Interior Secretary Deb Haaland is calling for derogatory place names to be erased from the federal landscape, a move that will require a handful of national parks to change names that dot their landscapes.
On Friday the secretary announced that a formal review process has been created to come up with new names for places currently carrying derogatory names. Along that line, she also declared “squaw” to be a derogatory term and ordered the Board on Geographic Names – the federal body tasked with naming geographic places – to implement procedures to remove the term from federal usage.
A number of National Park System units will have to come up with replacement names to meet that directive. The Needles Campground at Canyonlands National Park in Utah was once called the Squaw Flat Campground. Search the park's website and you'll find that Canyonlands has locations once, or currently, known as Squaw Creek and Squaw Canyon.
Elsewhere, a search of nps.gov finds Squaw Tank in Joshua Tree National Park in California, Squaw Lake at Mount Rainier National Park in Washington, Squaw Mountain at Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve in Alaska, Squaw Hill at Klondike Glold Rush National Historical Park in Alaska, and Squaw Creek at Sequoia and Kings Canyons National Park.
"Racist terms have no place in our vernacular or on our federal lands. Our nation’s lands and waters should be places to celebrate the outdoors and our shared cultural heritage – not to perpetuate the legacies of oppression,” said the secretary. “Today’s actions will accelerate an important process to reconcile derogatory place names and mark a significant step in honoring the ancestors who have stewarded our lands since time immemorial.”
Secretarial Order 3404 formally identifies the term “squaw” as derogatory and creates a federal task force to find replacement names for geographic features on federal lands bearing the term. The term has historically been used as an offensive ethnic, racial, and sexist slur, particularly for Indigenous women. There are currently more than 650 federal land units that contain the term, according to a database maintained by the Board on Geographic Names.
The newly created Derogatory Geographic Names Task Force will include representatives from federal land management agencies, as well as diversity, equity, and inclusion experts from the Interior Department. The Secretarial Order requires that the task force engage in tribal consultation and consider public feedback on proposed name changes.
Additionally, Secretarial Order 3405 creates a Federal Advisory Committee to broadly solicit, review, and recommend changes to other derogatory geographic and federal land unit names. The Advisory Committee on Reconciliation in Place Names will include representation from Indian Tribes, tribal and Native Hawaiian organizations, civil rights, anthropology, and history experts, and members of the general public. It will establish a process to solicit and assist with proposals to the Secretary to change derogatory names, and will include engagement with tribes, state and local governments, and the public.
Together, the Secretarial Orders will accelerate the process by which derogatory names are identified and replaced. Currently, the Board on Geographic Names is structured, by design, to act on a case-by-case basis through a process that puts the onus on the proponents to identify the offensive name and to suggest a replacement. The process to secure review and approvals can be lengthy, often taking years to complete a name change. Currently, there are hundreds of name changes pending before the board. The newly established Federal Advisory Committee will facilitate a proactive and systematic development and review of these proposals, in consultation with local community representatives.
The Board on Geographic Names – originally established by Executive Order in 1890 – is a federal body designed to maintain uniform geographic name usage throughout the federal government. It is comprised of representatives from federal agencies concerned with geographic information, population, ecology, and management of public lands. In 1947, the Secretary of the Interior was given joint authority with the Board on Geographic Names and has final approval or review of its actions.
Derogatory names have previously been identified by the Secretary of the Interior or the Board on Geographic Names and have been comprehensively replaced. In 1962, Secretary Stewart Udall identified the N-word as derogatory, and directed that the BGN develop a policy to eliminate its use. In 1974, the Board on Geographic Names identified a pejorative term for “Japanese” as derogatory and eliminated its use.
Several states have passed legislation prohibiting the use of the word “squaw” in place names, including Montana, Oregon, Maine, and Minnesota. There is also legislation pending in both chambers of Congress to address derogatory names on geographic features on public land units.
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Comments
Good to see Secretary Haaland take this action. I fully support her efforts!
So sad we gave allowed the real racists and haters to hijack perfectly acceptable words. You are just playing into their hate.
Are you really that clueless? I'm guessing yes. But perhaps you'd prefer they go back to what they used to allow.
Why is squaw derogattory?
Good for Secretary Haaland! It's too bad not everybody is bothered by offensive names.
Depending upon which link you click on after a search on Google, "squaw" can be offensive or inoffensive. A 2017 article (updated in 2018) https://indiancountrytoday.com/archive/the-word-squaw-offensive-or-not wrote that squaw might be a shortened version of a word meaning "female friend" or "little woman baby" or it might (or might not) be a derogatory word meaning vagina. As early as 1892, the word squaw was believed to have a sexual meaning to it. As a woman, I frankly don't want to be considered just a vagina or nothing more than something sexual. Think of the word squaw as akin to maybe referring to white men in a derogatory term and then naming a trail, river, or peak after that male term considered by some or many to be slanderous and derogatory. Seems to me that because the word squaw brings up so many connotations and nobody is truly certain whether or not the term is derogatory (although back in the day, when the white man was claiming Native American territory as their own, the word probably was used in a derogatory way), it's smarter, nicer, and more respectful to simply remove the term squaw and rename whatever needs to be renamed.
So the government now codifies what words are offensive? Straight out of "1984".
You are correct, Rebecca.
I was told many years ago by a friend who is Shoshone that the word is more than just an anatomical term.
He said to most people who speak the Plains Indian languages and to the trappers of old, it was a kind of slang word that corresponds with an English word containing four letters starting with C and ending in T.
He says his mother once washed his mouth out with soap when he called his sister that word.
But even if EC would be okay with having his sister or mother called by that term, I guess that's up to him. Otherwise, it's likely just his ignorance showing up again.