The U.S. government has renamed hundreds of peaks, lakes, streams, and other physical features on federal properties in the West and elsewhere to eliminate the use of a derogatory epithet for a Native American female.
New names for almost 650 sites containing the objectionable word “squaw” include commonplace (Echo Peak, Texas), odd (No Name Island, Maine), and Indigenous phrases (Nammi’I Naokwaide, Idaho) whose meaning will be obscure to non-Native language speakers at first glance.
Nammi’I Naokwaide meaning “Young Sister Creek” and is located on the ancestral territory of the Shoshone and Bannock tribes in southern Idaho. The tribes offered the new name.
Interior Secretary Deb Haaland stated in a statement, “I have a profound commitment to use my platform to ensure that our public lands and waterways are accessible and welcome. This begins with removing racist and insulting names that have adorned government locations for far too long.”
The reforms announced on Thursday concluded a process that began in 2021, when Haaland, the first Native American to manage a Cabinet agency, assumed office. Haaland comes from New Mexico’s Laguna Pueblo.
Legal organization Native American Rights Fund praised the changes.
“Federal properties should be inclusive environments for all citizens,” stated the deputy director in a statement. “It is long past time to remove insulting titles and involve tribes in the conversation.”
Haaland deemed the term disparaging in November and asked members of the Board on Geographic Names, the Interior Department panel responsible for the standard naming of U.S. locations, and others to come up with alternatives.
Haaland has meantime established a group that will solicit recommendations from the general public for the renaming of additional locations with insulting names.
Other renamed locations include Colorado’s Mestaa’hehe Pass at Mestaa’hehe Mountain, approximately 30 miles (48 kilometers) west of Denver. The new name honors Owl Woman, an influential interpreter who served as a liaison between Native Americans and white traders and soldiers in what is now southern Colorado.
In December, the Board on Geographic Names approved a name change for the peak.
While the insulting phrase in question, named as “sq___” by the Interior Department on Thursday, has only recently received widespread condemnation in the United States, changing place names in response to growing anti-racism sentiment has a lengthy history.
In 1962, the agency ordered the renaming of locations with pejorative terms for African-Americans, and in 1974, it did the same for Japanese-Americans.
In some instances, the commercial sector has taken the initiative to change the pejorative word for Native women. A California ski resort changed its name to Palisades Tahoe last year.
A ski area in Maine pledged to replace its name in 2021, twenty years after the state removed the slur from the names of municipalities and landmarks, but has not yet done so.
The term may have previously simply meant “woman” in the Algonquin language, but through time it has evolved into a derogatory epithet for Indigenous women, according to academics.
Meanwhile, California has taken its own measures to remove the term from place names. In August, the state legislature passed a law that will remove the word from over 100 locations by 2025.
Governor Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, has until the end of September to determine whether or not to sign the bill into law.
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