DBQ-2 ~ Join or Die
In the years 1750 to 1776 the identity of the American grew and the unity of the colonies solidified, laying the groundwork for the nation we know today. Even with the diversity of races, though most were primarily English, they banded together, supporting each other through the squabbles with the mother country. And when it finally came to war, they united to fight for their liberties. We see from Benjamin Franklin’s ‘Join or Die’ cartoon from the Pennsylvania Gazette in 1754, that he believed the colonies should stand together, or they would fall. They chose to stand up for the America they had made.
Born into what is known as the ‘melting pot’, Americans were made up of many nationalities. The British came, hoping to cleanse their faith and to gain wealth from the new world as the Spanish had farther to the south-west. There were the Germans fleeing religious persecution and the ravages of war, as well as the Scotts-Irish ridding themselves of economic oppression. There were the French and Dutch settlers, a minority, and also the Africans. Brought in as slaves, the Africans made up approximately nineteen percent of the colonial population and was the second largest racial group, behind the English. In Letters from an American Farmer by Hector St. John Crevecoeur, it states “I could point out to you a family whose grandfather was an Englishman, whose wife was Dutch, whose son married a French woman… He is an American.” These interracial marriages were the first step towards unity, as the different nationalities were able to coexist and forget their prejudices function as an American family.
Late-comers to the new land, the French took hold in Canada and a power struggle led to the French and Indian War. With the French just taking land as their own, the British became alarmed and the colonists banded together to fight back in the Ohio Valley, determined to keep their economic security with the fur-trade competition raging through...