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It’s hard to believe that just over 1,000 words could change world history. But one document that’s only 1,337 words long holds ideas more powerful than dynamite.
These ideas shook up the mighty British Empire. They started a new nation. And they’re still admired today. What is this document? The Declaration of Independence. The story of its creation reads like an adventure tale. It stars a hated king, a tea party, and a group of rebels who became heroes.
◀ In the early 1600s, people from England began to settle on the eastern coast of North America. The British claimed these areas. The settlers formed colonies. A colony is an area ruled by another country. Most are far from their rulers. By the mid-1700s, many different people lived in Britain’s American colonies. They came from Scotland, Ireland, Switzerland, and Germany. There were also enslaved Africans. This map shows Britain’s colonies in the Americas around 1730. The British king chose governors to rule the colonies. But many colonies also elected their own leaders. In time, some colonies didn’t want a government far across the ocean telling them what to do.
Franklin printed this cartoon in 1754. It’s the first American political cartoon that we know about. Each section of the snake stands for a colony. At the time there was a superstition: If pieces of a certain kind of dead snake were put together, the snake would come back to life. ▶
▲ Long before the North American colonies got together, Ben Franklin was impressed by the unity of the six nations that formed the Iroquois League. The nations were the Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas, Senecas, and Tuscaroras. The 50 members of its ruling body all had equal powers.
