“Out of Many, One”: How Americans Created a Nation

This chapter examines how a diverse colonial population gradually formed a political nation during the first century and a half of colonial American history. Central to this process was the construction of internal and external “Others,” including Native Americans, Catholics, and Loyalists, alongside the creation of social hierarchies that excluded women, enslaved people, and free Black populations from the political community. At the same time, European observers increasingly interpreted America as the realization of Enlightenment aspirations. The American Revolution ultimately reinforced this perception and linked the emerging American nation with the language of liberty and political transformation.