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Long Knives or '''Big Knives''' was a term used by American Indians of the Ohio Country to designate British colonists in North America . After 1750 it was restricted to the colonists of Virginia , in contradistinction to those of New York and Pennsylvania . George Rogers Clark spoke of himself and men as "Big Knives," or Virginians, in his speeches to the Indians in 1778 after the Capture Of Illinois . In the latter part of the American Revolutionary War , down to and during the War Of 1812 , the term was used to designate Americans. The origin is thought to have been the swords carried by colonial military officers.


REFERENCES

  • ''Dictionary of American History'' by James Truslow Adams , New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1940.