The modern notion of Yankee shrewdness might seem to justify the derivation from the Scottish, but, as it happens, the Yankee was not generally considered shrewd and clever until a much later period than the pre-Revolutionary days.
Perhaps, as the occasional explanation has it, the people of the other colonies got to calling New Englanders "Jonathan Yankees," after Jonathan Hastings. Also it may be true that the word has more than one derivation—a possibility which will become apparent when we consider the origin of the song "Yankee Doodle."
Everybody knows the tune of "Yankee Doodle," but few people know the words. The air has been ascribed to several different countries. Kossuth, during his visit to the United States, recognized it as Hungarian, and it has also been identified with an ancient Biscayan sword-dance. In the Netherlands there is, or used to be, a harvesting song, sung by laborers, who were paid with a tenth of the grain and all the buttermilk they could drink:
Yankerdidel doodel down,
Didel, dudel lanter,
Yanke viver, voover, vown,
Botermilk und tanther.
In other words, "buttermilk and a tenth." Old Hollanders in the United States may recall the stanza.
In the days of Cromwell, one of the nicknames which the Cavaliers bestowed upon the Puritans was "Nankee Doodle." When Cromwell entered Oxford this stanza was written:
Nankee Doodle came to town
Upon a little pony,
With a feather in his hat
Upon a macaroni.
Another and more common version was as follows:
Yankee Doodle came to town
Upon a Kentish pony;
He stuck a feather in his hat
And called him Macaroni.
In the reign of Charles II we first hear beyond any doubt the air to which "Yankee Doodle" is now sung. To it were set the following lines, which remain as a nursery rhyme: