Talk:Alliances between France and indigenous North Americans

Title

PLEASE: there is No Such Thing as "American Indian" according to WIKIPEDIA. Is anyone managing a project to kill this ambiguous, archaic misnomer?! This article and its sister "Franco-Indian_alliances" are a great illustration why is should be done. 71.164.206.85 (talk) 14:33, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

Requested move 29 October 2025

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: moved to Alliances between France and indigenous North Americans. Clear consensus to move, with Alliances between France and indigenous North Americans or similar being the most supported option. Per WP:OTHEROPTIONS anyone can start a move request to suggest other title. (closed by non-admin page mover) Vpab15 (talk) 17:57, 20 November 2025 (UTC)

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Franco-Indian alliance → Franco-Native American alliance – Franco-Indian alliances already exists and its very very confusing ScrubbedSoap (talk) 12:28, 29 October 2025 (UTC) — Relisting. CoconutOctopus talk 16:55, 5 November 2025 (UTC)

• Shouldn't the suggested title use an en dash per MOS:PREFIXDASH? —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 16:21, 29 October 2025 (UTC)

  i was not aware of this, but yes it should.

  But my point stands. There are two articles will the same name and it is very confusing:

  1 2 ScrubbedSoap (talk) 17:14, 29 October 2025 (UTC)

  Support with en dash per above. Current title is ambiguous. estar8806 (talk) ★ 17:52, 29 October 2025 (UTC)

• Comment: Another possible complication is that "notwithstanding Canada's location within the Americas, the term Native American is hardly ever used in Canada" (quoting Indigenous peoples in Canada). If I understand correctly, this alliance involves some of the people of Canada, where the terminology is different, and the indigenous people are generally not referred to as "Native American". —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 18:54, 29 October 2025 (UTC)

  In the 18th century, the native peoples of North America, whether in Canada or the United States, were referred to as "Indians". 162 etc. (talk) 20:02, 29 October 2025 (UTC)

  True enough, perhaps, but how should we refer to the 1700s alliance between the French and some of those people when we talk about it today? —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 20:47, 29 October 2025 (UTC)

  We should refer to it using the name that is most commonly used in a significant majority of independent, reliable, English-language sources. Most of the sources cited in the article are in print and I am unable to verify them. Some input from an expert on the subject would be useful. 162 etc. (talk) 00:45, 30 October 2025 (UTC)

  We should also refer to it using a name that unambiguously defines the topical scope of the article - as pointed out by the nominator, Franco-Indian alliances is a similar topic and very likely could cause confusion. I too am concerned about the likelihood that "Indian" is likely more commonly used than "Native American", however the only other alternatives I could think of would be Franco-American Indian alliance, which is probably less common, or some form of parenthetical disambiguation such as Franco-Indian alliance (French and Indian War), which is annoyingly repetitive, or Franco-Indian alliance (1754–1763), using the dates of the conflict. estar8806 (talk) ★ 00:57, 30 October 2025 (UTC)

  Indeed. Franco-Indian alliances should be added to the nomination. 162 etc. (talk) 02:39, 30 October 2025 (UTC)

  Also the other article "Franco-Indian Alliances" should be probably changed to "Franco-Indian alliance" ScrubbedSoap (talk) 06:59, 30 October 2025 (UTC)

  That article seems to cover multiple periodic alliances between France and various Indian states. I did move it to Franco-Indian alliances, for seem reason "Alliances" had been capitalized and gone unchanged for a few years. Of course, that article isn't as easily disambiguated. The only possible alternative I could think of would be French alliances in India, which feels simultaneously less precise (ie. who were the French allying with?) but doesn't have the potential confusion with French alliances with American Indians. estar8806 (talk) ★ 15:06, 30 October 2025 (UTC)

  Move Franco-Indian alliances to French alliances with India? —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 15:11, 30 October 2025 (UTC)

  I'd thought of that but India didn't really exist as a polity in the time period and it was rather alliances with smaller states. It's a similar catch-22 of precision, but I guess a slight lack of precision is an okay sacrifice in order to lessen ambiguity. estar8806 (talk) ★ 15:14, 30 October 2025 (UTC)

  Oh. Good point. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 15:53, 30 October 2025 (UTC)

  Move this article to French alliances with indegenous Americans would be better in my opinion. ScrubbedSoap (talk) 15:43, 30 October 2025 (UTC)

  Alternatively we could make seperate articles for the alliances with kingdoms. Franco-Mysore alliance , etc.

  But my above change is what i stand on for right now. ScrubbedSoap (talk) 15:44, 30 October 2025 (UTC)

  I took a look at ngrams for "Native Americans", "American Indians", and "Indigenous Americans" and the lattermost is by far the least common. "Native Americans" is currently the most common, but "American Indians" was the most common in the past closer to the time period this article covers. As for "Franco-Mysore alliance", etc, the article is already quite short so a split would be difficult. estar8806 (talk) ★ 16:03, 30 October 2025 (UTC)

  It may be least common but it makes most sense here as Native American is more used for USA Native Americans. ScrubbedSoap (talk) 16:11, 30 October 2025 (UTC)

  But "Americans" isn't really used for Canadians, regardless of whether they're indigenous or not. How about French alliances with indigenous North Americans? —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 17:08, 30 October 2025 (UTC)

  yeah that works ScrubbedSoap (talk) 17:24, 30 October 2025 (UTC)

  Yes I agree, I am suprised that this hasn't been changed before. Because the name are literally the same aside from one being plural. ScrubbedSoap (talk) 06:56, 30 October 2025 (UTC)

  Franco–Amerindian alliance would be a less cumbersome alternative. "Amerindian" is also not tied to the United States in the way that "American Indian" and "Native American" are. Zacwill (talk) 21:23, 5 November 2025 (UTC)

  "Amerindian" has apparently been a controversial term and is rejected by some of the people it is intended to apply to, according to the Indigenous peoples of the Americas article that is the target of the AmerindianAmerindian redirect. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 22:33, 5 November 2025 (UTC)

• "American Indian" and "Native American" are, well, American terms. Speaking as a Canadian, we usually call "Native Americans" "First Nations" or "Indigenous" (the latter term also including Métis and Inuit people). "Indigenous" is readily understandable and more neutral and accessible than a term that is barely used outside of the U.S, so I propose "French–Indigenous alliance" or "Franco-Indigenous peoples alliance" or some such. Cremastra (talk · contribs) 01:22, 13 November 2025 (UTC)

  But it needs some idea of which geographic region was involved in this alliance – e.g., Alliance of France and indigenous North American people. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 01:28, 13 November 2025 (UTC)

• The hyphen is correct since "Franco-" is a combining form: see MOS:DUALNATIONALITIES. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 06:29, 14 November 2025 (UTC)

  It's a combining form, but if the other term it's being combined with has a space in it (e.g., "Native American" or "indigenous North American"), it should get a dash per MOS:PREFIXDASH ("ex–prime minister", "pre–World War II", "New York–based", "trans–New Guinea languages"). —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 07:39, 14 November 2025 (UTC)

  Yes, I suppose that's right, although there's not a lot of precedent on how those rules interact (Sino-Latin America relations, Sino-Third World relations, Anglo-South American Bank, etc.). There was some bickering about it recently at Talk:Afro–Puerto Ricans/Archive 1#Should be Afro-Puerto Rican, not Afro–Puerto Rican. But anyways, I think it's generally best to avoid combining forms when they're not the common name, so support French alliances with indigenous North Americans, Alliances between France and indigenous North Americans, or anything like that. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 20:56, 14 November 2025 (UTC)

  Regarding the "etc." in your list, I have started looking for how many articles have titles like that. So far, I found only one more, which is Sino-Latin American Production Capacity Cooperation Investment Fund. I haven't checked "Franco-" articles yet. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 07:46, 15 November 2025 (UTC)

  Also Indo-Sri Lankan Accord and Euro-Latin American Parliamentary Assembly. A related area that's come up in the MOS archives occasionally is Category:Proto-languages (e.g., Proto-Indo-European language): I think the hyphen is pretty well accepted there. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 08:45, 15 November 2025 (UTC)

  I found an approximately equal number of titles that use a dash with a combining form that I believe should be hyphenated. Please see the five-article RM I just opened at Talk:Anglo–Dutch wars#Requested move 15 November 2025. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 10:49, 15 November 2025 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.