Answer:
Oddly, though, the snake was cut into eight pieces, rather than 13. The head of the snake was labeled “N.E.,” signifying the four New England colonies of New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island, which Franklin combined to emphasize the importance of unity. Other pieces were marked to signify New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina. Delaware, which shared a governor with Pennsylvania, and Georgia, a newer colony that Franklin didn’t think could contribute much to colonial defense, were left out.
Franklin’s cartoon had another advantage. “Literacy was not high in that day,” Dewey notes, so the drawing and its message provided a way to reach colonists who might not have been able to read his editorial.
Franklin published the image with a specific political objective in mind. At the time, he was preparing to join other colonial leaders at the Albany Congress, a meeting called to discuss how they should deal with the growing military threat from the French and their Native American allies. Franklin thought that the colonies needed to join together in a strong alliance. He proposed a unified colonial government that could levy taxes and form a military, governed by a council of representatives from each of the colonies and headed by a President General appointed by the British monarch.
Step-by-step explanation:
