buccaneer

1906 engraving of buccaneers under the command of Henry Morgan sacking the town of Puerto del Principe (Camagüey, Cuba) in 1668. Image of men with cannon, muskets, and pikes attacking a defended town, defended by a small, but similarly armed force.

16 September 2021

A buccaneer is a pirate, but the word’s origin is rooted in a method of barbeque (cf. barbecue) used by the Indigenous people of the Caribbean region. A boucan was a grill used for roasting meat and vegetables, and the term buccaneer was first applied to hunters in Hispaniola who killed and smoked wild cattle on boucans. That was a rough lifestyle, and when the term was borrowed into English, the sense became that of a pirate, either because the hunters of Hispaniola had turned to piracy, or that piracy was a similarly rough profession.

Both buccaneer and boucan are borrowings from French: boucanier (a hunter of wild cattle) and boucan (grill for barbequing). The French words, in turn, derive from the Tupi, or another Indigenous Brazilian language, buka (grill for barbequing).

We first see a reference to boucaned meat in an English translation of René Goulaine de Laudonnière’s 1587 history of European exploration of Florida:

They eate all their meate broyled on the coales, and dressed in the smoake, which in their language they call Boucaned. They eate willingly the flesh of ye Crocodil: & in deed it is faire and white: and were it not that it sauoureth too much like muske we would oftentimes haue eaten thereof.

And in 1598 a translation of John Huygen van Linschoten’s account of his voyage to the Americas refers to a boucano as a grill for cooking:

The Brasilians haue twoo sorts of rootes, called Aypi and Maniot, which béeing planted, in three or foure Moneths become a foote and a halfe long, and as bigge as a mans thigh, which beeing taken out of the earth, are by the women dryed by the fire vppon a Boucano.

Linschoten goes on to give a rather grisly description of cannibalism among the Tupi people in which he describes a boucan. The veracity of this, and similar, accounts of Native American cannibalism are a matter of debate among anthropologists, and to the extent the accounts of cannibalism like this one are true, they are probably exaggerated. I have omitted the more disturbing portions of the passage:

In this sort one, two, or thrée prisners, or more, as it falleth out, being slaine and rosted, all the company that are present, assemble about their boucans or girdirons of wood, for that the Indians rost no meate vppon spittes, as some men paynt them to do.

Some sixty years later, we see buccaneer used for one who hunts wild cattle. The description is that of Hispaniola in Edmund Heckeringill’s 1661 Jamaica Viewed:

He can empannell an Army, instead of a Iury to make good the Claime; the which he can hardly levie upon Hispaniola; it being so thinly peopled, that he can scarcely muster five hundred fighting men, (in the whole Island) though he should put forth a general Presse (enforc’d with the strictest Commission of Aray;) except only in the Town of St. Domingo; which is distant above one hundred and fifty miles from the forementioned Mine; and are not able with all their skill and strength to root out a few Buckaneers or Hunting French-men, that follow their Game, in despight of them, though they cannot number three hundred at a general Rendezvouse: and those dispersed at three hundred miles distance from one another, on the North and West sides of the Island.

And a bit later on in Heckeringill’s book:

A thousand English Souldiers being now an over-match to all the power, that the Spaniards in Hispaniola, can bring into the field; unable at this day to ferrit out a new French Buckaneers, or Hunting Marownaes, formerly mentioned; who live by killing the wild Beeves for their Hides; and might grow rich by the Trade, did not their lavish Riotings in expence (at the neighbour—Tortudoes) exceed the hardship of their Incomes. Their comfort is, they can never be broke whilest they have a Dog and a Gun; both which, are more industriously tended then themselves.

The use of buccaneer to refer to pirates comes by 1676, in this account by James Heath of events that took place in 1666, during the second Anglo-Dutch War:

The War continuing between the English and the Dutch, the beginning of this Year brought Intelligence from America, where the Governour of Jamaica resolves to Attaque their American Plantations; and accordingly, by the Assistance of the Buccaneers or Hunters upon Hispaniola, made themselves Masters of Sancta Eastachia, Salia, St. Martins, and Bonaira; and took the Island Tabago by Storm.

And Elisha Coles, in his 1677 dictionary, defines buccaneer thusly:

Buckaneers, the rude rabble in Jamaica.

But the work that cemented the sense of buccaneer as pirate and cemented the word in the English language was the 1684 English translation of Alexandre Exquemelin’s The History of the Bucaniers, originally published in Dutch in 1678 with the title De Americaensche Zee-Rovers:

The American Pirates or Bucaneers, are the Subject of this History; a sort of People who cannot be said to deserve any other Title, as not being maintain'd or upheld in their Actions by any Soveraign Prince. For certain it is, that when the Kings of Spain have complain'd by their Embassadors to the Kings of England and France, of the Molestations and Robberies done upon the Spaniards, both at Land and at Sea, by those Pirates upon the Coasts of I, even in the Calm of Peace, it has been always answer'd, that such persons did not commit those Acts of Hostility and Piracy, as Subjects to their Majesties, and therefore his Catholick Majesty might proceed against them as he should think fit.

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Sources:

Coles, Elisha. An English Dictionary. London: Peter Parker, 1677. Early English Books Online (EEBO).

Exquemelin, Alexandre. The History of the Bucaniers. London: Thomas Malthus, 1684, 1. Early English Books Online (EEBO).

Heath, James. A Chronicle of the Late Intestine War in the Three Kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland, second edition, London, J.C. for Thomas Basset, 1676, 548. Early English Books Online (EEBO).

Heckeringill, Edmund. Jamaica Viewed: With All the Ports, Harbours, and Their Several Soundings, Towns, and Settlements Thereunto Belonging, second edition. London: John Williams, 1661, 33–34, 51–52. Early English Books Online (EEBO).

Laudonnière, René Goulaine de. A Notable Historie Containing Foure Voyages Made by Certayne French Captaynes into Florida. London: Thomas Dawson, 1587, 4r. Early English Books Online (EEBO).

Linschoten, John Huygen van. His Discourse of Voyages into ye Easte and West Indies. London: John Wolfe, 1598, 246, 255. Early English Books Online (EEBO).

Oxford English Dictionary, second edition, 1989, s.v. buccaneer, n., buccaneer, v., buccan, v., buccan | bucan | boucan, n.

Image credit: Unknown artist, 1906. From John Masefield. On the Spanish Main. New York: Macmillan, 1906, 142. Public domain image.

Yosemite

The Yosemite Valley, California. Cathedral rocks are on the right and El Capitan is on the left. A valley filled with trees, a body of water in the foreground, and two massive rock outcroppings to either side.

15 September 2021

While Yosemite is not the first National Park, it is the first land the U.S. federal government set aside for preservation and public use. The Yosemite Grant of 1864, signed into law by Abraham Lincoln, designated the land as a park and turned it over to the state of California for administration. When the National Park Service was created in 1916, Yosemite was transferred to its jurisdiction.

The name Yosemite is from the Southern Sierra Miwak yoşşe’meti (they are killers), a name given to the people of the valley, a group made up of renegades from various Paiute tribes, by outside groups. 

English use of the Indigenous tribal name dates to at least 3 September 1852, when it appears in the Pacific newspaper:

If Lieut. Moore and his company have failed from circumstances over which they had no control, in chastising the Yosemites and inducing them to preserve a peaceable bearing towards the white population, the expedition has been eminently useful in the exploration of a region of the country which has never before been trodden by white men.

The toponym is recorded a year later in the 24 December 1853 issue of the Daily California Chronicle:

The Yosemite Valley and region contiguous are possessed by a tribe of Indians bearing the name. They are savage and mischievous, as many resident in and near the Mariposa, Agua Fria, Bear Valley, and Shirlock’s settlements, can bear testimony, by irritating experience of recent systematic loss and destruction of property, and sometimes of life by the incautious and venturous.

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Sources:

Bright, William. Native American Placenames of the United States. Norman: U of Oklahoma Press, 2004.

Everett-Heath, John. Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Place Names, sixth ed. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2020. Oxfordreference.com.

“Interesting Discoveries.” The Pacific (San Francisco), 3 September 1852, 1. Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.

“Yosemite Falls—1800 Feet High.” Daily California Chronicle, 24 December 1853, 2. Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.

Photo credit: Rainier Marks, 1999. Public domain image.

hypocrisy / hypocrite

A fox, a much-maligned animal, but which is true to its nature and not a hypocrite, as some medieval sources would have it. A red fox standing in the snow.

14 September 2021

Hypocrisy is the assumption of a false appearance, of pretending to be one thing while actually being another, and a hypocrite is one who does so. Both words come into English from Greek via Latin, but their most common usage in those languages was quite different than the English meaning. English adopted a rarer, metaphorical sense of the Greek words that was used in early Biblical translations instead of the more commonly used sense.

The Greek ὑπόκρισις (hypocrisy) is literally a reply or answer, but it was generally used to mean playing a part on stage or an orator’s delivery. It was also used metaphorically by second century BCE historian Polybius and by the second and third century BCE translators of the Septuagint—a Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible—and by the author of the gospel of Matthew, which was originally written in Greek, to mean playing a part, pretense, or hypocrisy in the sense we know it today in English. And ὑποκριτής (hypocrite) meant an interpreter or expounder, an actor or orator, and the translators of the Septuagint used it in the sense of a flatterer.

The Septuagint uses the Greek words in several places. For instance, in Job 34:30 ὑποκριτής (hypocrite) is used to translate the Hebrew אָדָ֥םחָנֵ֗ף (literally flatterer, but which in many present-day translations is rendered as godless). And in its translation of 2 Maccabees, the Septuagint uses ὑπόκρισις (hypocrisy) to translate a Hebrew word that today is often translated as pretense.

In Latin, hypocrita was commonly used to refer to a mime who accompanied an actor’s speech with gestures, but it was also used by Jerome in his Vulgate translation of the Bible.

Hypocrite and hypocrisy are first recorded in English in the text known as either Ancrene Wisse or Ancrene Riwle. The book is a handbook for anchoresses, a type of eremitic (solitary) nun. Anchoresses typically lived in walled enclosures built into church walls, with only a window through which communicate with the outside world. Julian of Norwich (1343–c.1416) is, perhaps, the most famous anchoress. The manuscript is from c.1230, but the text may have been composed a few decades earlier in the late twelfth century. In one passage, hypocrites are likened to foxes, animals commonly depicted as guileful and treacherous:

Vulpes foveas habent et volucres celi nidos. That is, “foxes habbeth hare holen ant briddes of heovene habbeth hare nestes.” The foxes beoth false ancres, ase fox is beast falsest. Theose habbeth, he seith, holen the holieth in-ward eorthe with eorthliche untheawes ant draheth into hare hole al thet ha mahen reopen ant rinnen. Thus beoth gederinde ancres of Godd i the Godspel to voxes i-evenet. Fox ec is a frech beast ant freote-wil mid alle, ant te false ancre draheth into hire hole ant fret, ase fox deth, bathe ges ant hennen. Habbeth efter the vox a simple semblant sum-chearre, ant beoth thah ful of gile. Makieth ham othre then ha beoth, ase vox, the is ypocrite.

(Vulpes foveas habent et volucres celi nidos. That is, “foxes have their holes and birds of heaven have their nests” [Luke 9:58, Matthew 8:20]. The foxes are false anchoresses, as the fox is the falsest beast. These have, he says, holes who burrow into the earth with earthly vices and drag into their hole all that they may steal and seize. Thus, are gathering anchoresses compared to foxes in the Gospel. Also, the fox is an impudent beast and voracious besides, and the false anchoress drags into her hole and devours, as the fox does, both geese and hens. [They] sometimes have, like the fox, an innocent appearance, but are nevertheless full of guile. [They] make themselves other than they are, like the fox, who is a hypocrite.)

And later on in the text, hypocrisy is included in a list of common sins:

Of alle cuthe sunnen, as of prude, of great other of heh heorte, of onde, of wreaththe, of slawthe, of yemeles, of idel word, of untohene thohtes, of sum idel herunge, of sum fals gleadunge, other of hevi murnunge, of ypocresie, of mete, of drunch to muchel other to lutel, of gruchunge, of grim chere, of silences i-brokene, of sitten longe ed thurl, of ures mis i-seide withute yeme of heorte, other in untime, of sum fals word, of sware, of plohe, of i-schake lahtre, of schede cromen other ale, of leote thinges muhelin, rustin other rotien, clathes unseowet, bireinet, unwesschen, breoke nep other disch, other biseo yemelesliche ei thing thet me with feareth other ahte to yemen, of keorfunge, of hurtunge, thurh unbisehenesse—of alle the thinges the beoth i this riwle the beoth misnumene, of alle thulliche thing schrive hire euche wike eanes ed te leaste, for nan se lutel nis of theos thet te deovel naveth enbrevet on his rolle.

(Of all common sins, such as pride, of a haughty or high heart; of envy; of wrath; of sloth; of carelessness; of idle words; of undisciplined thoughts; of some idle listening; of some false gladness, or of heavy mourning, of hypocrisy; of too much or too little meat and drink; of grumbling; of grim looks; of broken silences; of sitting too long at the window; of misspeaking the canonical hours without attention of heart or at the wrong time; of some false words; of swearing; of playing; of shaking laughter; of spilling crumbs or ale; of letting things spoil, rust or rot; clothes unsewn, rained on, unwashed; breaking a cup or dish, or attending carelessly to anything one handles or ought to pay attention to; of cutting, of hurting through inattention—all the things in this rule which are done wrong, of all such things let her confess at least once each week, for none of these is so small that the devil has not recorded in his roll.)

But it is their use in translations of the gospel of Matthew, chapter 23 that cemented the words’ use in English. A Wycliffite translation of the Latin Vulgate Bible, written sometime before 1382, reads:

13 Sothely woo to ȝou, scribis and Pharisees, ypocritis, for ȝe closen the kingdom of heavens before men; sothely ȝe entren nat, ne suffre men entrynge for to entre.
14 Woo to ȝou, scribis and Pharisees, ypocritis, that eten the housis of widues, in longe preier preyinge; for this thing ȝe shulen take the more dom.
15 Woo to ȝou, scribis and Pharisees, ypocritis, that cumpasen the se and the lond, that ȝee maken o proselite, that is, a conuertid to ȝoure ordre; and whanne he shal be maad, ȝe maken hym a sone of helle, double more than ȝou.
[...]
23 Woo to ȝou, scribis and Pharisees, ypocritis, that tithen mente, anete, and comyn, and han lefte tho thingis that ben greuouser, or of more charge, of the law, dom, and mercy, and feith. And these thingis it behofte, or nedide, for to do, and not to leeue hem.
24 Blynde leders, clensynge a gnatte, but swolowynge a camel.
25 Woo to ȝou, scribis and Pharisees, ipocritis, that maken clene that thing of the cuppe and plater, that is the outforth; forsothe with ynne ȝe ben ful of raueyne and vnclennesse.
26 Thou blynd Pharisee, clense first that thing of the cuppe and platter that is with ynneforth, that and that thing that is outenforth be maad clene.
27 Woo to ȝou, scribis and Pharisees, ipocritis, that be lic to sepulcris maad whijt, the whiche with outen forth semen faire to men; sothely with ynne thei ben ful of boonys of dead men, and al filthe.
28 So and ȝee forsothe with outen forth aperen iuste to men; but with ynne ȝee ben ful of ypocrisie and wickidnesse.
29 Woo to ȝou, scribis and Pharisees, ipocritis, that belden sepulcris of prophetis, and maken faire the birielis of iuste men, and seien,
30 Ȝif we hadden ben in the dayes of or fadris, we shulden nat han be here felowes in the blood of prophetis.

(13 Truly, woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you close the kingdom of heaven to men, truly you enter not, nor suffer entry to men who are entering.
14 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, who eat the houses of widows, praying in long prayers, for this thing you should receive the greater judgment.
15 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, that compass the see and the land, so that you make one proselyte, that is, one converted to your order, and he shall be made, you make him a son of hell, twice as much as you.
[...]
23 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, that tithe mint, dill, and cumin, and have left those things that are more grievous, that is of more importance to the law, judgment, and mercy, and faith. And these things it is beneficial, or needful, to do, and not leave them.
24 Blind leaders, purifying a gnat, but swallowing a camel.
25 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, that make clean that part of the cup and platter that is outside, truly within you are full of greed and uncleanliness.
26 You blind Pharisee, clean first that part of the cup and platter that is within, then make clean that part that is outside.
27 Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, that are like whitewashed tombs, which on the outside seem fair to men; truly within they are full of bones of dead men and all kinds of filth.
28 So, and truly you appear righteous to men on the outside, but within you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.
29 Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, that build the tombs of the prophets, and make fair the burials of righteous, and say
30 If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have been fellows in [shedding] the blood of the prophets.)

Note: the verse numbers are later editorial interventions, which I include for ease of reference. Also, verse fourteen is omitted from many present-day Bibles as it is not found in the oldest manuscripts and is widely believed to be a later addition.

So, the English words hypocrite and hypocrisy are based on a rarely used, metaphorical sense of the classical Greek and Roman words because that’s how biblical translators used them.

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Sources:

Hasenfratz, Robert, ed. Ancrene Wisse. TEAMS Middle English Text Series. Kalamazoo, Michigan: Medieval Institute Publications, 2000, lines 3:110–17, 5:488–99. Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 402.

The Holy Bible, Containing the Old and New Testaments, with the Apocryphal Books, in the Earliest English Versions Made from the Latin Vulgate by John Wycliffe and His Followers, vol. 4 of 4. Josiah Forshall and Frederic Madden, eds. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1850, Matthew 23:13–15 and 23–30, 63–64. HathiTrust Digital Archive. Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Douce 369, Part 2.

Lewis, Charlton T. and Charles Short. A Latin Dictionary. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1879, s.v. hypocrites.

Liddell, Henry George and Robert Scott. A Greek-English Lexicon. Revised and augmented by. Henry Stuart Jones and Roderick McKenzie. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1940, s.v. ὑπό-κρι^σις.

Middle English Dictionary, 2019, s.v. ipocrite, n., ipocris(e, n.

Oxford English Dictionary, second edition, 1989, s.v. hypocrite, n., hypocrisy, n.

Image credit: John Akbari, 2021.

California

13 September 2021

Detail of a c.1595 map showing what is now Baja California labeled as California and the territory to its north labeled Nova Albion, the name bestowed upon the region by Francis Drake in 1579.

California is a creation of Spanish, Mexican, and American settler-colonists, and therefore, despite having a significant Indigenous population, there is no Indigenous name that corresponds to the region as we know it today. But the name California does come out of two very different colonial contexts, the Umayyad conquest of the Iberian Peninsula in the eighth century and the literary genre of medieval romance, which looked to the east as a place to be conquered and idolized during the Crusades and through Orientalist fantasies.

The origin of the name California was a mystery for some time until the 1870s, when Edward Everett Hale rediscovered where it came from. The origin is in a literary work, famous in its day, but long since forgotten by most, the Spanish Las Sergas de Esplandián by Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo. It was written sometime before 1505, the year of Montalvo’s death, and published posthumously. It is the fifth book in a series of medieval romances. In the first three volumes Montalvo assembled, organized, and translated a number of traditional Portuguese romances about a knight named Amadis of Gaul. The fourth volume was also about Amadis but was an original work by Montalvo. The fifth book is also original to Montalvo, but features Esplandián, Amadis’s eldest son as the main character.

In this fifth book, California is an island off the coast of Asia populated by Black Amazons and ruled by a queen named Califre:

Sabed que ala diestra mano delas Yndias ouo vna Ysla llamada California mucho llegada ala parte del parayso terrenal la qual sue poblada de mugeres negras sin que algun varon entre ellas ouiesse: qui casi como las amazonas era su estilo de biuir.

Hale translated this passage as:

Know that, on the right hand of the Indies, there is an island called California, very near to the Terrestrial Paradise, which was peopled with black women, without any men among them, because they were accustomed to live after the fashion of Amazons.

Where Montalvo got the name is a matter of speculation, but he likely took it from the Spanish califa (caliph), which is from the Arabic خليفة or khalîf (literally, successor, i.e., to Muhammad). Hence the connection to the Arab conquest of the Iberian Peninsula, and the subject of the book being rife with Orientalist themes.

While popular in its day, the book faded from memory. It is perhaps best remembered as the first book to be burned when Don Quixote’s household destroys his library of medieval romances, believing those to be the cause of his delusions. From Cervantes’s novel:

“No,” said the niece, “there’s no reason to pardon any of them, because they all have been harmful; we ought to toss them out the windows into the courtyard, and make a pile of them and set them on fire; or better yet, take them to the corral and light the fire there, where the smoke won’t bother anybody.”

The housekeeper agreed, so great was the desire of the two women to see the death of those innocents; but the priest was not in favor of doing that without even reading the titles first. And the first one that Master Nicolás handed him was The Four Books of Amadís of Gaul, and the priest said:

“This one seems to be a mystery, because I have heard that this was the first book of chivalry printed in Spain, and all the rest found their origin and inspiration here, so it seems to me that as the proponent of the doctrine of so harmful a sect, we should, without any excuses, condemn it to the flames.”

“No, Señor,” said the barber, “for I’ve also heard that it is the best of all the of this kind ever written, and as a unique example of the art, it should be pardoned.”

“That’s true,” said the priest, “and so we’ll spare its life for now. Let’s see the one next to it.”

“It is,” said the barber, “the Exploits of Esplandián, who was the legitimate son of Amadís of Gaul.”

“In truth,” said the priest, “the mercy shown the father will not help the son. Take it, Señora Housekeeper, open the window, throw it into the corral, and let it be the beginning of the pile that will fuel the fire we shall set.”

The housekeeper was very happy to do as he asked, and the good Esplandián went flying into the corral, waiting with all the patience in the world for the fire that threatened him.

As to the non-fictional California, the name was allegedly bestowed on the “island” we know call Baja California (actually a peninsula) by Hernán Cortés, although Cortés never visited the territory and documentation for his naming it is lacking. The first European to actually visit what is now Baja California was Francisco de Ulloa in 1539, who also determined it was a peninsula and not an island. A few years later in 1542, Juan Cabrillo mapped the coast of Alto California, the present-day U.S. state. Francis Drake explored the coastline further in 1579, naming it Nova Albion (New England); that name did not stick.

The name California starts appearing in English writing by 1587. From a translation of René Goulaine de Laudonnière’s A Notable Historie Containing Foure Voyages:

Now if the greatnes of the maine of Virginea, and the large extension thereof, especially to the West, should make you thinke that the subduing of it, were a matter of more difficultie then the conquest of Irelande, first I answere, that, as the fresh experience of that happie and singuler skilfull pilotte and Captaine M. Iohn Dauis to the northwest (towarde which his discouerie your selfe haue thrise contributed with the forwardest) hath shewed a great part to bee maine Sea, where before was thought to bee mayne lande, so for my part I am fully perswaded by Orielius late reformation of Culuacan and the gulfe of California that the land on the backe part of Virginea extendeth nothing so farre westward as is put downe in the mappes of those partes.

Both Alto and Baja California passed from Spain to Mexico in 1821, and the United States acquired Alto California (i.e., the present-day states of California, Nevada, and Utah, as well as parts of Arizona, Wyoming, Colorado, and New Mexico) in 1848 as a result of the Mexican-American War. What is now the state of California was admitted to the Union in 1850 following the discovery of gold there in 1848.

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Sources:

Cervantes, Miguel, de. Don Quixote. Edith Grossman, trans. New York: HarperCollins, 2003, First Part, Chapter 6, 46.

Everett-Heath, John. Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Place Names, sixth ed. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2020. Oxfordreference.com.

Hale, Edward Everett. “The Queen of California.” His Level Best, and Other Stories. Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1872, 238. Google Books.

Laudonnière, René Goulaine de. A Notable Historie Containing Foure Voyages Made by Certayne French Captaynes vnto Florida. London: Thomas Dawson, 1587, 7. Early English Books Online (EEBO).

Montalvo, Garci Rodriguez de. Las Sergas de Esplandian. 1526. Chapter 157, fol. 108v. Google Books.

Image credit: Hondius, Jodocus. Vera Totius Expeditionis Nauticae: Descriptio D. Franc. Draci, c.1595. Library of Congress. Public domain image.

Yankee

8 September 2021

[Updated 11 September 2021. Added reference to the 1728 letter about Jonathan “Yankey” Hastings and the 1767 antedating of the song Yankee Doodle.]

Cartoon titled, British Valour and Yankee Boasting or, Shannon vs. Chesapeake. The cartoon depicts the capture of the USS Chesapeake by the HMS Shannon in Boston Harbor on 1 June 1813. It shows a British boarding party routing and throwing overboard the crew of the Chesapeake, depicted as hapless and cowardly, while ashore in Boston a dinner party awaits the return of the crew who are not coming.

A Yankee is an American, or more specifically an American from one of the northern states, or even more specifically, a New Englander. The origin of Yankee is uncertain, but the most plausible explanation is that it is a variation on Janke, a diminutive of the Dutch Jan (John). Presumably, the name was reasonably common among Dutch settlers in the Hudson River valley, and from there became attached to anyone from that part of North America. The evidence for this hypothesis is fascinating in its own right, but it is a bit thin, hence the label of plausible. What is clear, is that the epithet Yankee was in common use by the 1760s.

Yankey, variously spelled, was used as a nickname and perhaps as a surname. For instance, there was a pirate/privateer who went by that name, his real name being perhaps Jan Willems (John Williams). William Dampier, in his A New Voyage Round the World, refers to him while relating events that occurred in 1681:

Capt. Yankes a Barco-longo 4 Guns, about 60 Men, English, Dutch, and French; himself a Dutchman.

(Barco-longo is a type of small, fishing boat. Barcalounger is a brand of reclining chair. It’s amusing to think of a pirate in a Barcalounger, but alas, that’s not the case here.)

And Dampier further says of him:

At the Rio Grande Captain Wright demanded the Prize as his due by virtue of his Commission: Captain Yanky said it was his due by the Law of Privateers. Indeed Captain Wright had the most right to her, having by his Commission protected Captain Yanky from the French, who would have turned him out because he had no Commission; and he likewise began to engage her first But the Company were all afraid that Captain Wright would presently carry her into a Port; therefore most of Captain Wright's Men stuck to Captain Yanky, and Captain Wright losing his Prize, burned his own Bark, and had Captain Yankys's, it being bigger than his own; the Tartan was sold to a Jamaica Trader, and Captain Yanky commanded the Prize Ship.

The pirate Yankey is also mentioned in a series of British government dispatches in the 1680s, sometimes as a pirate, when he was attacking British ships, and sometimes as a privateer, when he was going after the Spanish. One such is a dispatch from Jamaica dated 26 July 1683:

The other pirates, however, made them unite; and so about the middle of May (as I judge) they sailed from Bonaco, a little island in the Bay of Honduras, with seven or eight ships, five or six barques, and twelve hundred men; chief commanders, Vanhorn, Laurens, and Yankey Duch—no English, except one Spurre, and Jacob Hall in a small brig from Carolina. With this force (having hardly agreed who should command in chief) they came, at the latter end of May, on the coast of Vera Cruz, and then put eight hundred men into Yankey's and another ship. These approached the coast, and, by a mistake as fatal as that of Honduras, were taken by the Spaniards ashore for two of the flota. They lit fires to pilot them in without sending to find out who they were, and thus the pirates landed in the night but two miles from the town. By daybreak they came into it, took two forts of twelve and sixteen guns, finding soldiers and sentinels asleep, and all the people in the houses as quiet and still as if in their graves. They wakened them by breaking open their doors, and then a few gentlemen appeared with swords but immediately fled. So the pirates had the quiet possession and plundering of churches, houses and convents for three days, and not finding gold and silver enough they threatened to burn the great church and all the prisoners, who were six thousand in number.

And an order for his arrest was issued on 23 November 1684:

Instructions from Colonel Hender Molesworth to Captain Mitchell, RN, H.M.S. Ruby. You will forthwith sail to Petit Guavos and deliver my letter to the Governor, demanding satisfaction for a sloop of this island unlawfully seized by Captain Yankey. If the Governor justifies Yankey, you will protest against the injustice of the proceedings. If he seems to admit the illegality of the proceedings of the privateers you will consider Yankey as a pirate and tell the Governor that you will treat him as such. But if he lay the blame on the Intendant of Martinique we must carry our complaint elsewhere. If you meet with Yankey on your way you will endeavour to seize him and carry him with you to Petit Guavos. If the Governor justifies him you will deliver Yankey to him; if not, you will bring Yankey here for trial. You will demand delivery of all English subjects engaged in privateering, but not compel it by force.

A dispatch from the Duke of Albemarle to the Earl of Dartmouth, from Jamaica of 8 March 1687/68 tells of Yankey and another pirate attacking a Spanish town:

Yesterday had news that the pirates Yanky and Jacobs had with 84 men fallen upon the storehouses in the bottom of the Bay of Honduras, and that three Spanish men of war came and blocked them up, and landed what men they could to join with the country, who made up the number of 700 men, and raised three breast works, which works were attacked by the pirates and by them taken, killing a great number on the spot and routing the rest, they losing only nine men, and Yanky wounded. The pirates are now in the Bay of Honduras recruiting, intending to fall upon the Spanish ships, one Jones, another pirate, having a ship of force, being joined with them.

And a dispatch from later that year, on 24 October 1687, mentioned him again:

Lieutenant Governor Molesworth to William Blathwayt. Yankey and Jacob could not digest my conditions that their vessels should be broken up, though the majority of his people were for it.

And that dispatch contained an enclosure that identified Yankey by his real, presumably Anglicized, name. It’s not clear whether the parenthetical names are in the original or if they were added for clarity by the editor when the papers were published in the nineteenth century:

Captains John Williams (Yankey) and Jacob Everson (Jacob) to Lieutenant Governor Molesworth. We have suffered much from calms and storms, and have only arrived after much distress off Point Negril. We beg you to consider that if our ships are broken up we shall be left destitute of all livelihood in present and future, and to allow us the use of them. We have neither of us money to purchase an estate ashore. I shall work into Bluefields and thence to Port Royal, but we are deserted by most of our men, and have none but raw hands left, so are afraid to stand close inshore for land winds. Signed, John Williams, Jacob Everson.

There is also a record from 1725 of an enslaved, Black man named Yankee:

YANKEE.—The inventory of the effects of William Marr, formerly of Morpeth, and afterwards “of Carolina, in parts beyond the seas, but in the parish of St. Dunstan, Stepney” (1725), ends with “Item one negroe man named Yankee to be sold.” Mr. W. Woodman, of Morpeth, has the document.

A few years later, we have mention of a Massachusetts farmer, Jonathan Hastings, who is nicknamed Yankey. It’s in a letter from 27 September 1728. Unfortunately, the letter, if it survives, is buried in an unknown archive somewhere, but we do have a 1795 attestation in Massachusetts Magazine to its contents:

One of these letters, dated “Cambridge. Sept. 27, 1728,” the editor has before him. It is a most humourous narrative of the fate of a goose roasted at “Yankey Hastings’s” and it concluds [sic] with a poem on the occasion, in the mock heroic.

So, in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, Yankee was used as a name or nickname for several individuals.

And the novel The Life and Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves, serialized in the British Magazine in 1760 uses yanky in the sense of a Dutch ship or boat:

Haul forward thy chair again, take thy berth, and proceed with they story in a direct course, without yawing like a Dutch yanky.

But the earliest attestation of Yankee as a generic term for an American comes two years earlier in a letter of 19 June 1758 by Major General James Wolfe to his commander, Field Marshal Jeffrey Amherst during the French and Indian (Seven Years’) War:

My posts are now so fortified that I can afford you the two companies of Yankees, and the more as they are better for ranging and scouting than either work or vigilance.

We see it again in 1765 in Oppression. A Poem by an American. With Notes by a North Briton:

From meanness first, this Portsmouth Yankey rose,
And still to meanness, all his conduct flows.

The note to these lines reads:

“Portsmouth Yankey,” It seems, our hero being a New-Englander by birth, has a right to the epithet of Yankey; a name of derision, I have been informed, given by the Southern people on the Continent, to those of New-England: what meaning there is in the word, I never could learn.

The first known mention of the song Yankee Doodle comes in a 1767 musical play, The Disappointment, by Andrew Barton. The lyrics are not those familiar to us today, but it’s clear that by this date the song was well known. Musical plays of this period featured popular songs of the day, as opposed to tunes composed for the plays, and this one is no different:

Raccoon sings.
AIR IV Yankee Doodle.
O! how joyful shall I be,
   When I get de money,
I will bring it all to dee;
   O! my diddling honey.
(Exit, singing they chorus, yankee doodle, &c.[)]

And the next year we get another mention of the song, showing that by this point the name was quite common indeed. From a news article about the arrival of a British fleet in Boston, Massachusetts on 29 September 1768:

The fleet was brought to anchor near Castle-William; that evening there was throwing of skyrockets, &c. and those passing boats observed great rejoicings, and that the yanky dudle song was the capital piece in their band of music.

There is a story that Yankee Doodle was composed by a British army surgeon in 1755, but while the story is oft-repeated, sometimes credulously in otherwise reputable sources, there is no evidence to support it.

(I’m not going to delve further into the history of the song, but if you want more, see Oscar Sonneck’s 1909 report on it for the Library of Congress. The source is old, and there may be further evidence that has come to light since, but it’s superbly researched.)

A number of other etymologies for Yankee have been proffered over the years, none with any good evidence, but which also cannot be conclusively disproven. One of these explanations is that of Moravian missionary John Heckewelder, who claimed Yankee came from Yengees, as that is how certain Indigenous peoples pronounced English:

In New England, they at first endeavoured to imitate the sound of the national name of the English, which they pronounced Yengees.

And:

These were the names which the Indians gave to the whites, until the middle of the Revolutionary war, when they were reduced to the following three:

1. Mechanschican or Chanschican (long knives). This they no longer applied to the Virginians exclusively, but also to those of the people of the middle states, whom they considered as hostilely inclined towards them, particularly those who wore swords, dirks, or knives at their sides.

2. Yengees. This name they now exclusively applied to the people of New England, who, indeed, appeared to have adopted it, and were, as they still are, generally through the country called Yankees, which is evidently the same name with a trifling alteration. They say they know the Yengees, and can distinguish them by their dress and personal appearance, and that they were considered as less cruel than the Virginians or long knives. The proper English they [i.e., “the Chippeways and some other nations”] call Saggenash.

3. Quaekels. They do not now apply this name exclusively to the members of the Society of Friends, but to all the white people whom they love or respect, and whom they believe to have good intentions towards them.

Of course, the Indigenous Yengees could have come from Yankee/Janke just as easily as from the word English.

Another explanation, this one unlikely, is that Yankee comes from the Cherokee eankke, meaning slave or coward. This one was proffered by Thomas Anburey, a British officer during the American Revolution, in 1777:

The lower class of these Yankees—a propos, it may not be amiss here just to observe to you the etymology of this term: it is derived from a Cherokee word, eankke, which signifies coward and slave. This epithet of yankee was bestowed upon the inhabitants of New England by the Virginians, for not assisting them in a war with the Cherokees, and they have always been held in derision by it.

Presumably the said war was the Anglo-Cherokee War of 1758–61, but if so, it does not square with Wolfe’s casual use of the epithet in 1758. So, this last one seems highly unlikely.

That leaves us with the Dutch Janke as the most likely, and the most colorful, explanation for the origin of Yankee.

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Discuss this post

Sources:

Anburey, Thomas. “Letter 46, 25 November 1777.” Travels Through the Interior Parts of America, vol. 2. London: William Lane, 1789, 50. HathiTrust Digital Archive.

Barton, Andrew. The Disappointment: or, the Force of Credulity. New York: 1767 22. Gale Primary Sources: Sabin Americana.

“Certificate Respecting the Rev. John Seccombe.” Massachusetts Magazine, 7.5, August 1795, 301–02. Gale Primary Sources: American Historical Periodicals.

Dampier, William. A New Voyage Round the World. London: James Knapton, 1697, 26, 45. Early English Books Online (EEBO),

Fortescue, J.W., ed. Calendar of State Papers, Colonial Series, America and West Indies, 1681–1685. London: Her Majesty’s Stationary Office, 1898, 457, 733. HathiTrust Digital Archive.

———. Calendar of State Papers, Colonial Series, America and West Indies, 1685–1688. London: Her Majesty’s Stationary Office, 1899, 456. HathiTrust Digital Archive.

Heckewelder, John. An Account of the History, Manners, and Customs of the Indian Nations. Philadelphia: Abraham Small, 1819, 142–44. HathiTrust Digital Archive.

The Life and Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves, chapter 3.  The British Magazine, March 1760, 125. Gale Primary Sources: American Historical Periodicals from the American Antiquarian Society.

Manuscripts of the Earl of Dartmouth. Historical Manuscripts Commission, eleventh report, appendix, part 5. London: Her Majesty’s Stationary Office, 1887, 136. HathiTrust Digital Archive.

Oppression. A Poem by an American. With Notes by a North Briton. London: C. Moran, 1765, 17. Gale Primary Sources: Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO).

Oxford English Dictionary, second edition, 1989, s.v. Yankee, n. and adj., yanky, n., Yengees, n., Yankee Doodle, n.

The Repository: or, Half-Yearly Register. Containing Whatever is Remarkable in the History, Politics, Literature and Amusements, of the Year 1768. London: T. Becket, et al. 1769, 36. Gale Primary Sources: Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO).

Sonneck, Oscar George Theodore. Report on “The Star-Spangled Banner,” “Hail Columbia,” “America,” “Yankee Doodle.” Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1909. HathiTrust Digital Archive.

Wolfe, James. Letter, 19 June 1758. In Willson, Beckles. The Life and Letters of James Wolfe. London: William Heinemann, 1909. 376. HathiTrust Digital Archive.

“Yankee.” Notes and Queries, s5-X.259, 14 December 1878, 467.

Image credit: George Cruikshank, 1813. Library of Congress. Public domain image.