So the use of the word 'American Indian' in and of itself is not necessarily problematic.". The idea of the Indian reservation continued to evolve in the nations capital. Before 1850 (when California became a state), the gold was free. Why Both Super Bowl Team Names Should Be Replaced, GloRilla, Ice Spice, And The Carefree Black Girl Backlash, Karol G Tells Us About Her Most Personal Album Yet, Maana Ser Bonito, And Collaborating With Shakira, The Rundown: Between Cocaine Bears And Maple Syrup Heists, Margo Martindale Is Absolutely Thriving In 2023. This is the history you need to know to understand exactly who you are. Just where did the Rams get their name? In fact, James Marshall and John Sutter, the two men linked with the start of one of the most pivotal events in California history, never got rich. It will be hard to hide. And so that's really where I've focused more fundamentally, is on these issues in public schools rather than with private companies.". NFL Scouting Combine records: 40-yard dash, best vertical jump, bench press, 3-cone drill. Because roughly 80% of the U.S. population was white in the 1960s, it's safe. To get a full view on the horrific nature of the war on the plains, listen to Daniele Bolellis amazing recounting on his History on Fire podcast focusing on the Sand Creek Massacre (one of the darkest chapters in U.S. history). Fittingly, its deeply tied to the history of the San Francisco area. Thats not to say that everything is the worst. Things are changing in some regards. Let's start with the 49ers named after the Americans who came to California in 1849 during the Gold Rush specifically, and more generally after the Gold Rush pioneers since the problem with their name is not as well known as the issues with the Chiefs. The sleeping Indians werent even members of the same Maidu tribe, but to the miners, it didnt matter: Indian was Indian. Abraham Lincoln himself, then a Whig congressman from Illinois, recognized that the war was a blatantly imperialistic exercise and denounced it in one of his earliest well-known speeches. As one newspaper wrote at the time, "Whites are becoming impressed with the belief that it will be absolutely necessary to exterminate the savages before they can labor much longer in the mines with security. While local white settlers awaited the territorys entry into the union, they pressed ahead with the formation of a state government. Matt Maiocco of NBC Sports Bay Area noted the 49ers have a history of signing their core players to extensions, but it tends to take them longer than it might for another team.. Maiocco cited the . Updated To his credit, current California Governor Gavin Newsom recently took one of the first steps to acknowledge the facts of history by issuing a formal apology to the states Native American tribes. As you watch Super Bowl LIV, bear in mind that rooting for the Kansas City Chiefs and taking no issue with either their mascot or their fans' traditions means rooting for racism. Fake buckskin drums. "When you look at the Kansas City Chiefs, and you look at a lot of their fans that are wearing headdresses, a lot of their fans that are putting war paint on their faces and bringing different kinds of things with them that symbolize a bow and an arrow or some kind of a tool or sacred item that is Indian in nature, the treatment of that is what the problem is, and the treatment of those things impacts and tarnishes the name of the team," Allis told Salon. To be able to comment you must be registered and logged in. The 49ers returned to the NFC Championship in Harbaughs third season, making it three in a row. The 49ers would go on to have some success in the following years. "I think most problematic when we see them used in the school setting is that they actually cause harm to students, native students and non-native students alike, and that they have this real negative impact on the students," Campbell told Salon. All Rights Reserved. But, more importantly, this is about recognizing whats happening right now. These fortunate early gold miners were quickly dubbed the forty-niners. There were published reports around the country about them, and there was a book, The Forty-niners, Or, The Pioneers Daughter published in 1879. Joey Batters, died in 1992, five years before Nick Bosa, who has helped the 49ers return to football's biggest stage, was even born. San Francisco 49ers quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo (10) acknowledges the fans as he exits the field to the locker room following the NFC Divisional Round playoff game against the Minnesota Vikings. appreciated. Besides the fact that it equates an entire people with crude, blind violence, the region the team calls home is particularly fraught. The History And Traditions That Make Hanukkah Light Up, Examples Of Ableist Language You May Not Realize Youre Using, Winter 2023 New Words: Everything, Everywhere, All At Once, Fall In Love With 14 Captivating Valentines Day Words, Rizz And 7 Other Slang Trends That Explain The Internet In 2023, Win With Qi And This List Of Our Best Scrabble Words, We Had ChatGPT Coin Nonsense PhrasesAnd Then We Defined Them, Surprise! This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Credit: Spencer Weiner/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images. Not to compare the two, but there was a notable difference between the iteration of slavery happening in California and the plantation system of the American South. Suppose their fans did the same thing to the pigs as they did to Native Americans. Jul 19. Technically, the San Francisco 49ers are registered as the San Francisco Forty Niners, but that definitely wouldnt fit on a football helmet. Besides, would a single person in Kansas City be any less stoked if the Kansas City Wolves were going to the Super Bowl? Land losses were near total. The name was in place, the team was in town, and logos needed to be made. John is also the chairman of the NFLs International Committee and sits on the leagues Audit and Business Ventures Committees. San Francisco came up just short, losing to the Baltimore Ravens in the Harbaugh Bowl as Jims brother John coached the Ravens. The 49ers won 49-26. is the nickname for those who flocked to northern California in 1849, also a kind of Olympic-style racing dinghy, team founder Tony Morabito saw opportunity where others saw uncertainty, are registered as the San Francisco Forty Niners,, French prospectors were the first to bring the chewy, tangy sourdough recipe. So let me try to keep that promise in the headline and explain why both names should be replaced. Pro Football Network strives to passionately deliver purposeful, captivating, and exceptional football content. The team responded . Sorry, pal, our heritage predates the NFL by a few millennia. He is, after all, not just the governor but the citys former mayor. The nation is coming to grips with that. A century after the Gold Rush, the 49ers were memorialized when San Franciscos first major league professional sports franchise, a football team, was named. Thats the positive news. The wretched remnant which escapes starvation on the one hand, and the relentless whites on the other, only do so to rot and die of a loathsome disease, the penalty of Indian association with frontier civilization, Beale wrote. The rest was history. NFL Week 4 recap: From Tottenham to Tom Brady. Copyright 2023 Salon.com, LLC. Perhaps the clearest throwback to the inspiration, though, is the team mascot, Sourdough Sam. He was elected into the Pro Football Hall of Fame as a contributor in 2016. spokesman said that players would be allowed to choose a decal with one of six messages to place on the back of their . Who is the owner of the San Francisco 49ers? However, it was a far cry from the dominance of the 80s and early 90s. That, to me, provides some hope. 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Aaron Rodgers reaches 500 career touchdowns, to kill Native American men and seize women and children, How did the Los Angeles Rams get their name? These prospectors were dubbed the 49ers.. Thousands of Americans, French, Germans, Italians, Chinese, Chileans, Englishmen, Australians, and Mexicans converged on the mines hoping to obtain wealth beyond their wildest dreams, wrote the historians Clifford Trafzer and Joel Hyer. Its called a genocide, Newsom said. I felt like the 49ers hierarchy left me.. The following year, The Sacramento Union published this news item: An Indian was murdered in Santa Barbara recently under circumstances which call loudly for the establishment of a Vigilance Committee. What Is the Story Behind This Little Piggy? Is she dating Chiefs Travis Kelce? Teams with names like the Cowboys, Miners and Vikings also celebrate white settler colonialism. And thats the way it needs to be described in the history books., Newsom will no doubt be donning San Francisco 49ers gear and posing with Sourdough Sam, the teams mascot, at the many Super Bowl festivities this weekend. Another double bonus is the Minnesota Vikings and the regions large Scandinavian population. Why Is it Called Death Valley? Twice a week we compile our most fascinating features and deliver them straight to you. The actual name "San Francisco 49ers" is relatively simple to unpack in terms of meaning, especially if you compare it to other more obscure names like the Green Bay Packers. With Jed York serving as president, the 49ers are once again on the cusp of greatness. Copyright 2019-2023. These conversations are part of that process. The 49ers are not the only professional franchise the York family has shaped In 1978, DeBartolo Sr. purchased the Pittsburgh Penguins of the NHL and established Denise as the owner and president of the team. Whats causing this dust-up? The indigenous population of California went from more than 200,000 . He was called from his house by a [local white man], whose name we did not learn, and who without any provocation whatever, plunged a knife into his heart, killing him instantly. Are you an NFL fan? Theres no way you could go wrong. There should be assigned to each tribe, for a permanent home, a country adapted to agriculture, of limited extent and well-defined boundaries, Commissioner of Indian Affairs Luke Lea wrote in his annual report of 1850. Similarly,Muhammad Ali declaringhimself a conscientious objector during the Vietnam War and refusing to register for the draft became a flashpoint of both the anti-war and civil rights movements, but it was the regulatory bodies stripping him of his heavyweight title and licenses as a result that made his personal politics an issue within the sport. There are history podcasts. The "49ers" is the nickname for those who flocked to northern California in 1849 hoping to take advantage of the gold rush. But fans and consumers have the power to convince NFL team owners to do the right thing. The Anaheim Mighty Ducks, anyone? ", She added, "The Nisenan Maidu just happened to be right in the middle of this whole chaotic event. Perhaps because of the name, the team has never left San Francisco. (Samuel Corum/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images/NFL/Salon), ------------------------------------------, exploited, enslaved and even murdered the indigenous people in what's now the state of California, 80 percent of California's Native Americans were wiped out, April Moore from the Nisenan Maidu told PBS. These are all mainstays of a Kansas City Chiefs game. Theyve nabbed five Super Bowl titles and were home to several NFL legends, including Steve Young, Joe Montana and Jerry Rice. Yes, this is about recognizing the past. All rights reserved. "The name Chiefs on its own by itself may not be offensive, right? Within 20 years of the start of the Gold Rush, 80 percent of California's Native Americans were wiped out; 100,000 perished during the first two years alone. When the news of gold in California became common knowledge, people started coming from all over the country in order to stake their claim. The teams mascot was a gold miner named Sourdough Sam (pictured above). Theres no way you could go wrong. At a time when President Donald Trump has brought vilification of Mexico to a fevered pitch in the United States, it is important to recall that the future American state was originally owned by the Mexican government. The origin of the Kansas City Chiefs' team name may not be what you think: The team was named after former Kansas City mayor H. Roe Bartle. Similarly, cheering for the San Francisco 49ers after learning about the history of the California Gold Rush, in which white people oppressed and enslaved Native Americans on land that the United States had recently stolen from Mexico, means cheering for racism. Having spent most of his military career fighting Indians, Old Rough and Ready Taylor declared himself keen to move the country into an era of peace and prosperity. Olympic Valley in Lake Tahoe continues to shed racist slur, renames main thoroughfare. Until 2019, when the 49ers went 133 and advanced to Super Bowl LIV, they had losing seasons every year following Harbaughs departure. "The 49ers", a group of Cathay Pacific Airways pilots fired on 9 July 2001. It is why there was so much fuss when it seemed that the Kansas City Chiefs' star quarterback, Patrick Mahomes, had defended George Zimmerman over Trayvon Martin (the full story of the tweets, and Mahomes' views, is more complicated). Between 1849 and the late 1870s, the United States government in conjunction with the territory of California enacted laws to legally exterminate the Indigenous people of California. And because it was such an environmentally productive area, in the beginning they didn't have a problem with eating, but because there were so many people, they overused the area and created drought and created starvation for themselves, and along with them for the indigenous peoples. However, in those days, it could take as long as a year for people to get from the major population hubs on the East Coast to California. Hired in 2011, Harbaugh guided the 49ers to a 13-3 record in his first year, culminating in an overtime loss to the eventual Super Bowl champion New York Giants in the NFC Championship. Enjoy live and on-demand online sports on DAZN. But it was not until DeBartolo Jr. took over that the 49ers found the success that redefined the modern NFL. Denises father, Edward DeBartolo Sr., purchased the organization for $13 million in 1977. That excuse is gone, folks. All the property acquisition required was a little terrorism practiced on the countrys original inhabitants. "That's just not something we talk. Goats in California? The 49er represents brutal manifest destiny and wealth capture at the expense of an entire population. This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged. Youll see the colorful old coot prowling the sidelines, striking poses for the television cameras and exhorting the fans to cheer. Seriously, help me get it. Naturally, it being the 1960s, the mascot the team chose was an Indian in a loincloth and face paint with feathers riding a horse named Warpaint. Read: The schools that triedbut failedto make Native Americans obsolete. 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