From: Joe Foley (redmenaced@yahoo.com)
Date: Wed Mar 10 2004 - 21:53:02 PST
I found it!
Webster's 1934:
Yankee: Often derived, through an early Yengee(s), fr.
American Indian corruption of "English", or French
"Anglais, but probably French. A Dutch dimension of
"Jan" John, as applied by the Dutch of NY to the
English of Conn.
My comments: One, of course, has to remember that NY
was a Dutch colony long before it was an English
colony, part of it was also a French colony at one
time. Most of the ugliness with the natives came from
the French practise of awarding bounties for English
scalps and the ensuing retaliation therefore. The
Natives shouldn't complaing too loudly though, if it
were the Spanish they were dealing with they'd just
exterminate them like they did in most of South
America.
On the American Civil War, the seeds of which could be
said to have been sown after the Revolution when
several farmers in the new state of NY questioned the
practice of the Van Rensalear (Dutch) family charging
them "rent" for their land. Yes, DUTCH, they'd made
agreements with the English to keep their holdings and
pay the King of England instead of paying the king of
Holland, after the Revolution they found themselves in
the happy situation of not having ANYONE to pay the
profits to,....... so,..... business as usual!
ANYWAY, the little revolt against the Van Rensalears
led to the convention where we can obtain land just by
paying for it, new idea! The other "colonies"
probably heard about that and wanted the same, ...the
Feds wanted to consolidate their power, ...the
"mini-monarchies" in the South rebelled, ...and so on,......
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