Swamp Yankee

November 22nd, 2009 by admin

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Posted in columns, November 2009 | 10 comments

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10 comments on this post.

  1. Fay Lane:

    April 17th, 2011 at 2:18 pm

    I grew up with my grandfather saying we were swamp yankees. I always thought it meant poor farmers. Or dirt farmers was another name.

  2. Bill Adams:

    October 13th, 2011 at 6:13 pm

    I am the Swamp Yankee. I live on Cape Cod in the town of Barnstable in the village of West Barnstable,Ma.
    AKA swampmapleyankee. I can be reached at swampmapleyankee@yahoo.com
    Cheers

  3. James:

    November 18th, 2011 at 9:52 am

    The term Swamp Yankee dates to King Phillips War. During the war, there was a battle in the Great Swamp near South Kingtson 1675. The Narraganett Indians eventually were routed, killed and exiled. True Swamp Yankees are those whose ancestor fought in that battle.

  4. Maggie:

    February 7th, 2012 at 8:11 pm

    Myself, and my family, are natives of western Massachusetts. I grew up hearing my mother use the term “swamp yankee,” usually in a slightly derogatory way. It was a term akin to “white trash,” but not as harsh– essentially it describes the rural, under-educated poor (which, at least in this part of the state, generally means poor whites). For example, we got a new washing machine, and the old one sat out in our driveway for a few days, waiting to be picked up by the people who were getting rid of it for us. My mother was quite distressed to have this in the yard, frequently remarking “We look like a bunch of swamp yankees, with that thing sitting out there!,” during that time. I don’t know where Ms. Schell got the idea it was limited to RI, CT, and southeastern MA. Although, I will admit that it was a term probably passed down to my mother from my grandmother (born in 1916), and our family in particular seems to use more old fashion expressions that most (something I found out in high school when I would use a familiar saying and find that no one else had ever heard it before…).

  5. Myron:

    February 22nd, 2012 at 1:51 pm

    I am here to tell ya that I am a Swamp Yankee and dam proud of it. My gradfather was interviewed for both Yankee Magazine and the Providence Journal (RI) as to what a Swamp Yankee was since he was one. We hail from Foster, RI, a very rural area of NW RI and go back 8 generations. The definition of Swamp Yankee is a person dating backing many generations in the same area having much common sense with out formal education. I am so proud of my heritage I own a buisness called Swamp Yankee BBQ

  6. Jhon Reyes:

    June 6th, 2012 at 10:55 pm

    Having lived until 12 in a town on Cape Cod with less than 1000 in 500 sq mi and with numerous DAR sorts I nevertheless never heard the term until many years later by folks with educational pretensions in Falmouth on Cape Cod.
    More importantly I have heard the term used for ostensible southerners who were considered counterfeit, but never understood if they were carpetbaggers or migrants before the civil war.

  7. Randy DiStefano:

    October 7th, 2012 at 5:40 am

    I grew up in southeastern Ct. and I remember my grand Mother Saying we were swamp Yankees. And since you don’t or didn’t know her, she was one not to be argued with

  8. Rich:

    October 12th, 2012 at 3:55 am

    Very educational. Until reading these comments I had no idea RI was actually big enough to have both urban and rural areas. ;)

  9. Cate:

    November 29th, 2012 at 8:28 am

    I grew up in Southeastern Connecticut and my father always identified as a swamp yankee and it was never a derogatory term nor did he or our family see it that way. Yankees are hearty stock, frugal and hard working, but never white trash or redneck as mentioned in previous posts. (he was a Professor) Most settlers and American Indians often started settlements near rivers which were abundant with fish, shellfish and rich, farming soil. Not to mention the draw of deer to the water which provided meat. This also plays into the “swamp” factor of the title.

  10. Mike:

    January 7th, 2013 at 4:08 pm

    Living in southeastern Mass., swamp Yankee was always used to describe a very frugal English decent person. Frugal to the point of being anal about it.

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