Just sold: Rare 18th century newspaper featured Benjamin Franklin’s ‘Join, or Die’ cartoon

WHAT: Sold recently in an online auction by Nate D. Sanders Auctions, a May 9, 1754, copy of The Pennsylvania Gazette brought $50,000. Prominent on the front page of the newspaper is what is believed to be a first printing of “Join, or Die,” Franklin’s cartoon featuring a severed rattlesnake. The only other known copy of this edition is in the permanent collection of the Library of Congress.

MORE: The “Join, or Die” image was created because Franklin was frustrated that British colonists would not unite to fight Native Americans who fought westward expansion. The eight pieces of the snake represent American colonies. Editorial content by Franklin exhorts colonists to unite with the French against attacking Native Americans.

SMART COLLECTORS KNOW: Franklin used the rattlesnake as metaphor. While timber rattlesnakes were found in the Colonies but not in England, Franklin proposed, in an earlier 1751 Gazette editorial, that colonists should ship rattlers to England in exchange for British criminals that were sent here.

HOT TIP: For this 1754 issue, Franklin created the severed snake image to urge cooperation with France in the Seven Years War and to push for cooperation between British colonies in the “management of Indian relations.” Later, in 1765, colonists used the same snake image to urge resistance against the British.

In 1774, Paul Revere used the “Join or Die” cartoon (sans the comma) in the head of his newspaper, and in 1775, a coiled “Don’t Tread on Me” rattler appeared on a flag for the Continental Marines.

BOTTOM LINE: The concept of a need to join as one cohesive body or die was echoed by Franklin at the signing of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, when he commented to John Hancock, “We must indeed all hang together, or most assuredly, we shall all hang separately.”

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