The first French settlers who occupied Dominica were a disorganized bunch with no proper government until a commander was sent from Martinique in 1727 to install some form of order. The flag he arrived with was the French Royalist flag with yellow fleur de lis on a white background with the royal coat of arms in the center.
This was replaced with British Union Flag or Union Jack when Britain took over Dominica in 1763.
A French flag flew here again from 7 September 1778 to 1 January 1784 when France occupied the island. By this time the flag of France had been changed to one with a dark blue background and white cross in the center of which was the royal coat of arms.
When the British forces marched into Roseau from Point Michel to repossess the island, the historian Thomas Atwood reports that at Fort Young "As soon as the British troops were in possession of the fort, they hoisted the standard of England on the flagstaff, which being a sight few of the inhabitants had seen before, and being elated with joy on the occasion, they were so eager to lend assistance to hoist it, that they were nearly pulling the halliards by which it was raised, to pieces, and breaking down the flag-staff by force of their numbers."
The Union Jack flew supreme over Dominica for the next 194 years with one brief interruption, when for a few days in 1805 an invasion force of French republican troops took over Roseau and raised the revolutionary tricolour from the flagpole at Fort Young. Within days however the French departed because they were unable to dislodge the British governor and his regiments and militias from the Cabrits Garrison in the north of the island.
Versions of the Union Jack were sometimes flown with the crest of the Leeward Islands upon the background of a blue ensign, when Dominica was put with the Leewards from 1871 to 1940 and with the Windward Islands crest in the center when Dominica was placed under the Windwards government from 1940 to 1955.
From 1955 to 1965 Dominica adopted the blue ensign with its own colonial coat of arms upon it.
From 1958 the Union Jack or Dominica ensign flew side by side with the Flag of the Federation of the West Indies until the collapse of the federation in 1962. This flag was distinguished in its simplicity, being a sun symbolizing unity in the centre of a wavy Caribbean Sea.
When the first National Day was celebrated on 3 November 1965 a flag was adopted with a plain blue ensign, with the Union Flag in the left hand corner and the new national Coat of Arms in the center within a white circle.
In 1967 when Dominica became an Associated State of Britain with full internal self-government, the same flag was adopted except that the white circle was removed. Other Associated States such as Antigua, St. Lucia and St Vincent adopted unique statehood flags which they took into independence with them, but Dominica’s flag had maintained the colonial symbol and therefore was lowered in Windsor Park at midnight on 2 November 1978 while the new national flag was hoisted.