Anti-mascot logo

Labels such as Native Americans, American Indians, First Peoples, and other names for the indigenous people of the American continent, are an attempt to repudiate the negative terms frequently used in the past.

During the period when the Canton Asylum for Insane Indians existed, labels in use to describe Native Americans included: injun, savage, redskin, wild indian, and squaw or buck, among others. Names indicate status, and these insensitive terms denoted the status in which Native Americans were held while they were being assimilated into U.S. culture. Denigrating terms reinforced the idea that native cultures were “bad” or inferior to the white one. Even when whites tried to use a more flattering term like “noble savage,”  they were at least unconsciously callous.

The controversy around the labels Native American and American Indian as a referencing term has become less heated. Polls show that either term tends to be acceptable. A preferred method of reference is by tribe: “This is Joe, a Seminole Indian,” for example.

Satirical Representation of Indian Culture, courtesy Library of Congress

Reservation Cartoon

________________________________________________________