Join, or Die

Join, or Die. is a political cartoon showing the disunity in the American colonies. Attributed to Benjamin Franklin, the original publication by The Pennsylvania Gazette on May 9, 1754,^[1] is the earliest known pictorial representation of colonial union produced by an American colonist in Colonial America.^[2] It was based on a superstition that if a snake was cut in pieces and the pieces were put together before sunset, the snake would return to life.

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. New England was represented as one segment, rather than the four colonies it was at that time. Delaware was not listed separately as it was part of Pennsylvania. Georgia, however, was omitted completely. As a result, it has eight segments of a snake rather than the traditional 13 colonies.^[3] The poster focused solely on the colonies that claimed shared identities as Americans. The cartoon appeared along with Franklin's editorial about the "disunited state" of the colonies and helped make his point about the importance of colonial unity. It later became a symbol of colonial freedom during the American Revolutionary War.