Join, or Die

The cartoon is a woodcut showing a snake cut into eighths, with each segment labeled with the initials of one of the American colonies or regions.

Many American colonists wished to gain control over the lands west of the Appalachian Mountains and settle there (or make profits from speculating on new settlements).

During the outbreak of the war, the American colonists were divided on whether or not to take the risk of actually fighting the French for control of the lands west of the Appalachian Mountains.

Writer Philip Davidson stated that Franklin was a propagandist influential in seeing the potential in political cartoons to stir up public opinion in favor of a certain way of thinking.

[4] Franklin had proposed the Albany Plan and his cartoon suggested that such a union was necessary to avoid each colony being captured individually by the French.

As Franklin wrote: The Confidence of the French in this Undertaking seems well-grounded on the present disunited state of the British Colonies, and the extreme difficulty of bringing so many different Governments and Assemblies to agree in any speedy and effectual Measures for our common defense and Security; while our Enemies have the very great Advantage of being under one.

Soon after the publication of the cartoon during the Stamp Act Congress, variations were printed in New York, Massachusetts, and a couple of months later in Virginia and South Carolina.

Join, or Die. a 1754 political cartoon by Benjamin Franklin published in The Pennsylvania Gazette in Philadelphia , addresses the disunity of the Thirteen Colonies during the French and Indian War ; several decades later, the cartoon resurfaced as one of the most iconic symbols in support of the American Revolution .
The July 7, 1774 edition of Massachusetts Spy