Its also understandable. Where African slaves were seen as a chattel-based equity investment, Indigenous Californians were being enslaved to be worked to death and replaced until they were all gone. From 1991-1998, the 49ers averaged a staggering 13 wins per season, further cementing their legacy in the pantheon of all-time dynasties in professional sports. Merriam-Webster defines uppity as "putting on or marked by airs of superiority" and likens the word to arrogant and presumptuous behavior. These fortunate early gold miners were quickly dubbed the forty-niners. There were published reports around the country about them, and there was a book, The Forty-niners, Or, The Pioneers Daughter published in 1879. Fake headdresses abound. 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. In 2020, you dont get to play the well, I didnt know card anymore. Colin Kaepernick was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in 1987. All Rights Reserved. The conditions in the mining camp were rough and crude. But fans and consumers have the power to convince NFL team owners to do the right thing. Read: The future of Native American imagery in sports, Sutter and others tried to keep the discovery a secret, but word spread quickly, and soon the population of California swelled. 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. Lets dive right into why this name is baffling. 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. Following the purchase, he gave the team to his son Edward J. DeBartolo Jr. Theyve nabbed five Super Bowl titles and were home to several NFL legends, including Steve Young, Joe Montana and Jerry Rice. Names like the Giants, Jaguars, or Cowboys are generally pretty self-explanatory in terms of connotations. Dear Abby: Why do they imply my husband is a freak? As April Moore from the Nisenan Maidu told PBS, "this gold strike brought thousands of people from every place known to man into our traditional territory. In San Francisco's 24-20 loss to the Arizona Cardinals on Sunday, safety Budda Baker tackled 49ers star George Kittle's and the tight end wound up leaving with a sprained left knee. What happened next would become one of the lowest moments of shameless treachery in the history of the U.S. Senate. These prospectors were dubbed the 49ers.. The protests of Californias white men, however, drowned out Leas tepid advocacy. But, like the 49ers of the gold rush, team founder Tony Morabito saw opportunity where others saw uncertainty. Which Continent Is Russia Part of Europe or Asia? 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. So heres some insight on why the are called the 49ers. Shannon Keller O'Loughlin, a Choctaw and the Executive Director of the Association on American Indian Affairs, doesn't excludepro teams like the Chiefs from having that kind of impact, too. Their helmets have a gold sheen to them, and a horn blows when they score similar to the old-time mining horns. The 49ers are not the only professional franchise the York family has shaped. As the owner and co-chair of the 49ers, Marie Denise DeBartolo York presides at the head of the table. John York, her husband of nearly 44 years, serves as the current co-chair. He was elected into the Pro Football Hall of Fame as a contributor in 2016. Theres no way you could go wrong. When the white Californians heard the terms, they were outraged: Why reserve even a single acre for the Indians? Activate your account. They unquestionably were not stone-age people riding horses in loincloths. These conversations are part of that process. The Super Bowl is coming up, and in these days of anticipation we often get so caught up worrying about little things like What teams are playing? and Whos going to win? that we lose sight of the bigger question: Why on earth are the San Francisco 49ers called the San Francisco 49ers? 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. 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. What did Georgias Nolan Smith say at the NFL Combine about the death of his teammate Devin Willock? "That's just not something we talk. So much so, that the New York Times wrote a feature this week talking about how the issue divides people (making one wonder, would other racist traditions get the both sides treatment from the paper of record?). Between 1849 and the late 1870s, the United States government in conjunction with the territory of California enacted laws to legally exterminate the Indigenous people of California. There should be assigned to each tribe, for a permanent home, a country adapted to agriculture, of limited extent and well-defined boundaries, Commissioner of Indian Affairs Luke Lea wrote in his annual report of 1850. Thats the positive news. Nothing, ever, is set in stone. To get a full view on the horrific nature of the war on the plains, listen to Daniele Bolellis amazing recounting on his History on Fire podcast focusing on the Sand Creek Massacre (one of the darkest chapters in U.S. history). NFL players, coaches, front-office staff, and owners . Whats causing this dust-up? Like O'Loughlin, he cited the "growing epidemic of missing and murdered indigenous women across the country, across Indian country at large, and where we see these large disproportionate number of our native women and children in particular have gone missing and turned up deceased" and "the protection of native peoples' natural resources, their lands, their waters, their cultures and who they are as a people.". The History And Traditions That Make Hanukkah Light Up, Examples Of Ableist Language You May Not Realize Youre Using, Winter 2023 New Words: Everything, Everywhere, All At Once, Fall In Love With 14 Captivating Valentines Day Words, Rizz And 7 Other Slang Trends That Explain The Internet In 2023, Win With Qi And This List Of Our Best Scrabble Words, We Had ChatGPT Coin Nonsense PhrasesAnd Then We Defined Them, Surprise! Race is an issue that defines our nation. San Francisco's professional football team, the 49ers, was named in honor of the men who came to California during the Gold Rush. In fact, James Marshall and John Sutter, the two men linked with the start of one of the most pivotal events in California history, never got rich. With the Chiefs specifically, the damage caused is that it disrespects Native American images and customs in front of millions of people. As a result, while gold technically was discovered in 1848, the Gold Rush didnt hit full swing until 1849. The sleeping Indians werent even members of the same Maidu tribe, but to the miners, it didnt matter: Indian was Indian. What Is the Story Behind This Little Piggy? Besides, would a single person in Kansas City be any less stoked if the Kansas City Wolves were going to the Super Bowl? The San Francisco 49ers are trying to identify the fan who sent profanely racist messages to a player from a rival team in an effort to ban the person from games and events. Wolf, was introduced. Political reality demands it. When the news of gold in California became common knowledge, people started coming from all over the country in order to stake their claim. Theyve nabbed five Super Bowl titles and were home to several NFL legends, including Steve Young, Joe Montana and Jerry Rice. Yes, this is about recognizing the past. 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. Taylor and his Indian affairs advisers were excited to test an idea that had been attracting growing interest. Copyright 2019-2023. 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. The average American simply has no clue to the horrific nature of the actions taken by the United States and its citizens against Indigenous people from sea-to-shining-sea. But this name is part of our teams heritage! scream the bad-faith Dan Snyders of the world. Sure, people should feel free to enjoy the Super Bowl if they like. In 1995, the San Francisco 49ers became the first NFL team to win five Super Bowls. Besides the fact that it equates an entire people with crude, blind violence, the region the team calls home is particularly fraught. The 49ers went west with hearts full of greed for the riches of the land. A lot of the people who first came to the region would end up being known as 49ers as a result. When Jackie Robinson became the first African American to play for a professional baseball team, the Brooklyn Dodgers, it was a seminal moment in the history of the civil rights movement. 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. The federal government, Lea added, should supply Indians there with farming tools, cloth, and livestock; assist them with housing; and secure for them intellectual, moral, and religious education. The 49ers did their part to kill off Indian chiefs and their tribes. Not for clicks. Alas.). Since 1977, when her father purchased the team and became the owner of the 49ers, Marie Denise DeBartolo York and her family have been integral pieces that have helped shape the organization and the NFL into what it is today. Meanwhile, the first game of American football was played in 1869 in New Jersey, and even then it didnt really look like football, more like soccer mixed with rugby. Top 10: The Forty-Niners, a novel by Alan Moore and Gene Ha. Youll see the colorful old coot prowling the sidelines, striking poses for the television cameras and exhorting the fans to cheer. You know, you and your friends watch some dumb movie and afterwards someone calls out a plot [], (Last Updated On: August 31, 2020) Why Is it Called Death Valley? But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! Surely enough, the 49ers have become one of the most successful teams in the NFL. The voided agreements would not see the light of day again until 1905. Why Do Cats Knock Things Over All the Time? It was also the last season the family was involved with the team. ", He added, "Let's go back to the scenario featuring African Americans. Hired in 2011, Harbaugh guided the 49ers to a 13-3 record in his first year, culminating in an overtime loss to the eventual Super Bowl champion New York Giants in the NFC Championship. Despite the Senates formal rejection, federal and state officials in California carried on as if the treaties were in forceand apparently nobody bothered to inform the tribes of their true status under the law. San Francisco came up just short, losing to the Baltimore Ravens in the Harbaugh Bowl as Jims brother John coached the Ravens. Is It Called Presidents Day Or Washingtons Birthday? The symbolism of the modern Olympics celebrates nations working together peacefully in athletic competition. We already know that their name is problematic because of the controversy over the name of another football team, the Washington Redskins. Laws were passed that made it possible for whites to kidnap Native American children or arrest Native Americans for minor crimes and then force them to work off their fines, resulting in effective servitude. The 49ers theme also ties in with Californias nickname as The Golden State. As soon as he could, he escaped and with his family hid in the mountains." Yet the reality of the men behind the legend is not quite so lovable and comic. Legendary San Francisco 49ers quarterback Steve Young plays in Super Bowl XXIX in 1995 in Miami. Within 20 years of the start of the Gold Rush, 80 percent of California's Native Americans were wiped out; 100,000 perished during the first two years alone. Southerners used the term for Black people who didn't "know their place" and coupled it with a racial slur. 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. While he was kept there, Sutter worked him hard and then fed him in troughs. I felt like the 49ers hierarchy left me.. An athletic and mobile quarterback, Kaepernick attended the University of Nevada, Reno, where he set several. Its a nod to the past, sure, but a shitty one. Why is this behavior offensive? There were alsono taxes or land rights disputesat the time as California had yet to become a state. Its one thing for a population or group of sports fans to claim ignorance to all of this pre-2000. But, more importantly, this is about recognizing whats happening right now. NFL Week 4 recap: From Tottenham to Tom Brady. "Like I call myself an American Indian and I run the National Congress of American Indians. Fittingly, it's deeply tied to the history of the San Francisco area. The California Gold Rush began in 1848 but it took a year for the word to get out, and so by the time 1849 rolled around, thousands of fortune hunters had . While the Kansas City Chiefs have in recent years taken steps to improve their relationship with Native American communities, they have not banned offensive regalia from their games, ended their problematic rituals or seriously considered changing their name. The area consisted of several hundred Americans; about 6,500 Californios (people of Spanish or Mexican descent); and roughly 150,000 Native Americans. Olympic Valley in Lake Tahoe continues to shed racist slur, renames main thoroughfare. That mascot was phased out in 1988 and a completely innocuous mascot, The K.C. Bickering over the nacho plate! 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. Gold was first found in Northern California in January 1848, and it took about a year for the news to travel and inspire thousands of fortune seekers to head west. The 49ers won 49-26. is the nickname for those who flocked to northern California in 1849, also a kind of Olympic-style racing dinghy, team founder Tony Morabito saw opportunity where others saw uncertainty, are registered as the San Francisco Forty Niners,, French prospectors were the first to bring the chewy, tangy sourdough recipe. Who Is Colin Kaepernick? Over a period of 10 months in 1851, three agents of the Indian Affairs Office negotiated 18 treaties of peace and friendship with the Native Americans of California. 1:30 PM EST, Sat February 1, 2020, A look inside the stadium hosting Super Bowl LIV. I have seen it, and seeing all this, I cannot help them. It wasnt until Jim Harbaugh took over the reins as head coach that the 49ers returned as one of the top teams in the NFL. 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? Since 2014, theyve been playing at Levis Stadium in Santa Clara, around 45 miles from San Francisco proper. Not because of some left/right or politically correct/progressive agenda. "There's colleges and there's high schoolswhere it's a really big deal, because you're talking about young kids that are impressionable and are developing their thought process about life, their self-awareness, self-esteem, consciousness, all that developed in those years and when you have unfriendly, American Indian imagery and mascots, to the American Indian kids that go to those schoolsthere certainly is an impact that is not good," Allis said. The sidelines, striking poses for the riches of the men behind the legend is not quite lovable. 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