The flag of Falcón state, one of the 23 states of Venezuela, depicts a sun and a moon and has a red ribbon on top, with the words 'MUERA LA TIRANIA VIVA LA LIBERTAD' ("Death to Tyranny, Long Live Liberty") in white letters.
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Symbolism
editAdopted in 2006, the change was done in connection with the bicentennial celebrations of the landing of Francisco de Miranda at La Vela de Coro in 1806.[1] On August 3, 2006 governor Jesús Montilla hoisted the new flag at the Monument to the Venezuelan Federation ('Paredón') in the state capital Coro.[1] The unveiling followed the passage in the Falcón State Legislative Council of a legislation to change the state flag on August 1, 2006.[1] The flag design is based on a naval flag used by Miranda on the voyage of his war ship Leander.[1]
For a long time, the prevailing understanding in Venezuela was that Leander had carried the yellow-blue-red tricolour flag as its naval flag.[2] This position had been corroborated from testimonies of participants in Miranda's 1806 mission.[2] In the 1910s, Dr. Manuel Segundo Sánchez, director of National Library of Caracas, challenged this notion,[2] having uncovered correspondence at the General Archive of the Indies in Seville of the Spanish colonial authorities which included a facsimile drawing of a naval flag used by Miranda in 1806.[2] It was a blue banner with a sun and a moon – in Sanchez's interpretation the blue colour would represent both sky and sea, whilst the rising sun would represent the rising American liberty and the full moon the declining Spanish empire.[2] Above the flag there was a red pennant with the words 'MVERA LA TIRANIA Y VIVA LA &&&' – for Sanchez it is obvious that "&&&" would have represented the word 'libertad' ("Liberty").[2]