Note 10 — Chapter VIII · THE HERO OF CLINCH VALLEY

The Indians had called the Americans "Knifemen," "Long Knives," or "Big Knives," from the earliest historic times; but it was not until about the middle of the eighteenth century that the Virginia colonists began to make record of the use of this epithet by the Indians with whom they came in contact. It was then commonly supposed that it grew out of the use of swords by the frontier militiamen, and this is the meaning still given in dictionaries; but it has been made apparent by Albert Matthews, writing in the New York Nation, March 14, 1901, that the epithet originated in the fact that Englishmen used knives as distinguished from the early stone tools of the Indians. The French introduced knives into America previous to the English, but apparently the term was used only by Indians within the English sphere of influence.