JOIN, or DIE

This political print, most likely drawn and engraved by Benjamin Franklin, first appeared in the May 9, 1754, edition of The Pennsylvania Gazette. It depicts the British colonies in North America as a dismembered snake, with the caption, “JOIN, or DIE.” Its goal was to convince the colonists to unite against the threat of French colonial expansion. The snake cartoon began to appear in print again in the 1760s and again, with some slight changes, during the American Revolution as an argument for the American colonies to unite against Great Britain.