[2] An invasion of Circassia by Russia started in 1763,[8] and since then, the Circassians have been fighting the Russo-Circassian War in defense of their territory.

[9][10] The Treaty of Adrianople was signed on 14 September 1829,[11] which stated that the Ottoman Empire recognized Circassia as Russian territory.

However, the Russian ambassador started pressuring the sultan to arrest them, and following this, the other delegates returned the Circassia while Zaneqo stayed.

John Longworth described a variant of the Circassian flag featuring white arrows and stars set against a green background in 1837.

[15] In 1840, during the siege of Mikhailovsky Fortress, Russian cadet Iosis Miroslavsky noted that the Circassians used red victory badges.

In 1836, the first copy of the flag was hand-delivered by the British delegate James Stanislaus Bell to Nour Muhammad Haghur in the Gesh Valley (in present-day Sochi).

A council was held in the Psefabe Valley where representatives of the Circassian tribes met, in which the flag was presented and accepted.

While the flag always survived among the Circassian diaspora, it lost its popularity in the Caucasus as a result of censorship during the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union, until it was repopularized by Ibrahim Nawurjan in 1989.