Existing comment:
Playing Indian:
Indian sports mascots are part of a history of Native Americans being used as figures of entertainment.
Wild West Shows:
Buffalo Bill's enormously popular Wild West shows ran from 1883 until 1913. In addition to displays of sharpshooting and rodeo talent, they featured Indian war dancers, attacks on pioneer wagon trains and battle re-enactments.
In these mythologized depictions, aggressive, uncivilized Indians were shown being beaten back by white soldiers and settlers striving to bring order and civility to the West.
"Let us then take the rising generations away..."
While audiences were enjoying the caricatures of Native Americans in Cody's Wild West shows, the US government was trying to obliterate native cultures.
The goal of federal policy-makers from the 1880s to the early 1900s was to bring Indians into mainstream American society. Native children were removed from their homes and placed in boarding schools, where they were forbidden to speak their language or practice their religions. |