When was the term yankee first used?

Question

1812? or later? what year?

Answer 1

It was well before 1812, but the origins of the term are still uncertain. It was used as a name, or nickname, often of Dutchmen, from 1683 onwards. In 1758 British General James Wolfe referred to the New England soldiers under his command as Yankees: "I can afford you two companies of Yankees." The term as used by the British was thick with contempt, as shown by the cartoon from 1775 ridiculing Yankee soldiers.
The "Yankee and Pennamite" war was a series of clashes over land titles in Pennsylvania, 1769, in which "Yankee" meant the Connecticut claimants.
The earliest published statement on the origins came in 1789 from Thomas Aunbrey, a British officer. He reported hearing the term was derived from the Cherokee eankke meaning slave or coward. Aunbrey claims the term was applied by Virginians to the inhabitiants of New England for not assisting them in a war with the Cherokee. Johnathan Hastings of Cambridge, Massachusetts was attributed around 1713 to regularly using the word as a superlative, generally in the sense of excellent.
One of the earliest theories on the word derives from the Northestern Native American approximation of the word English. This theory differs from others that suggest the word is itself adapted from a Native American word, a theory which has been rejected by linguists.
The Oxford English Dictionary suggests the most plausible origin to be that it is derived from the Dutch nickname Janke, short for Jan (English "John") , and this name was applied derisively either by Dutch or English settlers in New England. One popular, but unlikely, theory describes how indigineous tribes found many Dutch trader's names to be unpronouncable. They in turn used the simplest name that they knew - Jan Keyes - and it became the de facto name for all the traders, and was pronounced "Yahn-key". Another extension claims the Dutch form was Jan Kaas, "John Cheese", from the prevalence of dairy-farming among the Dutch. There are many extensions of this theory, among them is that it was used by Dutch settlers in upstate New York referring to the New Englanders who were migrating to their region, or as Michael Quinion and Patrick Hanks argue to the Dutch nickname and surname Janke, anglicized to Yanke and used as a nickname for a Dutch-speaking American in colonial times.

Answer 2

1817

Answer 3

I think it was used earlier then that