Join, or Die

”Join, of Die is a famous political cartoon created by Benjamin Franklin. During the American Revolutionary War, the image became a potent symbol of colonial unity and resistance to what was seen as British oppression… Depicted is a snake cut into eight pieces, each labeled with the name of one of the colonies. The position of each colony in the snake corresponds to the geographic position of the colonies along the American coast, with the snake’s tail pointing north…Inspiration came from the eighteenth-century superstition that a snake which had been cut into pieces would come back to life if the pieces were put together before sunset.”