Join Or Die

Join, or Die is a famous political cartoon created by Benjamin Franklin and first published in his Pennsylvania Gazette on May 9, 1754. The original publication by the Gazette is the earliest known pictorial representation of colonial union produced by a British colonist in America. It is a woodcut showing a snake severed into eighths, with each segment labeled with the initial of a British American colony or region.

However, New England was represented as one colony, rather than the four colonies it was at that time. In addition, Delaware and Georgia were omitted completely.

Thus, it has 8 segments of snake rather than the traditional 13.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. During that era, there was a superstition that a snake which had been cut into pieces would come back to life if the pieces were put together before sunset.

The Gadsden flag is a historical American flag with a yellow field depicting a rattlesnake coiled and ready to strike. Positioned below the snake is the legend "DONT TREAD ON ME".

The flag was designed by and is named after American general and statesman Christopher Gadsden. It was also used by The United States Marine Corps as an early motto flag.

"Come and take it" was a slogan used in the Texas Revolution in 1835. In March 1831, Juan Gomez, a Lieutenant in the Mexican Army, worked alongside Tadeo Ortiz, a consul at Bordeaux, France, and granted a small cannon to the colony of San Antonio.

The small bronze cannon was received by the colony and signed for by Randy Tumlinson. It was then transported to Gonzales, Texas and later was the object of Texas pride. At the minor skirmish known as the Battle of Gonzales, a small group of Texans successfully resisted the Mexican forces who had orders to seize their cannon.

As a symbol of defiance, the Texans had fashioned a flag containing the phrase along with a black star and an image of the cannon which they had received six years earlier from mexican officials.