Thats not to say that everything is the worst. Things are changing in some regards. The wretched remnant which escapes starvation on the one hand, and the relentless whites on the other, only do so to rot and die of a loathsome disease, the penalty of Indian association with frontier civilization, Beale wrote. Besides being really hot, Death Valley seems [], Partner Spotlight: West Ave Tavern in Tallmadge, OH, Partner Spotlight: Old Chicago Pizza + Taproom in Merrillville, IN, Partner Spotlight: Crave Hot Dogs & BBQ in Canton, MI, What Is a Caste? In 1848, at Sutters Mill, roughly 130 miles from what is now San Francisco, gold was discovered. Of all those who came to California, some 49ers grew wealthy but it was the merchantsthose that sold goods and services to the gold seekerswho typically made more money than the miners. When most people think of the real-life 49ers, they envision hardy American pioneers during the Gold Rush risking their lives in the hopethat they could carve out a little piece of the American dream for themselves. Meanwhile, in Washington, D.C., the Mexican-American War hero Zachary Taylor swept into the White House with fresh vigor. On Monday, 24-year-old Baker posted a . The negative news is that the teams name is still causing controversey over its negative connotations. The All-American Football League would end up dissolving and merging with rival the National Football League after the teams first season, along with teams like the Baltimore Colts and Cleveland Browns. Copyright 2023 Salon.com, LLC. Thats the positive news. The actual name "San Francisco 49ers" is relatively simple to unpack in terms of meaning, especially if you compare it to other more obscure names like the Green Bay Packers. The main thrust of the story is that the United States armed local militias thanks to the second amendment and sent them out on raiding parties. And thats the way it needs to be described in the history books., Newsom will no doubt be donning San Francisco 49ers gear and posing with Sourdough Sam, the teams mascot, at the many Super Bowl festivities this weekend. There are more historic parallels between the team and the historical context of its name: The 49ers were the first NFL team, and, in fact, the first major professional sports team to originate on the West Coast. Also, California was still disputed territory. So for me, this can only boil down to education, or a lack thereof. Matthew Campbell, staff attorney at the Native American Rights Fund and enrolled member of the Native Village of Gambell on the Saint Lawrence Island in Alaska, made a similar point. Why Are They Called the San Francisco 49ers? Twice a week we compile our most fascinating features and deliver them straight to you. Who are the main candidates to buy the Washington Commanders? John York, her husband of nearly 44 years, serves as the current co-chair. Naturally, it being the 1960s, the mascot the team chose was an Indian in a loincloth and face paint with feathers riding a horse named Warpaint. Zachary Taylors Indian affairs commissioner embraced reservations as the answer to the Indian problem in the West. So why are we still fair game? A franchise rich in tradition and success spanning several decades, the San Francisco 49ers are one of the pillars of the NFL. Cold rage! Sometimes, the name for a sports team is pretty easy to understand. It will be hard to hide. Laws by the U.S. government like Greaser Act in the 1850s sought to ethnically cleanse Spanish Indians from California. To a 49er miner, an Indigenous woman or child was nothing more than a pick-ax when it broke, you simply had to buy a new one. To a 49er miner, an Indigenous woman or child was nothing more than a pick-ax when it broke, you simply had to buy a new one. These miners were called the forty-niners, and the name was an easy choice for the football team when it was formed. As one newspaper wrote at the time, "Whites are becoming impressed with the belief that it will be absolutely necessary to exterminate the savages before they can labor much longer in the mines with security. FACT CHECK: We strive for accuracy and fairness. Fun fact: In the 1950s, the San Francisco 49ers were the first to implement the shotgun formation into plays, a common method to give the quarterback extra time to make a throw. Sports have political meaning because we, as consumers of entertainment, have chosen for decades to idolize athletes, identify with teams and invest greater social significance in the games themselves. A century after the Gold Rush, the 49ers were. Sourdough Sam has been the teams rootin tootin unblinkin mascot since the 1970s (though the image of a wily, trigger-happy prospector goes back to the early days of the team). Think pieces are being written on liberal and conservative outlets. Still, seeing someone in redface or a fake headdress denotes colonial bigotry. Prove it by playing this quiz. The-CNN-Wire Perhaps the clearest throwback to the inspiration, though, is the team mascot, Sourdough Sam. "I think most problematic when we see them used in the school setting is that they actually cause harm to students, native students and non-native students alike, and that they have this real negative impact on the students," Campbell told Salon. But first, Taylor had to bring civil order to California, and that meant statehood. The San Francisco 49ers dominated the Los Angeles Rams in a 24-9 win over their divisional rival on Monday. Its a nod to the past, sure, but a shitty one. (The Kansas City Chiefs may have changed their mascot from an Indian to a Wolf decades ago, but the name, chants, and symbolism are still offensive to many Native Americans.). A century after the Gold Rush, the 49ers were memorialized when San Franciscos first major league professional sports franchise, a football team, was named. All the property acquisition required was a little terrorism practiced on the countrys original inhabitants. Reproduction of material from any Salon pages without written permission is strictly prohibited. Aaron Rodgers reaches 500 career touchdowns, to kill Native American men and seize women and children, How did the Los Angeles Rams get their name? These conversations are part of that process. A lot of the people who first came to the region would end up being known as 49ers as a result. San Francisco came up just short, losing to the Baltimore Ravens in the Harbaugh Bowl as Jims brother John coached the Ravens. Its fueling the suicide rate amongst the youth and the dehumanization of Indigenous women. (In San Francisco alone, the citys population soared from a thousand residents in 1848 to 20,000 citizens just two years later.) With Jed York serving as president, the 49ers are once again on the cusp of greatness. The influx of opportunists was a boon for Californias economy, and hastened its admittance into the union in 1850. As you watch Super Bowl LIV, bear in mind that rooting for the Kansas City Chiefs and taking no issue with either their mascot or their fans' traditions means rooting for racism. We live in an age where the reality of Americas history with Indigenous people is easily accessible from the people living through the fallout of that history. It barely makes a blip on the national consciousness. In December of 2008, John and Denise announced that Jed, their son, would become team president and operating head of the franchise while they would become co-chairpersons. While not quite as obviously racist as those of other franchises, it is said that the term 49ershonors a generation of fortune seekersthatexploited, enslaved, and killed native Americans. Copyright 2019-2023. Why Is it Called Death Valley? The 49ers are not the only professional franchise the York family has shaped. Redface. Allis added that the problem with using Native American iconography in sports, however, is that it has a psychological impact on how viewers perceive Native American communities that can be particularly harmful in school settings. Despite its negative history, the word is regularly used by various races. Companies are refusing to broker Redskins merchandise. Joey Batters, died in 1992, five years before Nick Bosa, who has helped the 49ers return to football's biggest stage, was even born. Under the agreements, the Indians would retain about one-seventh of the stateabout the size of West Virginiain the form of discrete reservations. Some team names come with a little geographical bonus, like the Baltimore Ravens paying tribute to legendary resident Edgar Allen Poe. Wolf, was introduced. By the mid-1850s, more than 300,000 people had poured into California. Under Edward, the franchise became a juggernaut. Rejecting the treaties, Lea wrote, would be hazardous and unwise., Read: One way to help Native Americans: property rights. Meeting in a closed-door executive session on July 8, 1852, a majority of senators voted to reject all 18 treaties. Fittingly, it's deeply tied to the history of the San Francisco area. President Millard Fillmore, Taylors successor, appointed a superintendent of Indian affairs for California, a man named Edward Beale, and charged him with moving the states remnant Native American population onto reservations that encompassed roughly one-one-hundredth of the statenot the one-seventh promised. (Last Updated On: April 18, 2019) What Is a Caste? In 1978, DeBartolo Sr. purchased the Pittsburgh Penguins of the NHL and established Denise as the owner and president of the team. Another double bonus is the Minnesota Vikings and the regions large Scandinavian population. Suppose they painted a couple of small pigs black, placed Afro wigs on their heads, and then chased them around the football field at half time?". The question is whether they will follow through on that. In one of the earliest conflicts, a group of white miners from Oregon barged into the nearby Maidu hamlet, beat and shot the men, and savagely assaulted a number of the women. Seriously, help me get it. As white people continued to swarm into Native American land and consume their resources, it became difficult for communities that had once thrived to find the materials necessary to sustain themselves. These prospectors were dubbed the 49ers.. Alcohol and weapons were everywhere, and violence often erupted. And O'Loughlin brought up the issue of environmental protection. Names change all the time. Its just a number after all. Not everybody reaches a point within their traditional community to and I'm going back 150 years and not everybody had the right and ability to put warrior paint on their face. This is only a fraction of racist history of the team, and . When New Jersey prospector James Marshall "discovered" gold at Sutter's Mill, it was because Native Americans brought the nuggets to his attention without recognizing their commercial value. Origin and meaning The San Francisco 49ers scored a stunning upset against the top-seeded Green Bay Packers, earning themselves a shot at the NFC Championship. But this name is part of our teams heritage! scream the bad-faith Dan Snyders of the world. Few professional organizations have the history of the 49ers. How are players selected for the NFL combine? Yet the reality of the men behind the legend is not quite so lovable and comic. That, to me, provides some hope. Lets dive right into why this name is baffling. So, if your football festivities seem to be lagging on Super Bowl Sunday, feel free to whip out some of these facts and launch into a detailed conversation about bread. The team, which started out as part of the All-America Football Conference (AAFC), a rival to the National Football League (NFL), played its first regular-season game in September 1946. In the end, Calfornias Indigenous population fell by 80 percent over 25 years. ", He added, "Let's go back to the scenario featuring African Americans. They then took the extraordinary measure of ordering the treaties filed under an injunction of secrecy and transferred to an obscure federal archive, which held them for more than 50 years. Fake buckskin drums. The 49ers were founded in 1946, and hold the distinction of beingthe first major league professional sports franchisebased in San Francisco. Fake headdresses abound. They first adopted statutes that forced people designated as foreignersthat is, anyone who was not an American of northern European ancestryto pay a monthly $20 tax for the right to work in the goldfields. The 49ers is the nickname for those who flocked to northern California in 1849 hoping to take advantage of the gold rush. Murder did the rest. This slave trade lasted well into the 1870s with slave markets in San Francisco still functioning until they simply ran out of people to sell. Montgomery conveniently left out the mistreatment of non-whites in California; indeed, one could read that section of his book and not know they were even there at the time. A Warner Bros. Which Continent Is Russia Part of Europe or Asia? The SF 49ers' stay at the Greenbrier Resort in West Virginia between Weeks 2 and 3 contradicts the organization's statements on racism. San Francisco 49ers fans await Deebo Samuel contract news. (Samuel Corum/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images/NFL/Salon), ------------------------------------------, exploited, enslaved and even murdered the indigenous people in what's now the state of California, 80 percent of California's Native Americans were wiped out, April Moore from the Nisenan Maidu told PBS. It was a single-generation system. This version of the legend, Sourdough Sam, will be on full display in this years Super Bowl, when the San Francisco 49ers play the Kansas City Chiefs. Every day, get free NFL updates sent straight to your inbox! Theyve nabbed five Super Bowl titles and were home to several NFL legends, including Steve Young, Joe Montana and Jerry Rice. Theyd raid Indigenous towns, kill all the men, and then take the women and children to slave markets to be sold to miners as free labor. 130 miles from what is a Caste updates sent straight to your inbox miles from what a... 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