This article compares the histories of the conceptual dyad America/americanos in nine countries of the Iberian Atlantic world between 1750 and 1850. The most important finding of this analytical effort is a standard pattern of semantic evolution that applies to al! Spanish American cases and is distinct from that occurring in Brazil to a large extent. That pattern corresponds to an initial period of low politicization, when the concept had mainly a geographical meaning, which was followed by a period of rapid politicization from the end of the eighteenth to the first decades of the nineteenth century, when America/americanos became a core political identity in the independence processes that sprouted all over the continent. This peak was followed by a swift decline in political usage, and the term was replaced everywhere by local national identities. The concluding remarks are dedicated to reflecting upon whether America/americanos should be understood as a basic concept (Grundbegriff) or an element of asymmetrical counterconceptual pairs, and identifying some research and theoretical questions raised by the present analysis.