Name is symbol of freedom, independence

Thomas Jefferson is credited as being the first person to use the name, United States of America, while drafting the Declaration of Independence. The final version of the Declaration starts with the date July 4, 1776 and the following statement: “The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen United States of America.

We celebrate the 250th anniversary of this event in our country this year, and with the Heritage Days celebration in Huntington. Prior to Jefferson’s use of the name, the United States of America were known as the “United Colonies.” On September 9, 1776, the Second Continental Congress adopted the new name, and it has remained since then as a symbol of freedom and independence.

The words “United Colonies” were used by the Congress when it appointed George Washington as commander in chief in June 1775. The words “United States of America” appeared in the first draft of the Articles of Confederation on July 8, 1776, as it was submitted to Congress. The Articles were not ratified by the states until March 1781. The abbreviation U.S.A. had its origins as a way that government inspectors approved official gunpowder.

The earliest known use of the name America occurred after the death of Christopher Columbus in 1506. On April 25, 1507, a German cartographer, Martin Waldseemuller, applied the name to South America, Americus, after Amerigo Vespucci, an Italian explorer, who had been in both the north and south continents. In Waldseemuller’s map, the name America appeared in the lower-left corner. At that time the two continents were considered one.

Gerardus Mercator, a Flemish cartographer, was the first to identify North America on his world map created in 1538. He called it “North America or New India,” and also identified South America as a separate land mass. America is the feminine form of the word and was used as other continents such as Asia, Africa and Europa also were used in the feminine form. Spain refused to accept the name America for two centuries saying that Columbus should get the credit. The name America then spread via oral means throughout Europe.

The Indigenous peoples of North America referred to America as “Turtle Island.” The name was based on an oral history once common to the Indigenous peoples of the northeastern United States and southeastern Canada. Though quite involved, the story dates back to the Ice Age and explains how North and Central America were formed, and the animals of the region rescued on the back of a giant turtle.