Indigenous mascots and symbols have represented the Kansas City Chiefs, Washington Redskins, Atlanta Braves, Cleveland Indians, and Chicago Blackhawks for decades. Yet, despite backlash by Native American advocacy groups including the National Congress of American Indians, their names – with the exception of the Redskins, who recently rebranded to the Washington Football Team – remain unchanged.
Critics have targeted misappropriations of Native culture by fans — particularly the tomahawk chop, a gesture of moving a forearm back and forth with an open palm that is usually paired with an accompanying chant.
Below is a run down of professional sports teams in the NFL, MLB, and NHL that currently use Native American imagery.
Atlanta Braves
With the Redskins rebranding, it was only a matter of time before other organizations with nicknames associated with Native Americans made their stances clear.
The Atlanta Braves made the franchise’s intentions clear shortly following the announcement from Washington.
“We are so proud of our team’s name and our expectation is that we will always be the Atlanta Braves,” Terry McGuirk, chairman of the Braves, said.
Still, at Truist Park, a sea of red foam tomahawks are chopped down by fans as they cheer on the Braves. It has been a tradition since 1991, after the signing of Florida State University’s three-sport player Deion Sanders, as stated by the Florida State Seminoles Official Athletic Site.
In Game 1 of the 2019 National Division League Series, St. Louis Cardinals rookie pitcher Ryan Helsley, a member of the Cherokee Nation, was offended by this — even though the gestures were not specifically directed towards him.
Helsley told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that he believed the chant was a “misrepresentation of the Cherokee people or Native Americans in general” and “devalues us and how we’re perceived.” Days after Helsey spoke on behalf of the tomahawk chop, the Atlanta Braves did not distribute the tomahawks or play the chant’s backup music in Game 5. The organization also announced that it will “look forward to a continued dialogue with those in the Native American community once the season comes to an end.” The Braves plan to examine the future of the tomahawk chop chant, according to ESPN.
The Atlanta Braves are the oldest operating sports franchise in all of MLB, beginning as the Boston Red Stockings in the 1870s. In 1912, the team was purchased by James E. Gaffney, a Tammany Hall alderman and construction company owner, who chose a Native American with an eagle-feather headdress as the mascot, according to The New Republic. After 82 years, the Braves moved to Milwaukee, and later on Atlanta in 1966.
The Chief Noc-A-Homa mascot, who would perform a war dance after home runs and build a teepee in the left field bleachers, was retired in 1986. The logo was replaced with the word “Braves” above a tomahawk in 1989 and has remained since.
Today, the current Braves uniforms still display a tomahawk and the phrase “chop on” is sold on merchandise.
Washington Redskins
In July, the Redskins announced that the team would no longer be referred to as such, and would instead go by a new name. The team residing in the nation’s capital soon decided to rebrand to the Washington Football Team until the franchise settles on a new name.
New uniforms coinciding with the new name were also revealed. The team will keep its signature burgundy and gold colors, but will change the logo on the helmets to instead display each player’s number.
Regardless of the controversy previously surrounding the nickname, team owner Dan Snyder told USA Today in 2013 that the Redskins will “never change the name.”
Activists from the Oneida Indian Nation, Senator Maria Cantwell and Representative Tom Cole spoke on behalf of the name’s morality shortly thereafter.
Nine in 10 Native Americans are not offended by the Washington Redskins team name, according to an Annenberg Public Policy Center poll conducted by The Washington Post in 2016. The poll has been criticized for “potentially underrepresenting Indians who live on reservations and are less likely to have landline phones, for not measuring levels of tribal membership and for only asking a single question about attitudes on the issue,” according to The Washington Post.
Despite this finding, the organization had been at the center of debate for decades, and in 2014, the controversy made waves in the U.S. Senate. Fifty senators signed for a name change, and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office revoked the team’s trademark.
President Obama has even said that if he was a team owner and saw that it was “offending a sizable group of people, [he’d] think about changing it,” according to The Washington Post.
The Washington Redskins, originally referred to as the Boston Braves, were founded in 1932 while “Civilization Regulations” were in place. A year later, team owner George Preston Marshall banned African American players from the team which lasted 13 years — it was the only team to not have a black player in 1961. In 1933, the team was named the Boston Redskins to prevent confusion with the professional baseball team, the Boston Braves, which was named to honor coach William “Lone Star” Dietz who identified as a Sioux. The team then moved to Washington, D.C. in 1937.
Despite the Redskins obtaining six federal trademark registrations with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, Native American leaders had urged for a name change for years. Since then, the trademarks were removed by the Trademark and Trial Appeal Board on June 18, 2014.
Kansas City Chiefs
The Kansas City Chiefs have been under the spotlight after winning a Super Bowl for the first time in 50 years. At games, fans often wear face paint, headdresses, and costumes mimicking Native American stereotypes.
After Washington announced its rebranding, the Chiefs explained how Kansas City’s franchise does not have the same issues as Washington’s.
“We feel like it’s very different than in the Washington situation,” team president Mark Donovan said. “There’s a lot of true equity value in the traditions and the name and the history of the Kansas City Chiefs. That’s extremely valuable not only from an economic standpoint, but with the tradition of this team.”
Native American journalist Vincent Schilling took to Twitter before Super Bowl LIV and said the team’s name started with the Boy Scouts.
White businessman Harold Roe Bartle founded Tribe Mic-O-Say in 1925, a Boy Scouts of America-affiliated troop, according to an article written by Shilling on News Maven. Bartle went by the name Chief Lone Bear in Tribe Mic-O-Say, after he was supposedly named “Lone Bear” by an Arapaho chief. He was infamously dubbed as “chief” by the people of Kansas City after becoming a two-term mayor. He was not Native American, but claimed to be “inducted into a local tribute of the Arapaho people."
When Dallas Texans owner Lamar Hunt wanted to relocate his team, Bartle lured the organization to Kansas City. The Texans then decided to change their names to “chiefs” in order to honor Bartle.
Since then, the football field has been named Arrowhead Stadium, and before opening kickoff, a former player bangs a drum and a cheerleader rides in on a horse named “Warpaint,” according to Business Insider. The tomahawk chop has also become a fan tradition.
Outlined in his tweets, Shilling argues that the name "Chiefs" does not respect or honor Native American culture. He told CNN that his grandmother, a Mohawk woman who as a child was stolen away to a boarding school, was terrified to celebrate her indigenous ancestry.
In response to the controversy, the Chiefs announced in a statement that they have compromised with Native Americans for six years under an American Indian Community Working group to celebrate American Heritage month. Their goal has been “to create an awareness and understanding of Native cultures, as well as celebrate the rich traditions of multiple tribes with a historic connection to our region,” according to The Washington Post.
However, as the team performed on one of the biggest stages in sports, Native Americans, including Tara Houska and Rhonda LeValdo, have scrutinized the team's traditions since they believe it perpetuates negative stereotypes and appropriates their culture. To them, dialogue is not enough.
Cleveland Indians
The Cleveland Indians commented on a potential name change after Washington’s announcement this year. The team told CNN it was “committed to making a positive impact in our community and embrace our responsibility to advance social justice and equality." Paul Dolan, the owner of the team, announced that the Indians will consult with Native American leaders as the franchise continues looking into the forward path for the team's name.
For the beginning of the 2019 season and onwards, MLB announced that the Indians will stop using Chief Wahoo on their uniforms. The logo still has a limited retail presence in Northeast Ohio and Goodyear, Arizona, along with the stadium’s souvenir ships, but not on MLB’s website.
Although there is much debate about this, one version of the origin of the Indians nickname is that it derives from Louis Sockalexis, a member of the Penobscot Indian tribe of Maine, who played for the Cleveland Spiders from 1897-99 and was the first Native American to play in the National League. The team adopted the name “Naps” from 1903 to 1914, in honor of star player Nap Lajoie, who left the organization after the 1914 season. Owner Bill Weeck in 1947 asked a cartoonist to draw a logo, “Chief Wahoo,” according to The New York Times. The team adopted the name “Cleveland Indians” in 1915 and took inspiration from the Boston Braves, which had finished first in the league, according to WKYC.
Protests against Cleveland’s logo date back to the 1970s, and in the fall of 2014 under current Toronto Blue Jays president and CEO Mark Shapiro, the use of Chief Wahoo was reduced to a block “C” as the team’s main logo. The caricature continued to be utilized and began to draw attention in the 2016 playoff series with the Toronto Blue Jays.
In the World Series against the Chicago Cubs of that year, hundreds of Native American activists protested during the first game after a team’s spokesperson said the Indians had “no plans of making change,” according to The Chicago Tribune.
Following the end of the 2016 season, Michelle Lamont, the president of the American Sociological Association, wrote a letter to MLB commissioner Rob Manfred. The letter stated that the Indians’ mascot and logo perpetuate Native Americans, and the National Congress of American Indians called for Native Americans to be included in future discussions.
NHL Chicago Blackhawks
Many critics have claimed that no action has been taken in changing the Blackhawks logo since hockey does not have a great presence in the sports world.
The Blackhawks, named after owner Frederic McLaughlin’s military unit as a tribute to Black Hawk, leader of the Sauk people, began in 1926. The team is a part of the “Original Six” NHL Team, alongside the Boston Bruins, Detroit Red Wings, Montreal Canadiens, New York Rangers, and Toronto Maple Leafs.
Although the Blackhawks have had conversations with the American Indian Center of Chicago, posted a biography of Black Hawk on their official site, and renovated a statue in Oregon to promote Indigenous history, The National Congress of American Indians and other Native American activists and journalists have called for an end of the mascot.
During games, the Blackhawks do not have an Indian mascot or cheer, but some fans do show up in headdresses.
The team announced in July that it would not change its nickname, saying in a statement, “The Chicago Blackhawks' name and logo symbolizes an important and historic person — Black Hawk of Illinois' Sac & Fox Nation.”