User:Alarob/NameThatWar

This page contains results of research on historians' names for the Cherokee-American conflicts roughly coinciding with the American Revolutionary War. Its purpose is to help determine what to name the article variously called Chickamauga wars and Cherokee-American wars. Neither name is attested in reliable histories.

The modern consensus is for "Cherokee War of 1776," understood to last into the 1780s or 1790s, depending on the author. Next is "Second Cherokee War," a common second choice even for authors who prefer other names.

I give a representative sample of usage of each term, according to Google Books. Lists are not exhaustive (except for rare terms).

Most widely used: Cherokee War of 1776

Examples:

Anderson & Cayton 2005, The Dominion of War (Penguin), passim. Acclaimed recent history.
Bucy 2008, Tennessee through Time, The Early Years (official school textbook), 178: Section heading.
Butler et al., eds., 1984, The North Carolina Experience (UNC Press), 10.
Corlew et al. 1990, Tennessee: A Short History (U of Tenn Press), passim.
Dean 2013, A Demand of Blood: The Cherokee War of 1776 (Valley River Press), essentially self-published, but uses this name as subtitle of book.
Fixico, ed., 2007, Treaties with American Indians: An Encyclopedia… (ABC-CLIO), 260.
Heard 1987, Handbook of the American Frontier, vol. 1, The Southeastern Woodlands (Scarecrow Press), passim.
Prucha 1997, American Indian Treaties (U CA Press), 35. Prucha is a leading historian of U.S. Indian policy.
Reynolds 2012, Andrew Pickens: South Carolina Patriot in the Revolutionary War (McFarland), 65 et passim.
Swisher n.d., Revolutionary War in the Southern Back Country (Pelican), used as chapter title.
Tiro, "Ambivalent allies: Strategy and the Native Americans," in Stoker et al. 2009, Strategy in the American War of Independence (Routledge), 126. Military history.

This name seems to have emerged since the 1980s. There are almost no examples in the Google Books database from before then.

End dates for the Cherokee War of 1776 differ; the two most common are 1782 and 1794. A few historians end the war in 1777 with the First Treaty of Long Island on Holston. But hostilities did not end, and a second Treaty of Long Island was signed in 1781. Most current historians report that that didn’t end the war either.

This name is used in works published by three regional academic presses: University of Tennessee, University of North Carolina, and University of South Carolina.

Next: Second Cherokee War

Barksdale 2008, The Lost State of Franklin (U Press of KY), passim: sometimes "Second Cherokee War," sometimes lower-case "second Cherokee War". N.B. Barksdale on p. 98 describes the Cherokee "1776 invasion of East Tennessee"! Tennessee was not a state until 1796.
Corkran 1967, The Creek Frontier (U OK Press), 298. A classic.
Dabney & Coker 2006, Historic South Carolina: An Illustrated History (HPN), 22. Popular history.
Fixico 2012, Bureau of Indian Affairs (ABC-CLIO), 3.
Rajtar 1999, Indian War Sites: A Guidebook… (McFarland), passim.

Other, mostly older works use a generic (lower-case) phrase, "second Cherokee war."

Atkinson 2003, Splendid Land, Splendid People (U Ala. Press), a Chickasaw history, paying slight attention to Cherokee matters.
Hartley 1859, Life of Maj. Gen. Henry Lee, chapter subtitle
Hildreth 1849, 'History of the United States of America (Harper & Bros.) vol. 3: passim.

Chickamauga War (or Wars)

For about seven years Wikipedia had an article titled Chickamauga Wars or a close variant. This seems to have influenced some authors to adopt the term. One authoritative history (Snyder 2010) uses the term and indexes it. I could not find any other cases.

Chickamauga War (singular)

Faulkner 2013, Massacre at Cavett's Station (U of Tenn.). Faulkner's usage is peculiar. He refers to "the time known as the Chickamauga War or Second Cherokee War. The First Cherokee War, ca. 1761-1775, was fought against the British.…" Most historians end the First Cherokee War in the 1760s, not 1775. He continues: "they continued raiding and campaigning against American settler incursion… until 1794. These conflicts… are collectively known as the Cherokee Wars." (2) There is no index entry for "Chickamauga War".
Several "books" consisting of reprinted Wikipedia articles, including two pastiches by one Rickey Butch Walker.
This is the earliest use: Sen. John Sharpe Williams, "'Patrioteering'", in American Industry in War Time vol. 4 (March 25, 1918) (ed. Varnum Smith, Industrial Economist Publishing Co.), refers sardonically to "that 'Chickamauga War' — the War with Spain — when a good part of the Army never got any further than Chickamauga" (12).

Chickamauga Wars (plural)

Campbell 2011, The State of North Carolina with Native American Ancestry (Trafford: low quality), 44. Uses "Wars" and "wars" indiscriminately in a largely incoherent book.
Murphree, ed. 2012 Native America: A State-by-State Historical Encyclopedia (ABC-CLIO), passim. Dates: 1777-1794.
Several Wikipedia pastiches.
Snyder 2010, Slavery in Indian Country (Harvard), 136, 162-63, 178. This is the one example of a recent, authoritative book using the term and indexing it. The book is not primarily about the Cherokee people.

Using Chickamauga Wars to name a Wikipedia article for several years has demonstrated the potential for Wikipedia to invent history. Not exactly our proudest moment as Wikipedians.

Rare terms

American-Cherokee War of 1776: Used in Thornton 1987, American Indian Holocaust and Survival 86. But indexed as "Cherokee War of 1776".
Cherokee Campaign (Jul 1776-Dec 1782): Used in two guidebooks to American Revolution battle sites (by Savas, published by Casemate). Both use "Second Cherokee War" as an alternate name.
Cherokees, Campaigns against (1760-1761, 1773-1774, 1776-1777, 1779-1780, and 1782): Used only in Encyclopedia of North American Indian Wars, 155-56. But one article refers to "the Cherokee War of 1776 (sometimes known as the Second Cherokee War)".

I found no instances at all of Cherokee-American wars or war as a proper noun, regardless of letter case.