British American

Notable British Americans: George Mason · Daniel Boone · Thomas Jefferson · James Madison · Betsy Ross · James Monroe · Jack Daniel · Jesse James · Butch Cassidy · Frank Lloyd Wright · Harold Lloyd · Bob Hope · John Wayne · Clint Eastwood · James Dean · Robert Redford · Sigourney Weaver · Alicia Silverstone
Total population
40,234,652 (2009) [1][2] 13.0% of the total U.S. population. Other estimates: 72,065,000 [3] 23.3% of the total U.S. population
Regions with significant populations
South, Northeast, and West regions
Languages
American English
Religion
Christian Mainly Protestant (especially Baptist, Congregationalist, Episcopalian, Methodist, Presbyterian, and Quaker) and to a lesser extent Catholic
Related ethnic groups
Australian Americans · Britons · Cornish Americans · Canadian American · English Americans · Scottish Americans · Scots-Irish Americans · Welsh Americans · Irish Americans

British Americans are citizens of the United States whose ancestry originates wholly or partly in the United Kingdom (England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland). The term is seldom used by people to refer to themselves (1,172,050 chose it in the 2009 American Community Survey) and is used primarily as a demographic or historical research term. In the modern age, it can refer to British people who live and work in the United States (some of whom become American citizens), and Americans who do the same in the United Kingdom.

According to American Community Survey in 2009 data, Americans reporting British ancestry made up an estimated (40,234,652) or 13.0% of the total U.S. population,^[2] and form the third largest European ancestry group after German Americans and Irish Americans. This is an approx 35% drop from the population figures derived from the 1980 United States Census.

However, demographers regard this as an undercount as the index of inconsistency is high, and many, if not most, people from English stock have a tendency to identify simply as Americans^[4][5][6][7] or, if of mixed European ancestry, nominate a more recent and differentiated ethnic group.^[8] Consequently, many well-established white Americans have at least some British ancestry^{[citation needed]}, including many who identify primarily with other ethnic groups (such as Irish, German, Scandinavian, and so forth).

In the 1980 United States Census, over 61 million (61,311,449) Americans claimed British ancestry, at the time around 32.56% of the total population and largest reported group which, even today^{[citation needed]}, would make them the largest ethnic group in the United States. This outnumbered the population of Great Britain at the time.^[9][10]

Number of British Americans[link]

1790 Census[link]

Estimated origin - 1790 United States Census [11][12]
Rank	European ancestry only	Percentage	Most of the Founding Fathers had British ancestors.
1	British (total)	74.3%+
2	English	60.9%
3	Scotch-Irish/Scotch	14.3%
4	German	8.7%
5	Dutch/French/Swedish	5.4%
6	Irish	3.7%
7	Unidentifiable	7.0 %
8	Total	100%
African Americans were some 19.3% of the total United States population.

The United States Census of 1790 was the first census conducted in the United States. It was conducted on August 2, 1790. The ancestry of the 3,929,214 population in 1790 has been estimated by various sources by sampling last names in the very first United States official census and assigning them a country of origin.^[11] The estimate results indicate that people of British ancestry made up about 62% of the total population or 74.3% of the European American population. Some 80.7% of the total United States population was of European heritage.^[13] Around 757,208 were of African descent with 697,624 being slaves. Of the remaining population, more than 75% was of British origin.^[14]

1980 Census[link]

The Twentieth 1980 United States Census, 61.3 million (61,311,449) Americans reported British ancestry.
The total U.S population in 1980 was 226,545,805 and was the first census-form that asked peoples ancestry.^[15]

These include: In 1980, the total census reported that British ancestry was (32.56%) of the total U.S population. Triple ancestry response:English-Irish-Scotch: 897,316 There are no concrete figures for the Scots-Irish and some group responses were under-counted, but in 1980, 29,828,349 people claimed Irish and another ethnic ancestry. These figures make British Americans the largest "ethnic" group in the U.S. and would have naturally increased in population with more people of British origin than in 1980. This is true when counted collectively (the Census Bureau does give the choice to count them collectively as one ancestry, and also count them in a separate ethnic group, that is English, Scottish, Welsh or Scots-Irish). In 2000, Germans and Irish were the largest self-reported ethnic groups in the nation.

1990 Census[link]

The Twenty-first 1990 United States Census.^[16]

2000 Census[link]

The Twenty-Second 2000 United States Census, 36.4 million Americans reported British ancestry.^[17]

Most of the population who stated their ancestry as "American" are said to be of old colonial British stock.

• American ethnicity 20,625,093 (7.3%)

Distribution[link]

Hildale, Utah has 66.9% of its population of English descent.

Malad City, Idaho identified 21.1% of its population has Welsh ancestry.

Following are the top 10 highest percentages of people of English, Scottish and Welsh ancestry, in U.S. communities with 500 or more total inhabitants (for the total list of the 101 communities, see the reference):^[18][19][20]

English

1. Hildale, UT 66.9%
2. Colorado City, AZ 52.7%
3. Milbridge, ME 41.1%
4. Panguitch, UT 40.0%
5. Beaver, UT 39.8%
6. Enterprise, UT 39.4%
7. East Machias, ME 39.1%
8. Marriott-Slaterville, UT 38.2%
9. Wellsville, UT 37.9%
10. Morgan, UT 37.2%

Scottish

1. Lonaconing, MD town 16.1%
2. Jordan, IL township 12.6%
3. Scioto, OH township 12.1%
4. Randolph, IN township 10.2%
5. Franconia, NH town 10.1%
6. Topsham, VT town 10.0%
7. Ryegate, VT town 9.9%
8. Plainfield, VT town 9.8%
9. Saratoga Springs, UT town 9.7%
10. Barnet, VT town 9.5%

Welsh

1. Malad City, ID city 21.1
2. Remsen, NY town 14.6
3. Oak Hill, OH village 13.6
4. Madison, OH township 12.7
5. Steuben, NY town 10.9
6. Franklin, OH township 10.5
7. Plymouth, PA borough 10.3
8. Jackson, OH city 10.0
9. Lake, PA township 9.9
10. Radnor, OH township 9.8

English American

English American

Scottish American

Scots-Irish American

Scots-Irish American

Welsh American

Dark red and brown colors indicate a higher density. (see also Maps of American ancestries).

History[link]

Benjamin Franklin, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson writing the Declaration of independence (1776) were all of British descent.

The National personification of the United States and Great Britain. Uncle Sam embracing John Bull, while Britannia and Columbia hold hands and sit together in the background (1898).

Early British emigration[link]

The British diaspora consists of the scattering of British people and their descendants who emigrated from the United Kingdom. The diaspora is concentrated in countries that had mass migration such as the United States and that are part of the Anglosphere. A 2006 publication from the Institute for Public Policy Research estimated 5.6 million British-born people lived outside of the United Kingdom.^[21][22]

After the Age of Discovery the British were one of the earliest and largest communities to emigrate out of Europe, and the British Empire's expansion during the first half of the 19th century saw an "extraordinary dispersion of the British people", with particular concentrations "in Australasia and North America".^[23]

The British Empire was "built on waves of migration overseas by British people",^[24] who left the United Kingdom and "reached across the globe and permanently affected population structures in three continents".^[23] As a result of the British colonization of the Americas, what became the United States was "easily the greatest single destination of emigrant British".^[23]

Historically in the 1790 United States Census estimate and presently in Australia, Canada and New Zealand "people of British origin came to constitute the majority of the population" contributing to these states becoming integral to the Anglosphere.^[24]

Settlement and colonization[link]

An English presence in North America began with the Roanoke Colony and Colony of Virginia in the late-16th century, but the first successful English settlement was established in 1607, on the James River at Jamestown. By the 1610s an estimated 1,300 English people had travelled to North America, the "first of many millions from the British Isles".^[25] In 1620 the Pilgrims established the English imperial venture of Plymouth Colony, beginning "a remarkable acceleration of permanent emigration from England" with over 60% of trans-Atlantic English migrants settling in the New England Colonies.^[25] During the 17th century an estimated 350,000 English and Welsh migrants arrived in North America, which in the century after the Acts of Union 1707 was surpassed in rate and number by Scottish and Irish migrants.^[26]

The British policy of salutary neglect for its North American colonies intended to minimize trade restrictions as a way of ensuring they stayed loyal to British interests.^[27] This permitted the development of the American Dream, a cultural spirit distinct from that of its European founders.^[27] The Thirteen Colonies of British America began an armed rebellion against British rule in 1775 when they rejected the right of the Parliament of Great Britain to govern them without representation; they proclaimed their independence in 1776, and subsequently constituted the first thirteen states of the United States of America, which became a sovereign state in 1781 with the ratification of the Articles of Confederation. The 1783 Treaty of Paris represented Great Britain's formal acknowledgement of the United States' sovereignty at the end of the American Revolutionary War.^[28]

Today[link]

Nevertheless, longstanding cultural and historical ties have, in more modern times, resulted in the Special Relationship, a term used to describe the exceptionally close political, diplomatic and military co-operation of United Kingdom – United States relations.^[29] Linda Colley, a professor of history at Princeton University and specialist in Britishness, suggested that because of their colonial influence on the United States, the British find Americans a "mysterious and paradoxical people, physically distant but culturally close, engagingly similar yet irritatingly different".^[30]

Identity[link]

British Americans have Cornish, English, Scottish, Ulster Scots, and/or Welsh family heritages, or came from Canada where their ancestors were of British descent, and are those Americans who were British born. Catholic Irish-Americans are not usually categorized as having British ancestry; they do not usually consider themselves as being British Americans.^{[citation needed]} Immigrants from Canada of British ancestry tend to call themselves Canadian Americans. Similarly, most British Americans tend to differentiate to being specifically Cornish, English, Northern Irish, Irish, Scottish, Welsh or ethnic minorities (e.g. Pakistani Scottish) and do not identify with the UK as a whole, therefore tending not to refer to themselves as British American (see: Cornish American, English American, Scottish American, Welsh American, or Scots-Irish American) and settlers of British heritage from other former British territories like Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa also consider themselves by their nationalities, Australian Americans, New Zealand Americans, South African-Americans, like those with British citizenship would identify themselves as British-American, when actually they are African-British.

1790 - 2000 Census[link]

In the 1790 United States Census, people of British origin constituted the majority with 62.5% of the United States population.

American cultural icons[link]

Grand Union Flag was first flown on December 2, 1775. The current flag has fifty stars on the flag represent the 50 states and the 13 stripes represent the original British thirteen colonies.

The Grand Union Flag is considered to be the first national flag of the United States^{[citation needed]}. This flag consisted of 13 red and white stripes with the British Union Flag of the time (prior to the inclusion of St. Patrick's cross of Ireland) in the canton.

The flag was first flown on December 2, 1775 by John Paul Jones (then a Continental Navy lieutenant) on the ship Alfred in Philadelphia).^[33] The Alfred flag has been credited to Margaret Manny.^[34] It was used by the American Continental forces as a naval ensign and garrison flag in 1776 and early 1777.

It is widely believed that the flag was raised by George Washington's army on New Year's Day 1776 at Prospect Hill in Charlestown (now part of Somerville), near his headquarters at Cambridge, Massachusetts, and that the flag was interpreted by British observers as a sign of surrender.^[35] Some scholars dispute this traditional account, concluding that the flag raised at Prospect Hill was likely a British union flag.^[36]

British place names in the United States[link]

Boston, Massachusetts is named after Boston, England. Albany, New York is named after Duke of Albany and ultimately gets its name from Alba which is Scottish Gaelic for Scotland. Swansea, Massachusetts is named after Swansea, Wales.

There are many places in the United States named after places in Great Britain as a result of the many British settlers and explorers. These include New York (after the Duke of York^[37]), New Hampshire (after Hampshire^[38]), Manchester,^[39] Boston,^[40] Birmingham, Southampton,^[41] Gloucester and the region of New England. In addition, some places were named after the English royal family. The name Virginia was first applied by Queen Elizabeth I (the "Virgin Queen") and Sir Walter Raleigh in 1584.,^[42] the Carolinas were named after King Charles I and Maryland named so for his wife, Queen Henrietta Maria (Queen Mary).^[43]

See also[link]

	United States portal
	United Kingdom portal

• European American
• Hyphenated American
• List of English Americans
• List of Scots-Irish Americans
• List of Scottish Americans
• List of Welsh Americans
• Anglo-Celtic Australian

References[link]

• References

Scholarly sources[link]

• Oscar Handlin, Ann Orlov and Stephan Thernstrom eds. Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups (1980) the standard reference source for all ethnic groups.
• Rowland Tappan Berthoff. British Immigrants in Industrial America, 1790-1950 (1953).
• David Hackett Fischer. Albion's Seed, Four British Folkways In America (1989).

External links[link]

• 1980 U.S Census ancestry lists
• 2000 Census Bureau ancestry figures

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