This is an I-Heart podcast.

Guaranteed Human.

This is Lee Habib, and this is Our American Stories.

Did you know that America's first symbol was a rattlesnake?

Here to tell another of her great stories is frequent contributor Ashley Lubinsky.

Take it away, Ashley.

In America, we have a lot of symbols.

And there are symbols that we inherit, and there are symbols that, in a way, create us.

And in the United States, well actually before the United States, you know, we had an eagle.

And before there was the eagle and the stars and the stripes, and even before we had a country, there was a rattlesnake.

And at the center of that story is founding father Benjamin Franklin. Franklin was a printer,

a philosopher, and really one of the most effective communicators in American history.

Now, the story of the rattlesnake begins as a set of the most effective communicators in American history. Now the story of the Rattlesnake begins as a satire. In 1751, so decades before the revolution, Franklin responded to British policy.

They were sending convicted criminals to the American colonies.

Writing with his characteristic bite, if you will,

he suggested a trade.

If Britain insisted on exporting its felons,

Americans, of course, must return the favor.

Franklin proposed sending rattlesnakes to England,

noting they would be a grateful return

for the human serpents sent us by our mother country.

It was humor, but it definitely carried a message.

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