# Circa when did the word Indian came be used for native populations ?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/circa-when-did-the-word-indian-came-be-used-for-native-populations/793260>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [August 10, 2017, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/circa-when-did-the-word-indian-came-be-used-for-native-populations/793260 "2017-08-10T14:59:00Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
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**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\
**Post date:** [August 11, 2017, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/circa-when-did-the-word-indian-came-be-used-for-native-populations/793260/41 "2017-08-11T19:16:00Z")

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And one more thing. There was no demonym in the Americas prior to Columbus that meant “Native American”. Over in Europe, people had words to describe people from Europe, Europeans, or Christians, or Westerners. That was because they knew there were other regions of the world out there where people were different. There was Africa, and Asia (understood as everything east of the Bosporus), and India, and China.

But there was no such understanding in the Americas in pre-Columbian times. They would think of themselves as their particular ethnic group or nation or tribe or family. It wasn’t until much later that Native Americans had the need to describe “Native people from the Americas as opposed to Europeans and Africans”, and when they did they mostly just used the term “Indian”.

For an example the other way, all over Asia it’s very common for the local word for “European” to be some variation on “Farang” or “Frank”. If a white guy tried to explain to a Thai shopkeeper that he’s not French, he’s Irish, the shopkeeper would be confused. And that’s because although the origin of the word “Farang” means “Frank”, that’s not what the word means in Thailand today, it means “White Person”. But at least the Franks really were European.

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**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\
**Post date:** [August 11, 2017, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/circa-when-did-the-word-indian-came-be-used-for-native-populations/793260/42 "2017-08-11T21:21:12Z")

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> [@Sangahyando](#):
>
> Fairly trivial and peripheral; but I recall reading, quite a long time ago, a novel about Britain’s first tentatively beginning to settle in Australia, 200+ years ago. Novel – by Thomas Kenneally?? – struck me as solid and well-researched and likely accurate, not phoned-in trash: it had the Brits referring to their local Aborigines, as “Indians”.
> 
> This could, of course, have been the author’s giving his imagination a bit of play; and even if it was historically accurate for the time, it would plainly have been a term which did not last long in those parts.

From the [Online Etymology Dictionary.](http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=Indian)

> [@](#):
>
> [Indian] was also used occasionally 18c.-19c. of inhabitants of the Philippines and indigenous peoples of Australia and New Zealand.

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