This nation, per its Declaration of Independence, is known as the United States of America; yet, before such Declaration was ever made or contemplated upon, each of what we now call States, were known as colonies, and specifically these thirteen were colonies of Great Britain. That is to say, America, was colonized by Great Britain, into thirteen distinct colonies; for the governance of America, was controlled by the hand of Great Britain, and so ruled by such, until America’s armed revolution, so declared, was made, in order to fight for its national independence.
History tells us that all those countries that are known as colonies or previously were colonies, are countries, in which they are or were controlled by some other nation that is or was distant and distinct from that colonial territory, and typically such governance is or was administered for the benefit of that master nation. On the other hand, a true nation, or those States within a nation, is self-governing, and therefore answers to their own internal governance, subject to its national government, and thereby to none other.
So then, the reason why America is not known as the United Colonies of America, is by virtue of the fact, that it threw off the chains of such subservience to Great Britain, in order to claim its independence from same. Still, as might be imagined, it is one thing to make a declaration, and it is another thing, to change the thinking of those that are its inhabitants to understand and to comprehend that they no longer would be colonists, but rather, they would be, if such a revolution was successful, citizens of their own independent nation, instead.
This thus signifies, that to be a colonist, even under the most benign features of foreign control, is to be not sovereign in the affairs of the state or even of one’s personal affairs. So too, the legitimate complaint so made in regards to being taxed or having to suffer from being burdened by involuntary servitude in the defense of that nation which is the colonial power, without having any native representation of the who, what, and the why of such taxation or servitude, is to know for a certainty, that one’s community and therefore one’s city is not a sovereign entity, but subservient to that master nation.
Those then that fought most nobly for the freedom of this nation, were all those that preferred to be the masters of their own fate, and were thereby willing to relinquish the incumbent advantages of having a powerful nation that protected them well from foreign attacks; along with having the knowledge that there was a strong possibility that the present commerce so successfully engaged with that master nation, which was also, in fact, its primary trade partner, would probably be negatively impacted, from this revolution of independence.
We so find, then, that those that were the colonists back in that day and time, recognized well, that the only possible hope of that revolution so succeeding, in conjunction with that seminal Declaration so declared, would be if those colonists joined together, under the flag of thirteen States, so fighting for their sovereignty as a united and independent people.