Whilesquaw (or a close variant) is found in severalEastern andCentralAlgonquian languages, primarily spoken in the northeastern United States and in eastern and central Canada,[8][9] these languages only make up a small minority of the Indigenous languages of North America. The word "squaw" is not used amongNative American,First Nations,Inuit, orMétis peoples.[2][3][4][5] Even in Algonquian, the words used are not the English-language word.[8]
Status
The termsquaw is considered offensive byIndigenous peoples in America andCanada due to its use for hundreds of years in a derogatory context[3] that demeans Native American women. This has ranged from condescending images (e.g., picture postcards depicting "Indian squaw andpapoose") toracialized epithets.[10][11] Alma Garcia has written, "It treats non-white women as if they were second-class citizens or exotic objects."[10]
While some have studied theelements of Algonquian words that might be related to the word, the consensus among Native women, and Native people in general, is that—no matter the linguistic origins—the word is too offensive,[1][2][3][5][6] and that any "reclamation" efforts would only apply to the small percentage of Native women from the Algonquian-language groups, and not to the vast majority of Native women who feel degraded by the term.[4][9] Indigenous women who have addressed the history and depth of this word state that this degrading usage is now too long, and too painful, for it to ever take on a positive meaning among Indigenous women or Indigenous communities as a whole.[2][5][4]
Feminist andanti-racist groups have also worked to educate and encourage the disuse of the term in normal discourse. When asked why "it never used to bother Indian women to be called squaw," and "why now?" anAmerican Indian Movement group responded in 2006:
Were American Indian women or people ever asked? Have you ever asked an American Indian woman, man, or child how they feel about [the "s" word]? (... it has always been used to insult American Indian women.)Through communication and education American Indian people have come to understand the derogatory meaning of the word. American Indian women claim the right to define ourselves as women and we reject the offensive term squaw.
The continued use and acceptance of the word 'Squaw' only perpetuates the idea that indigenous women and culture can be deemed as impure, sexually perverse, barbaric and dirty ... Please do eliminate the slur 'Squaw' from your community.[5]
The Buffalo Common Council then voted unanimously to change the name toUnity Island.[15]
In November 2021, theUnited States Department of the Interior, ("DOI") headed by Secretary of the InteriorDeb Haaland, declaredsquaw to be a derogatory and racist term and began formally removing the term from use on the federal level.[1] On September 8, 2022 the DOI officially replaced all place names containing the word and published a list of the new names.[16][17]
History
Eastern andCentralAlgonquianmorphemes (smallest units of meaning) meaning "woman" (mostly found as components in longer words) include:Massachusettsquàw ("woman"),Abenaki-skwa ("female, wife"),Mohegan-Pequotsqá,Creeiskwew / ᐃᐢᑫᐧᐤ (iskeyw, "woman"),Ojibweikwe ("woman"). Variants in other related languages are:esqua,sqeh,skwe,que,kwa,exkwew,xkwe. These are all derived from Proto-Algonquian *eθkwe·wa ("(young) woman").[8][18][9] According to linguist Ives Goddard, the notion that the word originally referred to a woman's vagina is inaccurate.[19]
In the first published report of Indigenous American languages in English,A Key into the Language of America, written in 1643,Puritan MinisterRoger Williams wrote his impressions of theNarragansett language. Williams notedmorphemes that he considered to be related to "squaw" and provided the definitions he felt fit them, as a learner, including:squaw ("woman"),squawsuck ("women"),keegsquaw ("virgin or maid"),segousquaw ("widower"), andsquausnit ("woman's god").[20]
In most colonial textssquaw was used as a general word for Indigenous women.
The Massachusett Bible was printed in the Massachusett language in Cambridge, Massachusetts in1663. It used the word squa in Mark 10:6 as a translation for "female". It used the plural form squaog in 1 Timothy 5:2 and 5:14 for "younger women".[19]
A will written in the Massachusett language by a native preacher from Martha's Vineyard uses the word squa to refer to his unmarried daughters. In the Massachusett language, squa was an ancient and thoroughly decent word.[19]
One of the earliest appearances of the term in English in print is "the squasachim, or Massachusetts queen" in the colonial bookletMourt's Relation (1622), one of the first chronicles of thePlymouth Colony written by European colonists, including the story of the Pilgrims' firstThanksgiving.[19] The sachem or sachim is the elected chief of a Massachusett tribe, and the booklet used Pidgin Massachusett to call the chief's wife the "squa sachim".[19]
Records accompanying sketches byAlfred Jacob Miller document mid-19th century usage of the term in the United States. Miller wrote notes in 1858-1860 for each picture, many of which included Indigenous women. These were published in the 1951 catalog of a Miller exhibition. ForIndian Girl reposing, Miller wrote, "Before they are 16 years of age, these girls may be said to have their heyday, and even then if they become the wives or mates of Trappers, are comparatively happy, for they generally indulge them to their hearts' content; should they become however the squaws of Indians, their lives are subjected to the caprices of a tyrant too often, whose ill treatment is the rule and kindness their exception. Nothing so strikingly distinguishes civilized from savage life as the treatment of women. It is in every particular in favor of the former." For"Bourgeois" Walker, & his Squaw, Miller describes his depiction of the fur trader made in 1858 thusly:
"The sketch exhibits a certain etiquette. The Squaw's station in travelling is at a considerable distance in the rear of her liege lord, and never at the side of him. [Walker] had the kindness to present the writer a dozen pair of moccasins worked by this squaw - richly embroidered on the instep with colored porcupine quills."[21][22][23]
The 1887 Canadian novelAn Algonquin Maiden uses the term squaw four times; twice as "squaw-snake" to refer to a female snake, and twice to refer to a woman from an Algonquin tribe.[25]
If I was to marry a white man and he would dare call me a 'squaw'—as an epithet with the sarcasm that we know so well—I believe that I would feel like killing him.[26]
E. B. White's 1961 story "The Years of Wonder", derived from his 1923 journal of a shipboard trip to Alaska, included, "Mr. Hubbard ... saw that Siberia was represented by a couple of dozen furry Eskimos and one squaw man; they came aboard from a skin boat as soon as theBuford dropped her hook."[27]
Science fiction authorIsaac Asimov, in his novelPebble in the Sky (1950), wrote that science-fictional natives of other planets would use slurs against natives of Earth, such as, "Earthie-squaw".[28]
We tried to find out what the children found painful about school [causing a very high dropout rate]. (...) The children said that they felt humiliated almost every day by teachers calling them "squaws" and using all those other old horrible terms.[29]
As a word referring to a woman, it was sometimes used to denigrate men, as in "squaw man," meaning either "a man who does woman's work" or "a white man married to an Indian woman and living with her people".[30]
Sexual references
Painting by Alfred Jacob Miller, c. 1859, titled "Bourgeois W—r, and His Squaw"Advertisement forJust Squaw, a 1919 silent film.
An early comment in whichsquaw appears to have a sexual meaning is from the Canadian writerE. Pauline Johnson, who was ofMohawk heritage, but spent little time in that culture as an adult.[31] She wrote about the title character inAn Algonquin Maiden by G. Mercer Adam and A. Ethelwyn Wetherald:
Poor little Wanda! not only is she non-descript and ill-starred, but as usual the authors take away her love, her life, and last and most terrible of all, reputation; for they permit a crowd of men-friends of the hero to call her a "squaw" and neither hero nor authors deny that she is a squaw. It is almost too sad when so much prejudice exists against the Indians, that any one should write up an Indian heroine with such glaring accusations against her virtue, and no contradictory statements from either writer, hero or circumstance.[32]
Statements thatsquaw came from a word meaning "female genitals" gained currency in the 1970s, but have since been found to be inaccurate.[19]
In November 2021, theU.S. Department of the Interior declaredsquaw to be a derogatory term and began formally removing the term from use on the federal level, with Secretary of the InteriorDeb Haaland (Laguna Pueblo) announcing the creation of a committee and process to review and replace derogatory names of geographic features.[1] In a press release, Secretary Haaland announced,
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. 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.[1]
This follows decades of work by Indigenous activists, both locally and in more general educational efforts, torename the locations across North America that have contained the word, as well as to eliminate the word from the lexicon in general.[4][33][34] The work follows previous actions by the Board on Geographic Names which recognized place names containing words that were widely recognized as being pejorative or derogatory for Black and Japanese people.[35]
Ioway Creek (formerly Squaw Creek), a 41-mile (66 km) long tributary of the S. Skunk River in central Iowa, known for its flooding and flash flooding of several highly developed portions of the eastern and southeastern portions of the Iowa State University campus in the city of Ames, was officially renamed by the U.S. Board on Geographic Names on February 11, 2021.[36]
TheMontana Legislature created an advisory group in 1999 to replace the wordsquaw in local place names and required any replacement of a sign to bear the new name.[37]
The Maine Indian Tribal-State Commission and theMaine Legislature collaborated in 2000 to pass a law eliminating the wordssquaw andsqua from all of the state's waterways, islands, and mountains. Some of those sites have been renamed with the wordmoose; others, in a nod toWabanaki language-recovery efforts, are now being given new place-appropriate names in thePenobscot andPassamaquoddy languages.[38] Twenty years after the law's passage, the owner ofBig Squaw Mountain Resort nearGreenville, Maine refused to consider changing the resort's name, even though its namesake was changed toBig Moose Mountain following the passage of the statewide law.[39]
TheAmerican Ornithologists' Union changed the officialAmerican English name of thelong-tailed duck, (Clangula hyemalis) fromoldsquaw to the long-standingBritish name, because of wildlife biologists' concerns about cooperation with Native Americans involved in conservation efforts, as well as for standardization.[40]
Members ofCoeur d'Alene Tribe inIdaho called for the removal of the wordsquaw from the names of 13 locations in that state in October 2006. Many tribal members reportedly believe the "woman's genitals" etymology.[41]
The British Columbian portion of a tributary of theTatshenshini River was officially renamedDollis Creek by theBC Geographical Names Office on January 15, 2008.[42] The name Squaw Creek had been previously rescinded on December 8, 2000.
An application was made to the Nova Scotia Geographic Information Service in late 2016 to rename Squaw Island,Cape Negro, Cape Negro Island and Negro Harbour in Shelburne County.[43]
Saskatchewan's Killsquaw Lake—the site of a 19th-century massacre of a group ofCree women—was renamedKikiskitotawânawak Iskêwak on November 20, 2018. The new name means "we honour the women" inCree. The renaming effort was led by Indigenous lawyer Kellie Wuttunee in consultation with Cree elders and community leaders. "To properly respect and honour First Nations women, we can no longer have degrading geographic names in Saskatchewan. ... Even if unintentional, the previous name was harmful. By changing the name, we are giving a voice to the ones who are silenced," said Wuttunee, who has worked onmissing and murdered Indigenous women cases. "Names are powerful. They inform our identity."[45]
After similar rumours over the years, on August 20, 2020, it was reported thatSquaw's Tit nearCanmore,Alberta would be renamed to avoid racist and misogynistic naming. Talks with theStoney Nakoda community to find a culturally appropriate name and a request to support the initiative were brought to the Municipal District of Bighorn in September 2020.[46] on September 29, 2020, the peak was officially renamed toAnûkathâ Îpa, meaning 'Bald Eagle Peak' in theStoney Nakoda language.[47]
Palisades Tahoe was the new name of Squaw Valley Ski Resort as of September 13, 2021.[48] The decision was announced after consulting with the localWashoe Tribe and extensive research into the etymology and history of the termsquaw.[49]
Serenity Mountain Retreat was the new name of the Squaw Mountain Ranch nudist resort as of December 2021.[50][better source needed]
Orange Cove is an agricultural community located along the eastern foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, incorporated in 1948 and has a population of 9,078. On January 27, 2021, the City Council deferred a proposal seeking to change the name of the Squaw Valley area of Fresno County to "Nim Valley", to allow the city to seek more community input.[51]
Yokuts Valley, California, became the official name of the basin formerly named "Squaw Valley". It had been part of long process of community debate from 2020 into early 2023.[52][53][54][55]
TheUnited States Department of the Interior announced in 2022 that it would rename 660 mountains, rivers, and other locations "to remove derogatory terms whose expiration dates are long overdue," including the word "squaw."[56] In September 2022, a list of approved names was published by the United States Geological Survey replacing 643 placenames containing "squaw".[57][58]
On September 23, 2022, GovernorGavin Newsom of California signed a law directing state and local authorities to remove "squaw" from almost 100 geographic features and place names throughout the state.[54][55]California State Parks and theCalifornia Department of Transportation announced reviews of markers and place names to be renamed or rescinded.[59]
^abcdefg"Secretary Haaland Takes Action to Remove Derogatory Names from Federal Lands" (Press release). U.S. Department of the Interior. November 19, 2021. RetrievedNovember 20, 2021.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.
^abcdeVowel, Chelsea (2016). "Just Don't Call Us Late for Supper - Names for Indigenous Peoples".Indigenous Writes: A Guide to First Nations, Métis & Inuit Issues in Canada. Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada: Highwater Press. p. 7.ISBN978-1553796800.Let's just agree the following words are never okay to call Indigenous peoples: savage, red Indian, redskin, primitive, half-breed, squaw/brave/papoose.
^abcdefgMathias, Fern (December 2006)."SQUAW - Facts on the Eradication of the "S" Word".Western North Carolina Citizens For An End To Institutional Bigotry.American Indian Movement, Southern California Chapter. Archived fromthe original on August 2, 2002. RetrievedJanuary 4, 2018.Through communication and education American Indian people have come to understand the derogatory meaning of the word. American Indian women claim the right to define ourselves as women and we reject the offensive term squaw.
^abcDeborah Pelletier,Terminology Guide: Research on Aboriginal Heritage, Library and Archives, Canada, 2012. (PDF archived at internet archive) (Available on docplayer). Accessed September 24, 2016.
^abc"Squaw – Facts on the Eradication of the 'S' Word". Western North Carolina Citizens For An End To Institutional Bigotry. RetrievedDecember 10, 2017.When people argue that the word originates in American Indian language point out that: Although scholarship traces the word to the Massachusset Indians back in the 1650s, the word has different meanings (or may not exist at all) in hundreds of other American Indian languages. This claim also assumes that a European correctly translated the Massachusset language to English—that he understood the nuances of Indian speech.
^"Name Replacements".USGS. U.S. Department of the Interior. RetrievedJanuary 30, 2025.
^Cutler 1994; Goddard 1996, 1997. Possibly as early as 1621.
^abcdefGoddard, Ives (April 15, 1997)."The True History of the WordSquaw. Slightly revised version of a letter, "Since the word squaw continues to be of interest", printed inIndian Country News"(PDF). p. 17A.In its historical origin, however, the word squaw is perfectly innocent ... It is as certain as any historical fact can be that the word squaw that the English settlers in Massachusetts used for "Indian woman" in the early 1600s was adopted by them from the word squa that their Massachusett-speaking neighbors used in their own language to mean "female, younger woman," and not from Mohawk ojiskwa' "vagina," which has the wrong shape, the wrong meaning, and was used by people with whom they then had no contact.
^Williams, Roger (1936) [1643].A Key into the Language of America (reprint). Baxter, Reprinted by Providence.ISBN1-55709-464-0.
^Alfred Jacob Miller (1951).The West of Alfred Jacob Miller (1837) from the notes and water colors in the Walters Art Gallery, with an account of the artist by Marvin C. Ross. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. pp. 71, 78.
^DeVoto, Bernard (1947).Across The Wide Missouri. Illustrated by Alfred Jacob Miller. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
^Poe, Edgar Allan (1838).The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket. Penguin. p. 49.ISBN978-0-14-043748-5.This man was the son of an Indian squaw of the tribe of Upsarokas, who live among the fastnesses of the Black Hills near the source of the Missouri.
^Adam, G. Mercer; Wetherald, A. Ethelwyn (1887).An Algonquin Maiden: A Romance of the Early Days of Upper Canada. Montreal: John Lovell and Son.Let me contrive to win the heart of this vain squaw-snake, and then with her aid I shall be able to destroy her husband ... Oh, there is no doubt that Big Bear knew all about the best way to make love, for very soon the squaw-snake began to show great discontent with her husband ... "Come, Ned, try to be entertaining for once; tell us about the pretty Indian girl you were mooning with." "What did you say?" demanded Edward, freezingly. "You heard perfectly well what I said." "What do you mean by it?" "Oh, I mean the pretty squaw you were spooning with, if that suits you better." ... "Only it was town talk in Barrie last Fall that you had become infatuated with the sweet little squaw to such an extent that your charming sister, with commendable prudence and foresight, had you put out of harm's way as speedily as possible."
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