American (word) - History of The Word

History of The Word

The derivation of America has several explanatory naming theories. The most common is Martin Waldseemüller's deriving it from Americus Vespucius, the Latinised version of Amerigo Vespucci's name, the Italian merchant and cartographer who explored South America's east coast and the Caribbean sea in the early 16th century. Later, his published letters were the basis of Waldseemüller's 1507 map, which is the first usage of America. The adjective American subsequently denotes the New World's peoples and things.

16th-century European usage of American denoted the native inhabitants of the New World. The earliest recorded use of this term in English is in Thomas Hacket's 1568 translation of André Thévet's book on France Antarctique; Thévet himself had referred to the natives as Ameriques. In the following century the term was extended to European settlers and their descendants in the Americas. The earliest recorded use of this term in English dates to 1648, in Thomas Gage's The English-American: A New Survet of the West Indies. In English, "American" was used especially for people in the British America, and came to be applied to citizens of the United States when the country was formed. The Declaration of Independence refers to " unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America" adopted by the "Representatives of the united States of America" on July 4, 1776. The official name of the country was established on November 15, 1777, when the Second Continental Congress adopted the Articles of Confederation, the first of which says, "The Stile of this Confederacy shall be 'The United States of America' ". The confederation articles further state: "In Witness whereof we have hereunto set our hands in Congress. Done at Philadelphia in the State of Pennsylvania the ninth day of July in the Year of our Lord One Thousand Seven Hundred and Seventy-Eight, and in the Third Year of the independence of America." Common short forms and abbreviations are the United States, the U.S., the U.S.A., and America. Colloquial versions are the U.S. of A. and the States. The term Columbia (from the Columbus surname), was a popular name for the U.S. and for the entire geographic Americas; its usage is restricted to the District of Columbia name. Moreover, the womanly personification of Columbia appears in some official documents, including editions of the U.S. dollar.

In the Federalist Papers, Alexander Hamilton and James Madison use American with two different meanings, political and geographic; "the American republic" in Federalist Paper 51 and in Federalist Paper 70, and, in Federalist Paper 24, Hamilton's American usage denotes the lands beyond the U.S.'s political borders:

Though a wide ocean separates the United States from Europe, yet there are various considerations that warn us against an excess of confidence or security. On one side of us, and stretching far into our rear, are growing settlements subject to the dominion of Britain. On the other side, and extending to meet the British settlements, are colonies and establishments subject to the dominion of Spain. This situation and the vicinity of the West India Islands, belonging to these two powers create between them, in respect to their American possessions and in relation to us, a common interest.

United States President George Washington's farewell in 1796 says: "The name of American, which belongs to you in your national capacity, must always exalt the just pride of patriotism more than any appellation".

Originally, the name "the United States" was plural—"the United States are"—a usage found in the U.S. Constitution's Thirteenth Amendment (1865), but its current common usage is singular—"the United States is". The plural is set in the idiom "these United States".

Before the Constitutional Convention, several country names were proffered, the most popular being "Columbia". The problems of "the United States of America" as a name (long, awkward, imprecise) were discussed; the Constitution ignores the matter, using "the United States of America" and "the United States". The name "Colombia" (derived from Christopher Columbus; Sp: Cristóbal Colón, It: Cristoforo Colombo), was proposed by the revolutionary Francisco de Miranda to denote the New World—especially Spain's and Portugal's American territories and colonies; it was used in the country names Republic of Columbia and the United States of Colombia.

Early official U.S. documents betray inconsistent usage; the 1778 Treaty of Alliance with France uses "the United States of North America" in the first sentence, then uses "the said United States" afterwards; "the United States of America" and "the United States of North America" derive from "the United Colonies of America" and "the United Colonies of North America". The Treaty of Peace and Amity of September 5, 1795 between the United States and the Barbary States contains the usages "the United States of North America", "citizens of the United States", and "American Citizens".

Semantic divergence among Anglophones did not affect the Spanish colonies. In 1801, the document titled Letter to American Spaniards—published in French (1799), in Spanish (1801), and in English (1808)—might have influenced Venezuela's Act of Independence and its 1811 constitution.

The Latter-day Saints' Articles of Faith refer to the American continent as where they are to build Zion. The Old Catholic Encyclopedia's usage of America is as "the Western Continent or the New World". It discusses American republics, ranging from the U.S. to "the republic of Mexico, the Central American republics of Guatemala, Honduras, San Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Leon, and Panama; the Antillian republics of Haiti, Santo Domingo, and Cuba, and the South American republics of Venezuela, Colombia, Brazil, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Paraguay, the Argentine, and Chile".