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YANKEE

YANKEE, derived from the disparaging Dutch name Jan Kees (John Cheese) for New England Puritans in the 1660s, became a colloquial name for all New Englanders. Popularized by the British army march, "Yankee Doodle" (1750), it was adopted proudly by the Connecticut militia, and appeared in Royal Tyler's play The Contrast (1787), Seba Smith's Major Jack Dowling satires (1829), and James Russell Lowell's Biglow Papers (1848).

Southerners referred to Union soldiers as Yankees during the Civil War, but in World War I all American soldiers were dubbed Yankees. As an ethnic group, the Yankee descends from the Congregational British settlers of colonial New England, noted for their ingenuity and flinty character.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Haywood, Charles Fry. Yankee Dictionary: A Compendium of Useful and Entertaining Expressions Indigenous to New England. Lynn, Mass.: Jackson and Phillips, 1963.

Peter C. Holloran

See also New England Colonies; Puritans and Puritanism; Theocracy in New England.