New England autumnal foliage, trees with brightly colored leaves lining the shore of a lake
16 February 2021
Indian summer is a name for a deceptive period of fair, warm weather in late autumn, often after the first frost. It is deceptive because it hides the fact that winter is about to begin. And the origins of the phrase are similarly cloaked in mystery. Not only are we unsure of the metaphor that underlies the phrase, but date of the earliest written use is also in doubt.
The term Indian summer is not exactly derogatory, but it is one of many terms, tropes, and euphemisms that present and reinforce a European perspective on indigenous culture, such as on the warpath, circle the wagons, and going off the reservation. As such its use should be avoided.
The most probable explanation for the name is that it reflects a European sense that native North American culture is different, false, or even ersatz. The Oxford English Dictionary points to the terms Indian corn (maize) and Indian bread (corn bread), both of which are different from the European equivalents.
Other suggestions include that it was period of hunting and harvest for Native Americans or that the good weather following the harvest was the optimal period for waging war.
Like its origin, the earliest use of the term is also in doubt. The early evidence indicates that Indian summer, like most phrases, was in widespread oral circulation before being written down.
The earliest known written use is by J. Hector St. John de Crèvecœur (born Michel Guillaume Jean de Crèvecœur), a French settler in New York. In the late eighteenth century he wrote a series of letters and essays about his life in America, and in one he used the phrase Indian summer. He wrote in English, but the manuscript, which survives, is undated, and the original English version of this particular essay was not published until 1925. De Crèvecœur, however, also translated his writing into his native French, and this version was published in Paris in 1784. That French edition gives the date of the essay as 17 January 1774, but a later 1787 edition gives the year as 1778. The editor of the 1925 English edition of his works notes that de Crèvecœur was rather sloppy about his dates, so we can’t be sure exactly when this particular essay was written. The Oxford English Dictionary very conservatively gives the date of de Crèvecœur’s essay as being before 1813, the date of his death, but I think we can confidently conclude that it was written sometime in the 1770s and without doubt before 1784.
His original English version, as published in 1925, reads:
Then a severe frost succeeds which prepares it to receive the voluminous coat of snow which is soon to follow; though it is often preceded by a short interval of smoke and mildness, called the Indian Summer. This is in general the invariable rule: winter is not said properly to begin until these few moderate days and the rising of the waters have announced it to Man.
The relevant passage in the French version of the essay, Description d’Une Chute de Neige, uses the phrase l’Eté Sauvage, and reads:
Quelquefois après cette pluie, il arrive un intervalle de calme & de chaleur, appelé l’Eté Sauvage; ce qui l’indique, c’est la tranquillité de l’atmosphere, & une apparence générale de fumée.
(Sometimes after this rain, there comes an interval of calm and heat, called the Indian summer, indicated by the tranquility of the atmosphere and a general appearance of smoke.)
Indian summer appears in British writing by 1786, indicating that the term had become well-established in North America before this date (more evidence that it was probably in wide circulation in the 1770s). It appears in a poem in the County Magazine of July of that year:
Sad thoughts, adieu! and let me turn my way,
Thro’ the wide plain, and devious thicket stray,
And when by grateful weariness oppress’d,
In yon cool dell, unseen by mortal rest,
Hid from the glaring sun’s descending beams,
And almost musing to the verge of dreams,
While tuneful Thomson and the Mantuan swain,
Exalt the prospect by the rural strain:
And while the bards, before my fancy bring
The Indian summer, and Italian spring,
Rapt let me mark the different climates found,
In TEMPLE’s gardens, and his lawns abound.
Because the OED gives a late date for de Crèvecœur’s essay, the earliest citation in that dictionary is from American Brigadier General Josiah Harmer’s journal for 21 October 1790. Harmer was campaigning in Ohio during the Northwest Indian War and wrote:
Thursday, Octr. 21st—Fine weather—Indian summer. Having completed the destruction of the Maumee Towns (as they are called), we took up our line of march this morning from the ruins of Chillicothy for Ft. Washington. Marched about 8 miles—detached Major Wyllys with 60 Federal & about 300 militia back to where we left this morning, in hopes he may fall in with some of the savages.
This last might seem to lend support for the idea that Indian summer was the optimal period for war, but it reverses the roles, making it the optimal period for warfare against and genocide of the indigenous population.
Sources:
de Crèvecœur, J. Hector St. John. “A Snow Storm as it Affects the American Farmer.” Sketches of Eighteenth Century America: Letters From an American Farmer. New Haven: Yale UP, 1925, 41. HathiTrust Digital Archive.
de Crèvecœur, Michel Guillaume Jean. “Description d’Une Chute de Neige” (17 January 1774?). Lettres d’un Cultivateur Américain, vol. 1.” Paris: Cuchet, 1784, 266. HathiTrust Digital Archive.
Harmer, Josiah. “General Harmar’s Journal” (1790). In Basil Meek. “General Harmar’s Expedition.” Ohio Archeological and Historical Quarterly, 20.1, January 1911, 92–93. HathiTrust Digital Archive.
Oxford English Dictionary, third edition, September 2009, s.v. Indian summer, n.
Penton, John. “Sweet Scenes, That Rich with Various Beauties Poor.” The County Magazine, 7.1, July 1786, 100. HathiTrust Digital Archive.
Tréguer, Pascal. “Origin of ‘Indian Summer’ and French ‘L’ Été Sauvage.’” Wordhistories.net, 21 June 2016.
Photo credit: Werner Kunz, 2 November 2008. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.