Category talk:Indian Wars

Redundant use of the term American

the word American in "American Indian Wars" is not redundant, it is necessary to show that these are American Indians, and not the Indians of India Alangdon86 20:42, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

But it was redundant to call people "Native Americans of North America". That was the redundant item that I removed.

I will admit that this is not exactly a clear issue here and there are many points of view for how this can be termed and classified. The term "Indian Wars" was established by historians of the United States Army, and as such it does have traditional usage to describe the military campaigns, service records of veterans, and casualty reports for many battles that the U.S. Army engaged in during most of the 19th Century. I will also point out that there is no other generally accepted term to apply to these military campaigns that has been established within the scholarly historian community, although there certainly has been some work toward that goal on en.wikipedia to be a little more politically correct, and to help avoid the ambiguity that you are refering to here. --Robert Horning 12:11, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Correction here. There is a term that the British scholars used, but that is even more politically incorrect than perhaps simply using the term "Indian Wars": UK historians typically used the term "Red Indian Wars" instead. Of course that is a term that is most likely found in the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica than something found by historians writing in the 21st Century. --Robert Horning 12:16, 6 October 2006 (UTC)