 Others speculate that the original "Swamp Yankees" were colonial-era indentured servants who were paid for their service with swamp land from the farmers to whom they were indentured.Still others claim that "Swamp Yankees" had ancestors who fought in the Great Swamp Fight of King Philip's War.Another theory claims that the term originated during the American Revolution when residents of Thompson, Connecticut fled to the surrounding swamps to escape a feared British invasion in 1776.