This article interrogates the application of postcolonial theory to U.S.-American history and culture and argues that such an application helps us to rethink postcolonialism’s relationship to the concept of the nation-state. While current postcolonial theory has become disillusioned with models of the postcolonial nation, which frequently seem to mirror imperialist structures, American Studies’ application of postcolonial theory to American cultures of imperialism is arguing for a rethinking of the relationship between post-colonialism and nation. On the territory which emerged as the contested space of the U.S.-American nation, we encounter various competing imagined communities during all historical phases, making impossible the clear temporal or spatial demarcation of coloniality from post-coloniality. U.S.-American history thus necessitates a rethinking of nationhood not only as a spatially, but also as a temporally flexible concept. To provide an example, I draw on John Brown’s 1859 raid on Harpers Ferry which contributed to the tensions that led the nation into the Civil War.