with the statehood movement and the island’s political ties to the United States.⁴
Royal blue is a middle-ground variant expressing national pride without committing to either camp.²

In practice these associations are widely recognized but not absolute. Commonwealth supporters use either shade, and the sky-blue flag has appeared at pro-statehood demonstrations. Some commentators suggest the light-blue version is drifting away from a strictly pro-independence meaning and toward a broader emblem of Puerto Rican identity.⁴

A Note on the Black-and-White Version

A third variant appeared on July 4, 2016, four days after President Barack Obama signed the Puerto Rico Oversight, Management, and Economic Stability Act (PROMESA) into law. An anonymous artist collective painted over a large Puerto Rican flag mural on a wooden door at 55 Calle San José in Old San Juan, rendering it entirely in black and white.⁸ PROMESA had established a seven-member Financial Oversight and Management Board, made up of unelected non-residents, with authority over the island’s laws and budget to manage more than $70 billion in public debt.⁹

The artists said the black represented mourning for the loss of political autonomy and the white represented individual rights and the capacity to reclaim them.⁹ Melendez-Badillo has called the black-and-white version a “re-radicalizing” of the flag, reclaiming the defiance the 1952 color change had diluted.⁸ It is not an official flag, and it is distinct from the sky-blue original, but it now circulates alongside both older versions and is worth recognizing if you encounter it.

Why the Old Flag Still Matters

The 1895 sky-blue flag was born of exile, adopted in a rented hall in Manhattan, flown at Yauco, criminalized under the Gag Law, then rewritten in a darker shade when the commonwealth arrived. The “old flag” and the current flag are, in a literal sense, the same design. What separates them is a color decision made in 1952 and everything that color has come to mean since. When Puerto Ricans distinguish between the two shades of blue, they are talking about which version of the island’s political future the flag is pointing toward.

1
United States District Court for the District of Puerto Rico. Flag of Puerto Rico
2
Mother Jones. The Many Flags of Puerto Rico
3
Welcome to Puerto Rico. Historical Flags of Puerto Rico
4
Puerto Rico Report. The Color of Puerto Rico’s Flag
5
OnCuba News. The Story Behind the Sister Flags of Cuba and Puerto Rico
6
WLVT. Ley de la Mordaza: The Law That Made the Puerto Rican Flag Illegal
7
Puerto Rico Department of State. Department of State
8
Mother Jones. The Puerto Rico Resistance Flag
9
Global Voices. Puerto Rico’s Flag Is Black and in Mourning Over US-Imposed Oversight Board