'@Karen'
Just following up a little more, this conversation got me looking around more. I started looking into individual town histories along the NY/CT border. And sure enough Greenwich (the last town in CT before NY, in that little tail we have), was even there settled by Puritans and not the Dutch.....THOUGH the Dutch got angry and yelled at them about it being their territory. And a situation got worked out where those New English settlers lived under Dutch jurisdiction, but eventually there were simply too many New English settlers pouring into Proto-CT from the east. And the Dutch couldn't really do anything about the land they claimed.
There was even a treaty made to address it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Hartford#1650_treaty
The Dutch got dunked on bad. Lost a whole lotta land they claimed.
Two things are clear from this.
1. It goes to show what a divide (in terms of settlement and as oppositional societies) there was between the Dutch and New Englanders. A slur sliding casually between the two groups just seems bizarre because of this.
2. But at the same time, the idea that "Yankee" as a slur....came about because of the Dutch throwing it at the New Englanders? Wellllll, lets just say its pretty clear the Dutch wouldn't have been big fans of New England!
If the latter is true I wonder how it worked out. Did New Englanders know it was an insult and co-opted it? Or did they not know what it meant and it benignly worm its way into being a harmless nickname partly out of ignorance?
The funny thing about this is, is it's sometimes said Connecticut is the most specifically Yankee state. Even if we're probably the least New Englandish nowadays of the six....but hey if we were where New England and New Netherland were having slap fights and getting called names? I guess we really are the Yankees lol.
Also we need a better demonym than the one we have....of which I am literally too embarrassed to tell you....
0
'@Karen'
Just following up a little more, this conversation got me looking around more. I started looking into individual town histories along the NY/CT border. And sure enough Greenwich (the last town in CT before NY, in that little tail we have), was even there settled by Puritans and not the Dutch.....THOUGH the Dutch got angry and yelled at them about it being their territory. And a situation got worked out where those New English settlers lived under Dutch jurisdiction, but eventually there were simply too many New English settlers pouring into Proto-CT from the east. And the Dutch couldn't really do anything about the land they claimed.
There was even a treaty made to address it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Hartford#1650_treaty
The Dutch got dunked on bad. Lost a whole lotta land they claimed.
Two things are clear from this.
1. It goes to show what a divide (in terms of settlement and as oppositional societies) there was between the Dutch and New Englanders. A slur sliding casually between the two groups just seems bizarre because of this.
2. But at the same time, the idea that "Yankee" as a slur....came about because of the Dutch throwing it at the New Englanders? Wellllll, lets just say its pretty clear the Dutch wouldn't have been big fans of New England!
If the latter is true I wonder how it worked out. Did New Englanders know it was an insult and co-opted it? Or did they not know what it meant and it benignly worm its way into being a harmless nickname partly out of ignorance?
The funny thing about this is, is it's sometimes said Connecticut is the most specifically Yankee state. Even if we're probably the least New Englandish nowadays of the six....but hey if we were where New England and New Netherland were having slap fights and getting called names? I guess we really are the Yankees lol.
Also we need a better demonym than the one we have....of which I am literally too embarrassed to tell you....