WASHINGTON – For many Americans, both Indian and otherwise, the term “redskin” is a grotesque pejorative, a word that for centuries has been used to disparage and humiliate an entire people, but an exhaustive new study to be released today makes the case that it did not begin as an insult.
Smithsonian Institution senior linguist Ives Goddard spent seven months researching its history and concluded that “redskin” was first used by American Indians in the 18th century to distinguish themselves from the white “other” encroaching on their lands and culture.
When it first appeared as an English expression in the early 1800s, “it came in the most respectful context and at the highest level,” Goddard said.
It was not until July 22, 1815, that “red skin” first appeared in print, he found – in a news story in the Missouri Gazette on talks between Midwestern Indian tribes and envoys sent by President Madison to negotiate treaties after the War of 1812.
The envoys had rebuked the tribes for their reluctance to yield territory claimed by the United States, but the Gazette report suggested that Meskwaki chief Black Thunder was unimpressed: “Restrain your feelings and hear calmly what I say,” he told the envoys. “I have never injured you, and innocence can feel no fear. I turn to all red skins and white skins, and challenge an accusation against me.”
Goddard’s view, however, does not impress Cheyenne-Muscogee writer Suzan Shown Harjo, lead plaintiff for American Indian activists who, for the past 13 years, have sought to cancel trademarks covering the name and logo of the Washington Redskins.
“I’m very familiar with white men who uphold the judicious speech of white men,” Harjo said. “Europeans were not using high-minded language. (To them) we were only human when it came to territory, land cessions and whose side you were on.”
The earliest usages of “redskin” that Goddard tracked down were in statements made in 1769 by Illinois tribal chiefs involved in delicate negotiations with the British to switch loyalties away from the French.
“I shall be pleased to have you come to speak to me yourself,” said one statement attributed to a chief named Mosquito. “And if any redskins do you harm, I shall be able to look out for you even at the peril of my life.” The French used the phrase “peaux Rouges” – literally “red skins” – to translate the chief’s words.
Goddard said the first known public use of “redskin” in English occurred on Aug. 22, 1812, in Washington at a meeting between Madison and a group of visiting Indian chiefs.
Madison, worried about possible alliances between Indian tribes and the enemy British, delivered a long, stylized plea liberally sprinkled with the expressions “red people,” “red tribes” and “my red children.”
In response, Little Osage chief Sans Oreilles (No Ears) pledged loyalty despite provocations against his tribe and noted that “I know the manners of the whites and of the red skins.” Then Sioux chief French Crow, making much the same argument, said: “I am a red-skin, but what I say is the truth, and notwithstanding I came a long way, I am content, but wish to return from there.”
Goddard acknowledged it is impossible to know whether the chiefs said “redskin” in their own languages, but interpreters in many contexts and with many tribes in this time period treated the word as an expression that only Indians used. The same is true of “white-skin.”
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