Washington Redskins

[L Verge]

(11-06-2014 10:59 AM)L Verge Wrote:  Thanks for the synopsis of Lincoln's interaction with the visiting chiefs, Roger. I didn't even have this in mind when I posed the question of what Abraham and his father would have thought about slurring the Indians. I was relating to Thomas Lincoln having seen his father killed by Indians and Abe having fought Indians in the Blackhawk War.

This synopsis however does show Mr. Lincoln doing a little slurring on his own. The term "paleface" isn't heard much any more, but he used it several times (showing what the Indians called us white folk), and he also referred to "red brethren." Should we clean up his speeches to make them p.c.?

BTW: Other than it being the principle of the matter, I haven't understood why Dan Snyder doesn't cave in and change the name to Washington Warriors. There are certainly many ethnicities who can proudly claim warriors in their heritage. Of course, the name was originally chosen, I think, by one of America's great statesmen, George Marshall.

Before all the fanfare associated with Redskins football, there was the name itself.

•More than a decade ago, in the authoritative linguistic survey “I Am A Red-Skin: The Adoption of a Native American Expression (1769-1826),” Ives Goddard—the senior linguist and curator at the Smithsonian Institution—concluded that the word “redskins” was created by Native Americans, and that it was first used as an inclusive expression of solidarity by multi-tribal delegations who traveled to Washington, D.C. to negotiate national policy towards Native Americans. “The actual origin of the word (redskin) is entirely benign,” Goddard is quoted as saying.

•Prominent Indian leaders of the 19th century—from Sitting Bull (a Hunkpapa Lakota Chief) to French Crow (Principal Chief of the Wahpekute band of Santee Sioux) to Tecumseh (a Shawnee chief)—are documented as having referred to themselves as “Red Men” or “Red-skins.”

•On the inaugural Redskins team in 1933, four players and then-head coach William Henry “Lone Star” Dietz identified themselves as Native Americans.

P.S. The Redskins were first fomed and named in the City of Boston. They used the same stadium as the Boston Braves, so George Preston Marshall (as in the Marshall Plan after WWII) wanted to distinguish the football team from the baseball team. Redskins happened to be a name that had not been already used.