Join or Die

“Join or Die” is a colonial political image introduced through a grubby copy of the Pennsylvania Gazette: a snake divided into segments, each labeled with a colony, accompanied by the motto “JOIN OR DIE.” Its force in the novel lies not simply in its call for unity, but in the sharp disagreement it provokes. At a Duke & Sons gathering, Nicolaus rejects Benjamin Franklin’s appeal as impossible, and the image makes visible the divisions that complicate colonial solidarity.

The Image in the Newspaper

The illustration passes around the room after Judge Louis Bluzzard produces the newspaper at Jan’s request. Its segmented snake gives the colonies a single body only by showing them in pieces: each segment bears an individual label, while the motto insists that their separation threatens their survival. The image is both a warning and a proposal, turning political cooperation into a matter of life and death.

The scene locates the image within a household and business conversation rather than a formal political debate. George dismisses the abundance of newspapers with an eye roll, but Nicolaus recognizes Franklin’s design and answers it directly. The difference in their reactions helps the cartoon function as more than a period detail: it becomes a test of how the people around the table understand colonial identity.

Nicolaus’s Rejection

Nicolaus calls Franklin a seditious figure and declares that the joined colonial snake can never become reality. His reasons are rooted in differences within the colonies: some inhabitants remain “English to the bone,” he argues, while the tobacco colonies differ markedly from those built around fishing and forests. The cartoon’s unified body therefore collides with a colonial world Nicolaus sees as divided by allegiance, regional economy, and political outlook.

His response also carries the weight of Duke & Sons’ own position. For decades, the company has maintained a precarious balance between French allegiances and the ambitions of a younger, American-born generation. As disagreement begins to surface within that balance, the snake’s proposed unity looks less like an accomplished identity than a disputed future. Nicolaus’s certainty that union cannot happen exposes the political fracture even as the cartoon insists that the colonies must act together.

The Forest Question and Colonial Division

The exchange turns from the image to forest legislation. Piet suggests that the Crown’s rules have driven a wedge between the colonies and England, but the older men ignore him. James Pickering counters with a broader claim: colonial dislike of kings and their representatives is longstanding, and American businessmen widely resent forest regulation. The conversation thus places the cartoon’s call for intercolonial unity alongside a different source of common grievance—the restrictions imposed by the Crown.

The two issues do not resolve into a single consensus. Nicolaus stresses the colonies’ differences and the depth of English attachment; Pickering emphasizes an enduring colonial distaste for royal authority and a shared business objection to forest laws. The image’s segmented body gathers these tensions into one emblem: the colonies may have reasons to resist division, but the novel shows that no motto can erase their competing loyalties and interests.

Significance

“Join or Die” condenses the novel’s account of political unity as both urgent and unstable. Its segmented form acknowledges division even as its command presses toward solidarity. In the Duke & Sons gathering, the cartoon’s appeal is refracted through family and commercial loyalties, regional differences, and conflict over Crown policy. The scene leaves the image suspended between aspiration and skepticism: unity is presented as necessary, but Nicolaus’s rejection reveals how far the colonies remain from agreeing on what binds them.