I have grown up in the age in which the prevailing historical presumption is: dead white European men could do no right. They kept slaves, they raped the environment, they suppressed women’s rights, they oppressed the working man (oops, …persons), and on and on and on. Like most people, I suppose, I accept large parts this p.c. view, but reject others.
One of the biggest planks of the p.c. platform is, of course, that TheWhiteMan had-no-respect-for/hated/screwed the Native Americans. I don’t doubt this is very true, but one thing puzzles me which – I don’t think – jibes with that picture: why do SO MANY current American place-names have Indian language names/roots?
I mean, isn’t the first thing you do when you found/settle/conquer a place is call it what YOU want to call it, say “Whitemenwhoknowbestland” – and NOT “Massachusetts”? I mean, even if you have absolutely no intention of slaughtering the local natives, there’s still no reason for you to adopt their wacky tongue-twisting place-names. Yet, they’re all over the map.
I don’t doubt that zillions of Indian place-names got obliterated by indifferent white settlers; I’m just amazed that so many were adopted and immortalized.
So, why were the white guys in the Mapmaking Dept. so magnanimous?
This is just a WAG, but it’s quite possible that, since the first white people to set foot on the Americas didn’t realize the scope of the land they were on, they went about dividing the land up between themselves and the natives.
While this might sound magnanimous on their part, keep in mind that they hauled off and did this with land that didn’t belong to them in the first place; sorta like an older sibling “sharing” his younger brother’s candy.
Seems to me that the Europeans said, “OK, we’ll take this hunk of land right here and call it Boston, right? You can have, oh, that land over there and since you’re already calling it Miskatonic, well, we’ll write it down, is that spelled with a ‘K’ or a ‘C’?”
Then, of course, when more Europeans came over and manifest destiny was burgeoning, they said, “Remember what we said about Miskatonic? We’re sort of envisioning a shopping plaza there.” But they never changed the name, since they were used to calling it by the native name, and Hagstrom’s had already printed up its third run of maps.
It is my impression (OK, WAG, based on some knowledge of place-names in Iowa) that the places were generally named after the Ind-- um, Native Americans who co-operated with the Europeans. (If you have a political tomahawk to grind, you would say “who sold out”.)
So it is very logical that the Europeans would give place-names in honour of “friendly” natives.
Probably a lot of reasons. Some of the native place names were kept as convenience. Settlers would ask “What’s the name of that mountain?” and the natives would say “Manadnock” or something. Instead of coming up with a new name, the settlers just used what was available.
Also, they might name a place for a settlement of Indians. Thus, the home of the Peconic tribe might be called Peconic for them, and kept the name when they were kicked off.
Other times, it was a mark of respect for the natives.
Actually, the natives were just as guilty of these things as the whites. Unfortunately, both groups were made up of human beings. The whites only prevailed because they had better weapons; if Pocahontas had a tommy gun, it would be PC to feel pity for the poor white settlers.
Let’s not forget the plight of the poor settlers. Suddenly the go from a place in which everything had been named for 5000 years to having a WHOLE DANG continent of places to name! Sure…like the rest of us I’d name one place “Jonathan Chance Mountain” (Otisburg? OTISBURG!!! It’s just a little place Mistuh Luther!) or something but after that. I can hear it now…
“Well, that’s JC mountain there. What’s left?”
“Some more mountains, some rivers, let’s not forget the colony itself…”
“Hmm…how many are we talking about, here?”
“All together we’re gonna need…hmm…10 kajillion names.”
“D’oh! What do the natives call this place?”
“Massachusetts”
“Stop clowning around. Tell me.”
“No really. Massachusetts. God’s honest truth.”
“OK, let’s run with it. We’ll figure out how to pronounce it sooner or later.”
And thus native american place names are everywhere. TOO TOO MUCH TO NAME!
Given the amount of time my wife and I took to come up with a name for our baby girl (good thing she was late) we’re lucky the colonists didn’t just start numbering things. Instead of my beloved Virginia I could be living in Colony #9.
Why did the chicken cross the road? The road, you see, is the black man, and the chicken the white. The chicken tramples the road in order to trample the black man and keep him down.
Okay, now for the real post. My totally WAG is that they might have wanted to get cozy with the natives, so they name the land they just took after them. Or it’s the “choos” part that they really liked.
I think you also have to realize that there was a good amount of economic activity going on between settlers and natives. The two groups had to communicate with each other on a regular basis. It certainly helps to facilitate communication if both groups have the same name for a particular geographic feature. Since the natives already had names for rivers, mountains and other features, it was just convenient to adopt those names to avoid confusion.
Why are you complaining about Native place names when we have the two whole continents in the Western hemisphere, as well as this entire country and a few others, named after Europeans?
I believe that it’s quite common for names of places to stay the same, even when a new dominant linguistic group moves in. For example, most place names in England pre-date the Norman conquest, and some pre-date the Anglo-Saxon invasions. So the European reliance on Native American names isn’t that unusual.
Capacitor: For the record, I am absolutely positively not complaining. I love the Native names. They are lyrical, historical and genuine (or quasi-genuine, in a Eurocorrupted sort of way).
Cap, if I recall correctly, Amerigo Vespucci had only been to the “new world” once, and even then it was on Colombus third voyage. Hardly an explorer, he was a map maker. Right, he named the whole thing after himself.
As to the rest of the question, I was always under the impression that different groups treated the naming problem differently. English renamed, for the most part, while French adopted local custom (I live in Mississippi, we have a county named “Oktibbeha” which is Indian for “creek of blood”. Charming.) Not sure about the spanish, but they seem to have renamed in large part, rather optimistically. Legend has it that before they renamed the basin in california soon to host the clippers, kings, and lakers Los Angeles, the natives called it “Valley of the smoke” cause fog hung there. ( I may have this confused.) If true, then why anyone would build a city there is beyond me. Course, that may be mostly urban legend…
Vespucci had made it to the New World at least twice (1499-1500, 1501-02).
Vespucci wasn’t a map maker, he was a navigator and a merchant.
Vespucci didn’t name the thing after himself, cartographer Martin Waldseemueller named America after Vespucci in 1507.
The subject of naming is far too vast to be covered in a thread on a message board. Anyone interested should read George Stewart’s Names on the Land for a good start on how American places got to be named.
Every part of the country has at least a few names derived from native words, but different parts of the country seem to have different percentages of them. For instance, in California they are rather sparce, especially in the areas the Spanish settled, while in Oregon and Washington they are fairly common. Hawaii is the extreme case with 90% or more of its names from Hawaiian.
The English did a fair amount of keeping the Native American names. For some reason they even kept the name of Lake Chargogungagungamaug (sp? that was from memory), rather than just rename it Lake Webster, which is what people generally call it. There seems to be certain regions where this practice is more common, probbly denoting where the “friendly” tribes lived.
FWIW, most of the rivers in the Southeast seem to have Cherokee or Creek names. Off the top of my head: Chattahoochee, Coosa, Chattooga, Oostanala, Armuchee, Apalachee, Ocoee, Oconee, Haw, Nantahala, Hiwassee, Chestatee, Chickamauga.
Only map-makers call it Webster Lake. The town of Webster officially recognizes the lake to be called “Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamogg.” I covered this topic in depth in the thread titled “the longest place name” I apoligize for being to lazy to look it up now, but it was somewhere in GQ or MPSIMS about a month ago.
Yeah, but I doubt that that’s how you would refer to it in casual conversation if you lived in the area. Somehow I doubt that people say things like “Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamogg is about a mile in that direction,” for obvious reasons.