Editing Yankee (section)

===New England use===
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British General [[James Wolfe]] made the earliest recorded use of the word "Yankee" in 1758 when he referred to the New England soldiers under his command. "I can afford you two companies of Yankees, and the more, because they are better for ranging and scouting than either work or vigilance".<ref name="Mathews">Mathews (1951) p 1896</ref> Later British use of the word was in a derogatory manner, as seen in a cartoon published in 1775 ridiculing "Yankee" soldiers.<ref name="Mathews" /> New Englanders themselves employed the word in a neutral sense; the "[[Pennamite–Yankee War]]", for example, was a series of clashes in 1769 over land titles in Pennsylvania between settlers from [[Connecticut Colony]] and "Pennamite" settlers from [[History of Pennsylvania|Pennsylvania]].

The meaning of ''Yankee'' has varied over time. In the 18th century, it referred to residents of New England descended from the original English settlers of the region. [[Mark Twain]] used the word in this sense the following century in his 1889 novel ''[[A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court]]''. As early as the 1770s, British people applied the term to any person from the United States. In the 19th century, Americans in the southern United States employed the word in reference to Americans from the northern United States, though not to recent immigrants from Europe. Thus, a visitor to [[Richmond, Virginia]], commented in 1818, "The enterprising people are mostly strangers; Scots, Irish, and especially New England men, or Yankees, as they are called".<ref>See Mathews, (1951) pp. 1896–98 and [http://dictionary.oed.com/cgi/entry/50288716 ''Oxford English Dictionary'', quoting M. Birkbeck]</ref>

Historically, it has also been used to distinguish American-born Protestants from later immigrants, such as Catholics of Irish descent.<ref name="tager">{{cite book|first1=Jack|last1=Tager|title=Boston Riots: Three Centuries of Social Violence|url=https://archive.org/details/bostonriotsthree00tage|url-access=registration|publisher=Northeastern University Press|date=2001|isbn=1555534600|pages=[https://archive.org/details/bostonriotsthree00tage/page/107 107], 120-22}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Harkins |first1=Edward Francis |title=The Schemers: A Tale of Modern Life |date=1903 |publisher=L.C. Page & Company |page=243 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EutEAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA243}}</ref>