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Long Knives or Big Knives was a term used by the western Indians to designate the English 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 Revolution, down to and during the War of 1812, the term was used to designate Americans. The origin is thought to have been the use of steel knives and swords by the colonists, perhaps contrasted with the stone knives of Indians.
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