Washington Redskins
The
Washington Redskins NFL football franchise started in Boston in 1932. The team played at the city’s National League
baseball team’s park and shared the team’s name – the “Boston Braves.”
In its
second year, the team moved across town to Fenway Park, the home of Boston’s
American League baseball team. In order
to avoid confusion with their old baseball hosts, and apparently to fit in with
their new baseball hosts name, while retaining the Native-American nature of
the nickname, the football took on a new name.
Their new hosts were the “Boston Red Sox,” and the football team took on the name “Boston
Redskins” (frequently spelled “Red Skins”).[i] The new name wasn’t much of a stretch, as the
Boston Braves had been regularly referred to in the press as “Redskins” for
years (as had the Cleveland Indians and Indianapolis Indians baseball teams).
If the
Redskins did not choose the nickname to honor their Native-American coach and
several players, and they only chose the name Braves because they first played
in a stadium with a team of the same name, then the reason the Redskins became
the Braves (and then Redskins) is basically the same reason the Braves became
Braves in the first place.
Boston Braves
In 1915,
Cleveland’s National League baseball team adopted a new name – the
“Indians.” It is widely believed that
they adopted the name, in part at least, to emulate the success of the Boston
Braves, who won the World Series in 1914 after changing their name from
“Rustlers” to “Braves” two seasons earlier.
The fact
that Cleveland’s team had been regularly known as “Indians” over the course of
two decades before its name change suggests that the popular story does not
paint the full picture.
See my earlier post,
And if
Cleveland was emulating the “Braves,” how did the “Braves” get their name? The official story is that a new owner chose
the name because of his association with a New York City political machine
named for an Indian.
As was the
case with Cleveland, however, the official story of the Boston Brave’s name
change for 1912 does not paint the full picture. They had been known by that name for at least
a decade before the name change:
Montgomery, Ala., April 3. –
“On to Birmingham” is the battle cry of Buck’s braves,
and tonight, with two victories over Montgomery tucked away, Buckenberger led
his recruits to Birmingham, where more scalps
are looked for.
Boston Post (Massachusetts), April 4,
1904, page 3.
The Official Story
On December 21,
1911, after decades of generally being known as the “Beaneaters”, the team’s
new owner, James Gaffney, broke with tradition and gave the team a more heroic
name, the “Boston Braves”:
Boston, Mass., Dec. 21. –
President Ward, of the Boston Nationals, states that his team will hereafter be known as the “Boston Braves.” In a spirit of levity last week, President
Ward suggested to Mr. Gaffney, the new owner, the name “Boston Braves.” The suggestion made a hit with the owner,
owing to his connection with the Tammany organization in New York. Henceforth the club
will be known as the “Boston Braves,” if it is necessary that it carry a
sobriquet.
Reading Times, December 22, 1911, page
6.
The new
owner liked the name because he was a member of New York City’s powerful Tammany Hall political
machine. Tammany Hall was named after a
revered 17th Century Native-American statesman and leader, Tamanend
or “Saint” Tamanend, who was widely considered the unofficial “Patron Saint” of
America.[ii]
The official
story may be true, as far as it goes. It
does explain why the new owner liked the name, but it raises additional
questions. Why did President Ward suggest
the name in the first place, and why did the name strike a chord with fans?
Just one
year earlier, the team had been renamed the “Boston Rustlers,” after the
previous owner, W. Hepburn Russell, who owned the team for only one
season. The team had been variously
known as the Red Stockings, Red Caps and Doves in previous years. And yet, despite the various informal nicknames
and name changes, the team was regularly referred to as the “Boston Braves” or
“Buck’s Braves” between 1902 and 1912.
Something else may have been going on.
As was the
case with Cleveland, Boston’s new name could have been influenced by many
factors. Sports-writers of the day
frequently peppered their prose with American-Indian metaphors to emphasize the
sporting ideals of esprit de corps
and a strong fighting spirit, which were generally understood as being admirable
qualities of Native-American culture. Native-Americans
were also becoming increasingly visible, successful and popular in football,
track and baseball, and their athletic abilities were widely admired and
praised in print.[iii] In Boston, the name “Braves” may have been more
directly influenced by a manager named “Buck” and the informal name of a local
militia unit.
And in any
case, the Boston Braves were not the first team in the Greater-Boston
Metropolitan Area to be named after a 17th Century Native-American
statesman and leader (more on that
later).
“Buck’s Braves”
Boston
The Boston
Nationals (or Beaneaters, Doves or Rustlers) were sporadically referred to as
“Braves” between 1905 and 1911:
. . . The Boston braves came up, swung according to their best
lights, then went back to the bucket.
Indianapolis News, October 6, 1908, page
10.
St. Louis
Squad Scalped by the Boston Braves
Los Angeles Herald, June 22 1905 page 4.
The
occasional use of “Braves” after 1904 may have been a carry-over from Al “Buck”
Buckenberger’s three-years with the team from 1902 through 1904, when the team
was frequently referred to as “Buck’s Braves” or “Boston Braves”:
 |
| Pittsburgh Press, August 21, 1904, page 19. |
“Buck” and his Boston Braves moved on to Pittsburg last night, where
they are to meet the champions to-morrow.
Cincinnati Enquirer, June 4, 1903, page
4.
A. C. Buckenberger and his Boston Braves are due to-day.
Cincinnati Enquirer, July 10, 1902, page
4.
On occasion,
the Indian imagery was extended beyond “Braves” to “Tribe”:
 |
| The Washington Times (Washington DC), July 1, 1902, page 4. |
 |
| The Washington Times (Washington DC), July 19, 1902, page 4. |
Surprisingly,
perhaps, even Boston’s American League team was occasionally referred to as
“Boston braves” during the same period; perhaps a result of conflating the
teams, or perhaps reflecting a pre-existing meaning of “Boston Braves” (more on
that later):
Clark Griffith’s New York
Americans will clash with Jimmy Collins’ champion Boston
braves in New York.
The Winnipeg Tribune (Canada), April 16,
1904, page 17.
The defeat of the champion
Pittsburgs by Jimmy Collins and his band of Boston
braves was another blow to the nationals . . . .
Lewiston Evening Teller (Lewiston, Idaho),
April 8, 1904, page 8 (Jimmy
Collins led the Red Sox to a win over Pittsburgh in the first modern World
Series in 1903).
Pittsburgh
The name “Buck’s
Braves” did not originate in Boston. It followed
Buckenberger to Boston from Pittsburgh, where he managed the Pirates from
1892-1894:
 |
| Pittsburgh Daily Post (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania), August 3, 1893, page 1. |
 |
| Pittsburgh Daily Post (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania), August 5, 1893, page 6. |
 |
| Pittsburgh Daily Post (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania), April 26, 1892, page 6. |
“Buck’s Braves” may have even pre-dated his
term with Pittsburgh, as suggested by a later-reported anecdote about his time
with Kalamazoo in 1887:
It was back in ’87, in the
palmy days of the Tri-State league . . . .
Buckenberger was manager of the team and played second base. There was one team in the league that was pie
for them and that was Mansfield, where “Buck” and his
braves had a clean slate of games won.
Scranton Republican (Scranton,
Pennsylvania), February 12, 1905, page 2.
Cincinnati
Al
Buckenberger was not the only “Buck” to lead a band of so-called “Braves” in
the National League. The Cincinnati Reds
were routinely referred to as “Buck’s Braves” from 1895 through 1899 when William “Buck” Ewing
managed the team:
[The Senators] took advantage
of every opportunity to let Buck’s Braves circle
the circuit, and on counting up it was seen that eighteen of the Indians had passed Cartwright, Joyce,
DeMontreville, Rogers and Jim McGuire and found a tally and a soft seat on the
Cincinnati bench.
Washington Times (Washington DC), May
27, 1896, page 3.
It’s possible
that the earlier use of “Buck’s Braves” in Pittsburgh could have influenced the
later use for “Buck” Ewing’s Cincinnati teams.
But it is also possible that a now archaic meaning of “Buck” may have
contributed to the name.
 |
| Princeton Union (Princeton, Minnesota), April 5, 1894, page 6. |
Indian Bucks
During the
late-1800s, Native-American women were commonly referred to as “Squaws” and
Native-American men as “Bucks”:
 |
| Jamestown Weekly Alert (Jamestown, North Dakota), April 7, 1882, page 2. |
“Prince” Sitting Bull – “My
father did not return for many days, and when he did there was a big
celebration. It lasted for three days,
and was marked by the giving away of young squaws to
brave bucks, in recognition of their services.”
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer (Seattle,
Washington), October 15, 1899, page 16.
A team with
a manager named “Buck” would have been a prime target to be referred to as
“Braves” or “Indians”. But they were not
the only teams subjected to the ballplayer-as-Indian metaphor.
Native-American Imagery in Sports
The
ballplayer-as-Indian may have reached its logical (or ridiculous) zenith in a
piece about Buck Ewing’s Cincinnati Reds:
According to the Baltimore
News Captain Buck Ewing is alleged to have harangued his braves in the
following manner on the eve of the series with Hanlon’s champions [(the
Baltimore Orioles)]:
“Braves
and Red men, listen to my words of wisdom, listen to Old
Man-Afraid-of-the-Undertaker and hearken to my words of wisdom. To-day we go up against the pale face squaw men from the land of oysters, and ere
the sun sets the cactus plants to westward their scalp
locks must dangle from our belts – Old Man-Afraid-of-the-Undertaker has
spoken and it goes, see?
“Ugh! Why do these pale face
squaw men come from the land of oysters and camp upon the trail of Buck’s braves? Why? Why do they come? Because the pale
face squaw men want the calico rag [(pennant)] to fly from the top of their
tepee; but they won’t get it – Old Man-Afraid-of-the-Undertaker has spoken and
it goes, see?
“Ugh! Buck’s
braves have their war paint ready and their tommyhawks glisten in the
morning sunlight. Buck’s braves eat heap
fatted dog and mean to get that calico rag or let the coyotes howl over their
carcasses. Who are the first on the long
trail through the prairie grass to victory?
Buck’s braves. Who are playing ball
like a lot of Pawnee medicine men full of fire water? Buck’s braves. Who do not care a papoose’s ejaculation for
the Tebeau – heap Tebeau, Man-Who-Eats-Fireworks? Buck’s braves. . . . Buck’s braves will get the calico rag – Old
Man-Afraid-of-the-Undertaker has spoken and it goes, see?
Brooklyn Daily Eagle, July 22, 1896,
page 10.
Native-American
imagery was also in general use in sports reporting of the era, even where the
names of the manager or team did not naturally suggest it. In many cases, the
imagery appears to have played off the notion that American-Indian culture was
associated with a strong fighting spirit and teamwork, which are both admirable
qualities in sports.
In many
places and at many times, the term “tribe” was used as a euphemism for
“team.” In this example, referring to
the Boston Red Sox, the writer used no fewer than seven different terms to
refer to the team, in an apparent effort to avoid repetition:
Hats off to Manager Fred Lake
and his band of young ball tossers, the Boston Americans, who have jolted the baseball
dopesters this year. In the spring the Red Sox looked like the joke club
of the league, but Lake has taken a bunch of youngsters
and whipped them into wonderful shape, so that right now they appear to be the best
balanced team in the league. If one were asked to pick a real individual
star on the Red Sox team he couldn’t do it. . . . [T]hat Boston tribe is playing the game.
Trenton Evening Times (Trenton, New
Jersey), August 20, 1909, page 7.
The Chicago
Cubs, for example, were a “tribe” on occasion:
 |
| Washington Herald (Washington DC), September 29, 1910, page 8. |
 |
| Detroit Free Press, July 1, 1910, page 11. |
In 1907, the
Topeka Kansas team was referred to as the “tribe of
Cooley” (after their manager), in 1905, the Minneapolis Millers were
referred to as the “Watkins tribe” (after one of
their owners); and in 1906, the “Ned” Hanlon’s Cincinnati Reds were referred to
as the “Cincinnati tribe.”[iv]
In 1904, the
University of Nebraska’s football team worried about their practices being
“spied upon by the representative of a rival tribe, for
his braves are trying the new signals and need every attention that he
can possibly give them.”[v]
In some
instances, a euphemistic “tribe” might be on the proverbial warpath for
opposing team’s metaphoric “scalps”:
The Chicago
tribe of Loftus, with five New York scalps
hanging to their belts, came to town yesterday to tomahawk the locals.
The torture was well under way
when the tables were turned and Loftus’s men received a rude surprise. A batting rally, aided by poor pitching on
the part of the Windy City slab artists, allowed the locals to tie the score.
The St. Louis Republic (Missouri), July
23, 1901, page 6.
A similarly
war-like account of a game from 1896 coincidentally involved George Tebeau, the
brother of Patsy Tebeau who managed “Tebeau’s
Indians,” Cleveland’s first team to be known as “Indians”):
[I]t was Big Chief Ganzel, of the Newcastle tribe, and behind
him, in single file, trudged his little and silent band
of braves. The big chief did not
stop until he had reached the open ground then, as he shaded his eyes with his
ponderous hands, he silently surveyed the horizon. Seemingly satisfied, he uttered a guttural
“ugh,” and the rest of the band came from the forest into the bright sunlight
of the prairie and silently, as before, followed their chief across the dead and
seared turf towards the setting sun.
Away off to the west,
unobserved by the painted warriors, a brave,
with feathers in his hair, his battle ax in his hand and bow and arrow slung
across his broad shoulders, stood scanning the eastern slopes. . . . With a low
whistle, as the cooing of a dove, there arose, as from the earth, eight
warriors, dressed as their chief, and sprang to his side. With a few words of command the chief sprang
to the front, and, silently as the wind and as swiftly as a frightened deer,
the band approached the coming marauders.
It was Chief Tebeau and those that followed were
his braves, tried and true. . . .
Big Chief Ganzel’s eagle eye
discovered the approaching Colts and with the eagerness of a panther he and his
associates sprang forward. The two bands
met on the shady banks of the historic Maumee.
The battle lasted one hour and fifty minutes, and then Big Chief Ganzel
withdrew his men from the field. . . . [F]rom present appearances the big chief
will be driven back to his eastern hunting grounds with his brow broken and his scalp left dangling on the centre pole of Chief Tebeau’s
tepee.
The Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette
(Indiana), September 4, 1896, page 1.
 |
| Pittsburgh Daily Post (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania), 23 April 1909, page 14. |
Ancient and Honorable “Boston Braves”
In the late-1890s and early 1900s, members of the “Ancient and Honorable
Artillery Company of Massachusetts,” the oldest chartered military organization
in North America, were regularly referred to (and referred to each other) as, “Boston
Braves”:
There is consternation in the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company of Boston. The Attorney General has decided that the
Ancients may not wear their present brave
uniforms, but must array their martial forms in something not so nearly
resembling the uniform of the regular army.
New York Tribune, June 13, 1905, page 6.
The Wet Durbar to be held by
the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company in Boston
next fall . . . is already the subject of respectful comments among students of
the art of war . . . .
We expect to hear that awful
war song,
“Take out the ‘dead ones!’
Bring in the ‘live ones!’”
In the general chorus of
compliment to these Boston braves, one voice,
kind enough in intention, seems a little harsh and cracked.
Iron County Register (Ironton,
Missouri), January 15, 1903, page 1.
Rumor tells with pale lips that
the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company of Boston
intends to invade Halifax. . . . If
worst comes to worst, and the invincible Boston braves
insist upon marching into Nova Scotia, the first thing to be done by the
repellers of the invasion will be to put signs on the outside of the citadel:
“Positively No Bar!”
The Sun (New York), August 17, 1897,
page 6.
The warriors
of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company of Boston have taken pity
on Baltimore, and nobly resolved to pay their own way, and to buy their own
food and supplies while honoring that city with their martial presence. . . .
Yet the resources of the Boston braves are
great.
The Sun (New York), October 7, 1896,
page 6.
In a letter
written to welcome home a delegation of Ancient and Honorables returning from
London:
. . . You will please make my
apologies and extend for me a cordial welcome to the
returning braves.
Two-Hundered and Fiftieth Annual Record of
the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company of Massachusetts, Boston, Mudge
& Son, 1888, page 41.
In a hint of irony, the Ancient and Honorables were founded, at least in
part, to provide protection against Indians
(at least as told in a brief historical sketch of the company published
in 1888):
When
the first white settlers settled in Massachusetts, as is known to every school
boy who has read his history of the colonies, they were surrounded by wild and
savage tribes of Indians, who were exceedingly treacherous, and who, jealous of
the foothold the whites were gaining on the soil, harassed them continually,
thus rendering the subject of military protection most engrossing.
Several
of the settlers had been members of the Honourable Artillery company of London,
and were men who had in that way become somewhat proficient in martial duties,
and it occurred to these to establish such a company in their new colony.
The Wichita Daily Eagle
(Wichita Daily Eagle), June 24, 1888, page 12.
The “Boston Braves” of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company were
not the only social organization to call themselves “Braves” during the
period.
 |
| The “Great Incohee” of the IORM, 1904. |
I. O. R. M.
During the first decade of the 1900s, the International Order of Red
Men was one of the “leading secret, fraternal and benevolent organizations” in
the United States, with nearly 400,000 members in 1904.[vi] The Benevolent and Protectice Order of Elks
(B. P. O. E.), by way of comparison, did not surpass the 300,000 mark until
1909.[vii]
 |
| “Great Chiefs” of the IORM, 1904. |
The IORM was a group of grown men and women (the Order of Pocahontas)
who gave each other titles such as the “Great Incohee,” “Great Prophet,” “Sachem”
and “Brave,” organized themselves into regions called “Reservations” or
“Hunting Grounds,” counted the years and months in “Suns” and “Moons”, and
wrote the official records of their meetings in F-Troop-style Indian dialect.
The “Red Men” were active in all states and many territories, and their
meetings and activities were regularly reported in the press, replete with
reference to “Sachems”, “Braves” and other American-Indian imagery.
So, when the Boston Beaneaters became the Boston Braves, the concept of
naming an organized group of men using Indian terminology was not far-fetched
or exotic. It was part of the every-day
landscape of American pop-culture – and had been (in some form or another)
since the founding of the country.
Saint Tammany
The International Order of Red Men traced its history to “Tammany Societies” of the early United States, the oldest surviving one of which was New York’s Tammany Hall, to which the Boston Braves’ new owner belonged in 1911.
Tammany (or Tamanand) was a Delaware Indian who was revered by Native-Americans and Anglo colonists during the 18th century. May 1st was celebrated as Tammany Day throughout much of the Middle-Atlantic region during the American colonial period.
Although many of the stories passed down through the Tammany societies
read paint him as a god-like figure on the order of a Greek god, he is believed
to have been an actual person. His name
appears on at least one treaty, ceding land to William Penn in 1683, and he may
have been involved in negotiating a second treaty signed in 1685. The fact that his name does not appear on the
second treaty leads some to believe that he died sometime between 1683 and 1685.
Tammany (or Tamanand) was remembered as a model of good government,
wisdom and liberty:
He was
kind, merciful , and brave. . . . Such was the man whom the patriots of the
Revolution adopted as their tutelary saint; and if they could not claim that he
had performed miracles, they could at least point to him as one who had
rendered good service both to his own people and to the whites, and who, while
he endeavored to live in peace with all men, would suffer neither wrong nor
abuse, nor submit to a loss of his liberty or his rights.
Proceedings of the Tammany
Society (1867).[viii]
Revolutionary Patriots revered him as a personification of liberty and
individual rights. The decision to call
him a “Saint,” however, was more of a joke at the expense of Brits and
Europeans than a sign of religious reverence:
His
friends adopted the idea of calling him a saint merely
to ridicule the foreign societies founded about the period of the Revolutionary
war, which had generally designated their organizations by the name of some
European saint. The Sons of
Liberty were determined that America should not be behind other countries in
the illustrious character of her productions, and hence they invented the
legendary accounts of the distinguished chieftain, a portion of which were
based on the stories received from his descendants.
Proceedings of the Tammany Society
(1867).[ix]
Like the Improved Order of the Red Man a century later, meetings of the
St. Tammany societies included common tropes and cultural clichés associated
with Native-American culture, as illustrated by reports of an early meeting of
the St. Tammany Society of New York City in 1787:
At
eight o’clock, P. M. the society sat down to an elegant supper, provided by Mr.
Hall, after which the following toasts were drank, viz.
. . .
May the war hatchet be buried, and the pipe of peace be
smoaked, until time shall be no more;
May
the industry of the beaver, the frugality of the ant, and constancy of the
dove, be the perpetual characteristicks of the sons of St. Tammany;
The
daughters of St. Tamany and their paupooces. . . .
May
honour, virtue, a true sense of liberty, and a detestation of slavery, be the
characteristicks of Americans, and all their adopted brethren.
[A]fter
drinking the above toasts, and singing some excellent songs, in honour of their
Tutelar Saint, and smoaking the pipe of peace, every
man departed to his own wigwam and hunting ground.
The Worcester Magazine,
Volume 3, Number 8, Fourth Week in May, 1787, page 99.
In 1794, a successful stage play celebrated the life of Tammany,
portraying his quest for liberty against foreign oppression as a metaphor for
the United States’ newly established democratic experiment. A British reviewer compared the costumes worn in the
production with the more garish garb and faux-Indian make-up worn by Tammany
societies:
How
these sons of the forest [(Native-Americans)] must have despised the sorry imitators of barbarism, who followed in their
train, with painted cheeks, rings in their noses, and
bladders smeared with red ochre drawn over their powdered locks. Hodgkinson’s [(the actor)] dress was not so
barbarous, for the actor took care not to excite disgust or laughter.
William Dunlap, History of the
American Theatre, London, R. Bentley, 1833, page 201.
Some of the earliest Tammany societies were, in turn, related to the “Sons
of Liberty,” the Revolutionary-era organization whose members included, Samuel
Adams, Benedict Arnold, John Hancock, Patrick Henry and Paul Revere. The Sons of Liberty were known to use
American-Indian imagery in some of their pro-independence propaganda. Paul Revere, for example, designed an
illuminated obelisk which, on one panel, depicted an oppressed American as an
Indian lying under a Liberty Tree.[x]
In 1773, the Sons of Liberty dressed up as Indians for more practical
reasons. They disguised themselves as
Mohawks, boarded three British vessels loaded with tea, and threw the entire
shipment into Boston Harbor – the “Boston Tea Party. A song written to commemorate the party
remembered the participants as “Braves” and “Chiefs”:
Rally,
Mohawks! Bring out your axes!
And
tell King George we’ll pay no taxes
On his
foreign tea! . . .
Our
country’s ‘braves’ and firm defenders
Shall
n’er be left by true North-Enders,
Fighting
Freedom’s cause!
Then
rally, boys, and hasten on
To
meet our chiefs at the Green Dragon.
Francis S. Drake, Tea Leaves:
Being a Collection of Letters and Documents Relating to the Shipment of Tea to
the American Colonies in the Year 1773, by the East India Tea Company,
Boston, A. O. Crane, 1884, page 176.
Forty years
after the Boston Tea Party, a British observer managed to insult his country’s
and Canada’s First-People’s allies more than his American enemies, while noting
the irony of white Tammany cultists preparing to do battle with Tecumseh during
the War of 1812:
[The Tammany Society] has, by
a sort of retrograde movement in the path of civilization, adopted not only an Indian tutelary saint, but many of the
emblems, customs, names, and manners of their Indian neighbours, who are
at present signalizing their gratitude on the borders of Canada. The sons of Tammany,
as they affectionately denominate themselves, have probably of late become not
a little sick of their patron Saint, and his whole race, and it is to be hoped
will never again insult their wounded country, by the exhibition of such
barbarous mummery, or degrade themselves by affecting either the dress,
decorations, or manners, of such
detestable monsters, who, though to the shame of every honest Briton,
associated with the sole remaining “bulwark of our faith,” are only
distinguishable from the tiger by their form.
W. Allston, The Sylph of the Seasons, with other poems,
London, W. Pople, 1813, Note IV, page 172.
The
aftermath of Tecumseh’s War and the War of 1812 forever shifted the balance of
power between the United States and Native-American tribes, paving the way for
westward expansion and future disputes and Indian wars.
One hundred
years later, a baseball team in Boston assumed the name “Boston Braves,” in
part based on its owner’s membership in a club named for Saint Tammany.
Surprisingly,
perhaps, it was not the first team in the greater-Boston area to be named after
a 17th century Native-American leader and statesman. That honor goes to the “King Philips” of East
Abington (later Rockland), the amateur champions of Massachusetts in 1874.
The “King Philips”
The “King
Philips”, a successful Boston-area baseball team in the 1870s, was still remembered
fondly in 1915:
Next Thursday night quite a
gathering of baseball men will be entertained by the Knights of Columbus at
Rockland. Among the number will be [Red
Sox] Pres. Joseph J. Lannin, [Red Sox] manager William Carrigan and Harold
Janvrin. The writer will go along to
meet the few members left of the famous King Philips,
champions of New England when Rockland was called East Abington.
Boston Daily Globe, January 10, 1915. [xi]
The “King
Philips” were named for the Wampanoag Sachem or chief Metacomet, who later in life
adopted the English name, “King Philip.”
He was killed during “King Philip’s War,” a three-year conflict between
and among Native-Americans and English colonists.
Although there does not appear to be any specific, direct connection
between the naming of the “King Philips” baseball team in the 1870s and the
naming of the Boston “Braves” in 1911, the name of the earlier team at least
demonstrates the early openness to naming baseball teams after
Native-Americans.
In 1903, two amateur baseball teams fighting it out for cross-river bragging
rights in Rock Island, Illinois and Davenport, Iowa displayed a similar
openness to taking on the names of revered Indian leaders who died fighting for
their freedom:
While
300 interested spectators looked on, interested witnesses, the King Philip baseball team neatly scalped the Tecumseh tribe
of Davenport, and hung the gory locks at its belt as another record of its
prowess on the field of battle. The
outing took place Sunday at Rock river.
Rock Island Argus, September
15, 1903, page 2.
What’s in a Name?
The Boston
Nationals’ decision to officially adopt the name “Boston Braves” in late-1911
may have resulted from a confluence of several factors; an owner who belonged to
Tammany Hall, a team that had once been widely known as “Buck’s Braves,” and/or
a widespread sports-reporting tradition of applying Native-American imagery to
team sports.
The name was
chosen at a time when Native-American sports stars were numerous, popular,
well-known and widely admired and praised in the press. The name itself (despite some now-cringe-worthy
imagery used in association with the name) may have grown out of a long-standing
tradition of respecting and honoring perceived admirable characteristics of
Native-American culture and its heroes St. Tammany and King Philip (even if
done in what might now seem like a ham-handed or cynical manner), and the new
nickname was fondly embraced by fans who adopted the name as their own.
In the case
of the football team, the switch from “Braves” to “Red Skins” seems to have
been a simple case of fitting in with their new stadium - they moved from the Boston Braves' stadium to the Boston Red Sox stadium the season they changed names, as opposed to a
conscious decision to choose what is viewed now as a more blatantly racist name.
Are the
names honorable titles reflecting admiration for Native-American traditions and
culture, and a remaining vestige of a time when American-Indian athletes were
tearing up the cinder track, baseball diamonds and football gridirons?
Is this all a tempest in a teapot, because 90% of Native-Americans are not offended by the name (according to a poll conducted by the Washington Post in May 2015)?
Is this all a tempest in a teapot, because 90% of Native-Americans are not offended by the name (according to a poll conducted by the Washington Post in May 2015)?
Are the
names dishonorable legacies of widespread and long-lasting mistreatment Native-Americans
and cynical appropriation of their cultural legacy (as suggested by Vice.com's Ty Shalter in June 2015, in a piece comparing the Redskins' name and logo to the Confederate Battle Flag)?
Are they innocent
names, beloved by generations of sports fans with no conscious ill-will or
openly racist sentiment, far-removed from the prejudices of earlier generations
and untainted by long-past wrongs?
You be the
judge.
But whatever
you decide, please, not the “Beaneaters”!
[i] “1933
News Article Refutes Cherished Tale that Redskins were Named to Honor Indian
Coach,” Robert McCartney, The
Washington Post, May 28, 2014 (online)
(citing, The Hartford Courant, July
6, 1933).
[ii]
Donald A. Grinde and Bruce E. Johnsen, Exemplar
of Liberty: Native America and the Evolution of Democracy, 7th
Draft, April 1, 1990, online at radical.org, Chapter 9, “An
American Synthesis, The Sons of St. Tammany or Columbian Order.”
[iv] Topeka
State Journal (Kansas), April 4, 1907, page 2 (Topeka “tribe of Cooley”); Minneapolis Journal, July 1, 1905, page
20 (Minneapolis Millers “Watkins tribe”); Des
Moines Register (Iowa), May 14, 1906, page 2 (“Cincinnati tribe”).
[v] The Minneapolis Journal, October 21,
1904, page 24.
[vi] Record of the Great Council of the United
States of the Improved Order of Red Men, Fifty-Seventh Great Sun Council, Held
at St. Joseph Missouri,Volume 12, Number 3, Page 21.
[vii]
Charles Edward Ellis, Authentic History
of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, Chicago, self-published,
1910, page 265.
[viii]
Proceedings of the Tammany Society, or
Columbian Order, on Laying the Cornerstone of their New Hall in Fourteenth
Street, and Celebrating the Ninety-First Anniversary of the Declaration of
American Independence, July 4th, 1867, New York, York Printing
Company, 1867, pages 108-109.
[ix] Proceedings of the Tammany Society, New
York, York Printing Company, 1867, page 108.
[x] “Mohawk as Emerging as a
Symbol of Liberty in the New Land,” Boston-Tea-Party.org, citing Donald
Grinde and Bruce Johansen, Exemplar of
Liberty: Native America and the Evolution of Democracy (1991).
[xi]
The King Philips were one of only eight teams in the Massachusetts Association
of Amateur Base Ball Players in 1873(Boston
Post, April 20, 1874, page 4). In
1874, they were considered the “amateur champions of the state” (Boston Post, August 24, 1874, page
3). They were in operation through at
least 1879 (Boston Post, June 12,
1879, page 2).
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