Hi
I’ve seen articles calling the majority of the signers of the Declaration of Independence American-born, which seems correct since they were born on the North American continent. They were nonetheless British citizens prior to the Declaration of Independence. I would like to confirm if it is correct to term them American-born. I look forward to your feedback.
If they were born in America, they were American-born. They were also British subjects by birth. No contradiction there.
Thanks UDS.
I’m just curious if any of the colonists referred to themselves as “Americans” as opposed to just “Virginians” or “Rhode Islanders” etc before the Declaration of Independence in 1776.
“I am not a Virginian, but an American.” - Patrick Henry, from speech in the First Continental Congress, September 6, 1774 Oh, that we would remember today that first we are Americans!
What’s an “American?” Someone loosely connected to this continent? A natural born USA citizen? Or something in between?
Words are sloppy. Particularly in the swirling & uncertain context of the late 1700s, the word “American” meant whatever the speaker chose it to mean. Which is not what it means today.
Nowadays the term is often construed to mean “USA citizen”. Which clearly wasn’t the meaning a decade before the USA was founded in 1789.
Since there wasn’t a USA at the time ‘American’ seems to be fitting. Even now some of those guys living in other countries above and below ours aren’t happy that we consider ourselves to be American exclusive of them.
According to the various proposed definitions of “American” being kicked around in this thread: Who was the first POTUS who was actually “American”?
Certainly, the first several presidents must have been British citizens from birth up until 1776. How could they have been constitutionally legal president? /old rolleyes/
Martin Van Buren (born 1782) was the President who was a US citizen at birth.
(emphasis added)
The term American (as a noun) entered the English language in the 16th century, in the sense of an indigenous inhabitant of any part of the Americas.
By the late seventeenth/early eighteenth century it had aquired a secondary meaning; an inhabitant (not necessarily from birth) of the Americas, and particularly of the British colonies in the Americas. Cotton Mather used it in this sense. But note that this didn’t supplant the earlier meaning; both persisted, with the sense of the word in any case having to be deduced from the context.
The transition from “inhabitant of the colonies” to “citizen of the USA” obviously can’t happen before the USA is founded. In fact it seems to happen in the early nineteenth century. A writer in 1809 (in a book written and published in New York, and so not aimed at a foreign market) feels the need to explain it - “The Americans, that is the subjects of the United States . . .”
The adjective undergoes a similar transition. In the sixteenth century, it means "pertaining to (any part of) the Americas. By the early seventeenth, "pertaining to the indigenous inhabitants of (any part of) the Americas. Slightly later than that, “pertaining to European (especially British) colonies in North America”. And this latter sense, of course, transitions in due course into “pertaining to the United States”.
I don’t think the word focusses on, or particularly implies, a legal or citizenship link to the US. The transition from “pertaining to the North American Colonies” to “pertaining to the United States” was a natural one, given the events which unfolded, and since the earlier usage didn’t point to any special legal/citizenship status the newer one didn’t have to either, unless the context required it. So I don’t think “American-born” would suggest “born a citizen of the United States”; it would suggest “born in the British North American colonies, or in the United States, as may be appropriate given the date of birth”.