 <p>As mention in "<a href="http://stackoverflow.com/a/4288660/6309">In git, is there a simple way of introducing an unrelated branch to a repository?</a>", <code>git checkout --orphan</code> "doesn't do exactly what the asker wanted, because it populates the index and the working tree from <code>&lt;start_point&gt;</code> (since this is, after all, a <code>checkout</code> command)"</p> <p>So a cleaner solution would be to <strong><a href="http://stackoverflow.com/a/1384723/6309">create your new <code>master</code> branch in a new git repo</a></strong>, and then import that branch in your current repo (where <code>master</code> was renamed, and where there is not a <code>master</code> branch yet)</p> <pre><code>$ cd /path/to/repo $ git fetch /path/to/unrelated master:master </code></pre> <p>That way, your <code>master</code> branch starts from a clean history.</p>