Hurtful names should be replaced
Halfway through the first month of the new year and America continues to work to erase reminders of our checkered past. Headway was made in 2022, as derogative names across the nation were changed to reflect this century’s continuing sensibilities.
About this time last year, the 17-mile Squaw Creek, out by Ingleside in Grant Township, officially became known as Manitou Creek. It was one of the places with the offensive sobriquet of “squaw” that the U.S. Department of Interior ordered changed.
Last year also saw the Department of Defense move to strip nine Army posts named for Confederate military men. Also on the horizon is renaming areas inside West Point named for graduates of the Point, like Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee.
But there are literally thousands of offensive and derogatory place names remaining on federal, state and local public lands, according to one estimate. Some of these objectionable place names have yet to be even identified.
From parks and other public venues, offensive place names remain a concern to many. The Advisory Committee on Reconciliation in Place Names is tasked with addressing other harmful place names on government lands.
“Momentum for changing offensive place names is undeniably building and we expect to see more progress in 2023,” said Tony Iallonardo, director of media engagement for the Washington, D.C.-based Wilderness Society and the Wilderness Society Action Fund. He sees more name changes in the coming years, “in an effort to make public lands inclusive and more inviting to all people.”
“One very tangible sign of progress we’ll likely see in 2023 are new maps and trails markers updated” with the new names of the former objectionable designations, Iallonardo said in an email.
In Colorado, he noted, support for changing a prominent mountain — Mount Evans west of Denver — to Mount Blue Sky is building. The peak initially was named for Gov. John Evans, one of those behind the Sand Creek Massacre in 1864 where U.S. soldiers killed nearly 500 women, children and elders of the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes.
In North Carolina, officials voted to change the name of the highest mountain along the Appalachian Trail in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park from Clingsman Dome, a reference to a Confederate general, back to its Cherokee name, Kuwohi.
In Yellowstone National Park, Mount Doane — named for Army Lt. Gustavus Doane, an Illinois native who led a raiding party which killed nearly 200 Blackfoot tribe members in Montana — has been renamed First Peoples Mountain.
If the federal governments can eliminate derogatory names, so should state and local governments. Ranging from canyons, to gulches, to passes, to hills and creeks, most of the usage of “squaw” was out West.
Yet, Lake County highway and Grant Township officials might want to look into the name of Squaw Road. South of Route 132 in the Long Lake area near Manitou Creek, the tiny road is off Windmill Road.
Its name should be purged from the county’s highway roster.
Then again, there’s the village of Indian Creek and Indian Creek itself, which flows through Fremont and Vernon townships.
The unprecedented action in 2022 by Interior Secretary Deb Haaland of New Mexico, the first Native American woman Cabinet secretary, did away with the “squaw” appellation on U.S.-owned land. More than 650 mountains, valleys and streams had been named for the historic slur of an Indigenous woman.
Prior to the broad sweep, there were four such named places in Illinois, including the now Manitou Creek. Other Illinois sites included Laughing Squaw Sloughs near Palos Park in south suburban Cook County; Squaw Island in far Downstate Calhoun County, which is along the Mississippi River; and Squaw Grove Township in southeast DeKalb County.
“Racist terms have no place in our vernacular or on our federal lands,” Haaland has said. “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.”
Renaming public-owned properties isn’t a cheap undertaking. The Department of Defense estimates it will spend about $21 million to rename the nine Army posts originally dedicated to those who fought for the Confederacy. Officials expect to complete renaming them by early 2024, according to the Military Times, with Army members strongly supporting the move according to one poll.
Doing the right thing isn’t always free, but it’s worth the investment to admit to our flawed history.