Tonga, flag ofArticle Free Pass When the Western concept of
flags began to take hold in the Pacific region in the late 18th
century, the independent kingdoms there frequently adopted red
and white as their principal flag colours, although blue was
also used. Perhaps not coincidentally, those three colours were
featured in the flags of Britain, France, and the United
States—the chief Western explorers and traders in the Pacific.
The first national flag of Tonga, established in the 1840s, was
typical of those designs. It had a background of white with a
red or blue cross in each corner and the initials A and M in the
centre, respectively in red and blue, to represent the king.
When King George Tupou I came to the throne, he relied heavily
on an Englishman, Shirley W. Baker, for advice regarding a new
flag, which was first hoisted in 1866 and codified in the
constitution of November 4, 1875. Like the British Red Ensign,
three-quarters of the flag was plain red and there was a
distinctive canton in the upper hois