The "English" Americans

It would not have been incorrect for the colonists in America to have claimed that they were English. Up to the Revolutionary War, the colonists shared many cultural, ideological, and political standards with their European counterparts. However, this claim would not be entirely accurate. American culture had, by this point, undergone major changes, especially during the mid 1700's as the Revolutionary War approached. The colonists were not entirely aware of these changes, but they were becoming acutely aware of the fact that they were not exactly like the English in Europe. The colonists' assertion that they were English was not wrong, but it is not perfectly accurate, because it fails to acknowledge the major differences that were becoming more and more apparent. The colonists were English, but they were a new breed of English, a new "flavor" of English, one which could not agree with the original.

By all legal definitions and interpretations, the American colonists were most definitely English. They were subjects of the English monarch, and citizens of the English empire. They were subject to English laws. They paid English taxes. The colonists were literally English people, being citizens of the nation. For many, if not most colonists, there was no such thing as "American," at least not in the sense of being a nationality, no more so than one's nationality could be Georgian or Mississippian or Montanan and not American today. Whether or not the colonists were in close proximity with the English throne was of no concern. It might take longer for the colonists to receive their mail and newspapers, but they were still citizens.

One major ideological similarity between the colonists and the European English was the e...

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...in Europe. The Americans had even adopted an extreme belief that they could, and should, reject the rule of the King, and any other monarch. They were considering the possibility that monarchy was not the only system of government that could be successful, that there could be other alternatives which would be superior, a radical idea for the time, and surprisingly wide-spread in the colonies.

The colonists certainly did claim to be English, but were they correct? Yes and no. At the time, there was no true concept of "American." One could not be "American." The colonists would have called themselves English because there was no other name to use. however, the "English that they envisioned for themselves was very different from the English in Europe. The colonists considered themselves English, but a new type of English which would eventually become American.