How Did the Nation Get Its Name? Other Suggestions Included the United Colonies, Columbia and the United States of Alleghania

Greg Daugherty at Smithsonian Magazine:

When America’s founding fathers set out to create a new country independent from Great Britain, they had a lot of decisions to make. One was simply what to call their invention.

Today, the world may take the name that these men chose 250 years ago—the United States of America—for granted. But at the time, every word was laden with meaning, and each had its own backstory, beginning with “United.”

The founders knew from the start that the original Thirteen Colonies stood a far better chance of successfully breaking away from Britain if they did so as a group. Rebellions by a single colony or two would be easy for the British Army to put down, but more than a dozen rebelling at once was a different matter.

The pro-independence pamphleteer Thomas Paine stressed unity in his widely read and hugely influential Common Sense, first published in January 1776. He called on the Colonies to send representatives to form a Congress and frame a “charter of the United Colonies.”

More here.

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