Talk:Northwest Indian War

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[edit] Name of this article

Question for User:QuartierLatin1968 or others: What is the source of the name of this article ("War of the Wabash Confederacy")? I've never seen this title before. I've seen many variations of "the Indian War of the Old Northwest," or sometimes "Little Turtle's War," and once or twice the "Ohio War," but never this. Where's this title from? --Kevin Myers 03:17, Dec 13, 2004 (UTC)

No response in over a month, so I'll go ahead and change the name of this article. "War of the Wabash Confederacy" seems to be original with Wikipedia, which is counter to 'pedia policy. "Little Turtle's War" is the most common name used on the Internet and in older reference books, but attributing Indian leadership of the war to Little Turtle has fallen into disfavor in recent years. I'll go with another option, the "Northwest Indian War", which is less seen but perhaps the most historically accurate title in use. The other options will appear as redirects to this title. If anyone disagrees, this is the place to sound off. --Kevin Myers 17:57, Jan 30, 2005 (UTC)

Sorry to leave you in suspense, Kevin; this page wasn't on my watchlist, and I didn't notice your question. Feel free to leave messages on my talk page. Now, I didn't make up the name 'Wabash Confederacy' – I'm sure of that – so 'War of the Wabash Confederacy' seemed like a fairly natural extension of that term. Where did it come from, though? Let me think; well, I first heard my professor use it at UofT; however, I find on the internet in scanned primary sources, a genealogy of George Rogers Clark, a family history, a biography of Sir John Caldwell, as well of course as the wikipedia look-alikes and the Wampum Chronicles messageboard. I can also try to scare up some references in published scholarly works if you like – I think I've still got a few of my old textbooks lying around somewhere. In any case, the name 'Wabash Confederacy' is not my invention, although it's undoubtedly come into wider use since I started adding mentions of it here on Wikipedia.

However, I don't really object to the current name you've chosen: although it's now biased to the perspective of settlers (from whose angle this region was Northwest), and uses the less than desirable name Indian, I see what you mean, it's probably the most immediately understandable name in circulation. We shouldn't eliminate all Wikipedia references to the Wabash Confederacy, however; it was the real deal. QuartierLatin1968 16:06, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the response, and thanks for those links as well. I have heard the term "Wabash Confederacy" before; it's the term "War of the Wabash Confederacy" I'm unfamiliar with. For instance, Wiley Sword's book President Washington's Indian War uses "Wabash Confederacy" to describe the tribes (mostly Wea and Piankashaw) or villages on the Wabash River near Vincennes, rather than the entire wartime confederation (i.e. Blue Jacket's Shawnees et. al.) itself. Is it possible that this is the usage you've encountered before? --Kevin Myers 10:19, Mar 31, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Reformat

On my talk page, a user requested that I take a look at this article as part of the Wiki Military History Project, suggesting that the intro was too long (it was for the size of the article), the TOC doesn't appear until the second screen (which many readers prefer to see early on so they can better browse), and the article's layout did not conform to the standard. I moved the long discussion on nomneclature to the rear for better flow, but otherwise, the article is pretty decent. There are some other stylistic changes that could be made. Scott Mingus 03:04, 9 July 2006 (UTC)