History Questions Not Worth Their Own Thread VI

[madviking]

chicago is a pretty boring example of a native american placename

in virgina we got rappahannock, tappahannock, potomac, rapidan, massanutten, and, my favorite, chopawamsic.

 

[sophie]

California has:

Shasta, Yosemite, Tuolumne, Tehachapi, Milpitas, Malibu, Cucamonga, and Nippiniwassee

 

[Traitorfish]

Plus there's like half the states.

 

[Joecoolyo]

Plus there's like half the states.

Yeah I was just going to say. If you want Native American names, just look at the states.

Illinois, Iowa, Mississippi, Michigan, Ohio, etc. etc.

 

[GamezRule]

Idaho was supposed to be named after a Native American name, but it ended up being a made up word instead.

 

[ParkCungHee]

California has:

Shasta, Yosemite, Tuolumne, Tehachapi, Milpitas, Malibu, Cucamonga, and Nippiniwassee

Wantagh, Montauk, Massepequa, Mineola, Manhasset, and Patchogue over here.

 

[Antilogic]

America also has a lot of cities with Classical or Biblical names, like Memphis or Salem, as well as some pseudo-Classical names, like Philadelphia and Minneapolis. I've heard it told that you can trace the rise and fall of religious sentiment in North America through alternating bands of Greco-Roman and Hebrew place-names, although I suspect that might be nonsense.

I wouldn't be surprised if this were true, but I have not seen anything to support it.



Don't forget the goodies of Massachusetts, which are too numerous to list. Some of the particularly interesting/unpronounceable ones are: Lake Chaubunagungamaug (often called Webster Lake) and the islands of Chappaquiddick and Nantucket.

 

[gay_Aleks]

Are there any cities in America with African roots in their names?

 

[Phrossack]

Are there any cities in America with African roots in their names?

Cairo (pronounced K-row), Illinois.

Utica, New York.

Carthage, Missouri.

Tripoli, Iowa.

Also, this may have a few place names tucked in it, like Malaga Island.

 

[Domen]

Thanks, very interesting posts on Native American names.

Etymology and age of various names in Europe are also interesting issues. The oldest names usually apply to large things - major rivers, major mountains, etc. For example Vistula River - it is believed that this name is of Non-Indo-European origin, which means that it must be many thousand years old.

Name of the Oder River is also classified by some as Pre-Indo-European, though in this case each scholar has a different opinion.

Don, Donets, Dnieper and Dniester are believed to be names with etymology from Iranian languages.

Danube has Celtic etymology, while alternative name of this river - Ister / Istr - was a name of Thracian origin.

Smaller, regional rivers usually have much younger names. Often their names were completely changing even during recorded history.

For example at some point after the border changes of 1815, River Prądnik started to be called Białucha by inhabitants of Cracow.

 

[Flying Pig]

I always thought the River Avon in England was an interesting one - Afon is Welsh for 'river', so it's the 'River River'.

 

[ParkCungHee]

And I thought it was bad when a documentary I was transcribing talked about the "Waid Bas Valley."

 

[Phrossack]

The La Brea Tar Pits might just hold the record for the most redundant place name.

 

[MilesGregarius]

Mekong River actually means Kong River River.

 

[Ashurdan]

Why didn't more British colonies join in the american revolution? Did they not have the same taxes, were they not as integrated with the 13?

 

[Cutlass]

The Canadian colonies had only been part of the British empire for a few decades at that time. They hadn't grown up and grown apart from Britain like the American colonies had. And the people had little in common with the people in the areas that would become the US. The British

 

[Tee Kay]

Why didn't more British colonies join in the american revolution? Did they not have the same taxes, were they not as integrated with the 13?

Basically we're talking about Canada here, which was still mostly French-speaking and Catholic at the time, and in whose interests the British recently passed a law that was one of the main reasons for the Thirteen to rebel, so it's not surprising that support for the Patriots was thinner on the ground. (Keep in mind that a fair proportion of the population in the Thirteen were either Loyalist or Neutral, so perhaps the more puzzling question is why so many colonies were successful in rebelling in the first place)

 

[Louis XXIV]

Yeah, the French provinces had done decently well after being under British rule while they had reasons to distrust the colonies below them. One of the things the British did was grant Catholics religious freedom. In the colonies, this was known as one of the "Intolerable Acts."

 

[Tee Kay]

Being taxed without representation was one thing, but giving equal rights to Papists is the last straw!

(Of course, the USA ended up guaranteeing freedom of religion. The alliance with the French during the Revolution might have had something to do with that.)

 

[say1988]

Why didn't more British colonies join in the american revolution? Did they not have the same taxes, were they not as integrated with the 13?

There were four northern colonies colonies: Newfoundland, Prince Edward Island Nova Scotia, and Canada (at the time Southern Quebec, Southern Ontario only had a few settlements around military posts prior to the immigration of Loyalists).

Newfoundland, was sparsely populated and did not have any incentive to join the US. Its ties were far closer to Britain than the rebellious colonies.

PEI was in a similar position to Newfoundland being quite small and surrounded by British colonies as well as facing many of the same demographics of Nova Scotia with recent British immigration.

Canada was primarily French speaking and the British authorities had gone to great lengths to keep them happy specifically for this purpose. That said, the people were relatively receptive of the Americans to start with (indifferent may be the better term), but a combnination of anti-French and anti-Catholic sentiment with heavy handed governance of occupied territories pushed most of the people back to the British.

Nova Scotia (at the time also including New Brunswick) was the prime candidate for the 14th colony. It was well developed, had close ties with Massachusetts (having been a part of Massachusetts in the early 18th century) and other colonies to the south. A significant number of people from other colonies moved to Nova Scotia during and after the various wars. However, at the same time there had been large scale Scottish immigration immediately prior to the revolution, a significant population of soldiers during the wars also ended up in Nova Scotia. Also important were that the British had a very strong military presence in Halifax and a significant number of loyalists migrated to Nova Scotia. There were a number of armed uprisings attemptinmg to join the larger revolution but the failed.

In addition, although there was an agreement to invite Quebec, Nova Scotial and PEI to the Continental Congress, only Quebec was invited and chose not to send a representative.

As for why the southern colonies (the Floridas and Caribbean islands) did not join, the Floridas would have been in a similar boat to Newfoundland and the Caribbean islands would primarily have consisted of slaves and plantation owners who had maintained their ties to Britain rather than establishing strong local societies.