What’s in a name
De-colonizing America will require a new name
The nation known as The United States of America is a collection of 50 states that live under a federal system. It gets its name from a navigator from what is now Florence Italy who was first to realize that there was a continent heretofore unknown to europeans. Amerigo Vespuchi called this new continent “the new world” and early cartographers called it America in his honor .(1)
Never mind that what are now called North and south America had been the home to hundreds of nations of peoples for at least 15,000 years, “America” was new to Europeans
As we re-envision our nation, one of the things we ought to discus is what to call it. Just as many African nations changed their names as they became de-colonized we ought to seriously re-think what to call our nation-state to reflect our aspirations as well as our history.
Historians tell us that the lands now known as the U.S.A. were once home at least 600 nations with many millions of people. (2) Each of them had a name for themselves and for the land they inhabited and those names are lost to most of the people who now call our nation home. Losing these names parallels a loss of respect for indigenous people and a way of life that was sustainable.
As we re-imagine our nation it would seem right to also re-imagine a name that reflects the incredible diversity if peoples that inhabit it Just as Dave Treurer has made the case of returning the National Parks, the sacred lands of many tribes, (3) we all should re-conceptualize our land, people and governance in the light of the fact that our nation has existed for but a moment in the history of the inhabitants of the land.
(1)https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amerigo_Vespucci
(3) https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/05/return-the-national-parks-to-the-tribes/618395/