They would also have some of the most recognizable and acclaimed players ever to take the field during this period, like wide receiver Jerry Rice, quarterbacks Joe Montana and Steve Young, and cornerback Ronnie Lott. 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. By David Bonilla. Redface. The 60s and 70s marked varying degrees of success for the 49ers, but they would really begin to break out in the 1980s and early 1990s. Are you an NFL fan? Its fans engage in a ritual called the "tomahawk chop," often wear face paint and headdresses to games and cheer to game day rituals such as a dignitary banging a drum while surrounded by cheerleaders or a cheerleader riding a horse named Warpaint around the field before the game and when the team scores. And building a better future. So does the tomahawk chop. The influx of opportunists was a boon for Californias economy, and hastened its admittance into the union in 1850. As a result of these forms of oppression, Native Americans are having trouble asserting for their rights and interests at the polls, Campbell concluded. Fittingly, it's deeply tied to the history of the San Francisco area. 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?). 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. Now you can watch the entire NBA season or your favorite teams on streaming. If you liked this post, you might also enjoy this: Top 10 Crazy Moments in NFL History. Laws by the U.S. government like Greaser Act in the 1850s sought to ethnically cleanse Spanish Indians from California. It is why people cared so much when a San Francisco 49ers quarterback, Colin Kaepernick, used his platform to speak out against injustice, and why they are inspired by 49ers offensive assistant coach Katie Sowers, one of the few women to ever coach for an NFL team, the first openly LGBTQ coach and the first woman and openly LGBTQ coach to appear in a Super Bowl. Thats not hyperbole. Colin Kaepernick was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in 1987. ", She added, "The Nisenan Maidu just happened to be right in the middle of this whole chaotic event. Stephen A. Douglas, the Illinois senator whose seat would later be challenged by Abraham Lincoln, proposed extinguishing Indian land ownership in the far West by establishing expansive plots of land where Indians may be permanently located and protected. (This proposal was the beginning of todays reservation system.) I tend to be a glass-is-half-full kind of person. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! Then, you have names like the San Francisco 49ers. The winner that shook out was an honorific for a local mayor whose nickname was Chief. This is due to said mayor starting a Boy Scout club that ripped off Native American rituals and paired it with Hollywood-inspired iconography, but thats another fight for another day. They were the 49ers from the start. Let's start with the 49ers named after the Americans who came to California in 1849 during the Gold Rush specifically, and more generally after the Gold Rush pioneers since the problem with their name is not as well known as the issues with the Chiefs. Yet as the gold became more difficult to find, the early prospectors looked for other means of support, and California offered a wealth of prime real estate. But this name is part of our teams heritage! scream the bad-faith Dan Snyders of the world. Nowadays, when we think about the original 49ers, we imagine hardscrabble, risk-taking men expressing radical individualism,. Chances are that football fans may be rooting for (or against) the team without really thinking about how odd of a name that is. 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. What was Georgias Jalen Carters role in a fatal car crash that killed his teammate? 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. Fittingly, its deeply tied to the history of the San Francisco area. Youll see the colorful old coot prowling the sidelines, striking poses for the television cameras and exhorting the fans to cheer. It was a single-generation system. SALON is registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office as a trademark of Salon.com, LLC. They were working along the American River near what is now Coloma, California, when they cracked open a vein of gold. This huge influx of new arrivals helped speed up Californias admittance to the Union as the 31st state in 1850, a mere two years after the U.S. had been awarded the territory under the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo, which ended the Mexican-American War. 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"Like I call myself an American Indian and I run the National Congress of American Indians. A Warner Bros. In 2008, Jed became president of the franchise, with his parents transitioning to co-chairmen. And so that's really where I've focused more fundamentally, is on these issues in public schools rather than with private companies.". While Montgomery acknowledged that there were some "reckless adventurers" who caused "serious trouble," he reassured readers that "the stern hand of a Vigilance Committee, organized by a majority of the best citizens of San Francisco, speedily taught desperadoes and thieves that life and property must be respected.". Every day, get free NFL updates sent straight to your inbox! The San Francisco 49ers dominated the Los Angeles Rams in a 24-9 win over their divisional rival on Monday. The wide receiver generated a lot of offseason chatter by expressing his displeasure regarding his contract . The name was in place, the team was in town, and logos needed to be made. 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. Yet the reality of the men behind the legend is not quite so lovable and comic. The San Francisco 49ers publicly condemned the person who sent racist messages to Arizona Cardinals safety Budda Baker and announced that they have begun an investigation into identifying the fan . The conditions in the mining camp were rough and crude. appreciated. The San Francisco 49ers are speaking out against a fan who allegedly sent racist messages to Arizona Cardinals safety Budda Baker over social media. In the end, Calfornias Indigenous population fell by 80 percent over 25 years. 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. Thats not to say that everything is the worst. Things are changing in some regards. 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. Just like Warriors and Indians may not be offensive," Kevin Allis, the CEO of the National Congress of American Indians and a member of the Forest County Potawatomi Community, told Salon. The 49er represents brutal manifest destiny and wealth capture at the expense of an entire population. ", The devastation wrought to Native American communities wasn't limited to outright violence. 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. On January 24, 1848, gold was discovered at Sutters Mill on the American River in Northern California. That cheer still hasnt died to this day. After keeping a small portion for the Indians, the justice held the power to sell or grant the excess property to any chosen white man, who could, with the same magistrates permission, kidnap Indian children and adopt themor keep the youths as unpaid houseworkers and field hands until they reached the age of majority. Whats the Difference Between Formula 1 and NASCAR? The 1849 Gold Rush and the Oregon Trail that fed it was an outright act of genocide. The origin of the Kansas City Chiefs' team name may not be what you think: The team was named after former Kansas City mayor H. Roe Bartle. He would go on to say, I didnt leave the 49ers. It has stayed in the city since then. The Anaheim Mighty Ducks, anyone? (A 49er is also a kind of Olympic-style racing dinghy, which would make for an equally rich team name. Credit: Spencer Weiner/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images. Olympic Valley continues to shed a racist slur that was in the names of businesses, roads and geographical . That levy produced its intended effect: an exodus of nonwhites from the mining region. The bigoted behavior is so off-putting that the team asked TV broadcasters not to show these fans. A lot of the people who first came to the region would end up being known as 49ers as a result. As a result, we have a responsibility when it comes to the stories we tell through those games. As the league prepares for the first game of the season on Thursday, an N.F.L. This slave trade lasted well into. The following year, The Sacramento Union published this news item: An Indian was murdered in Santa Barbara recently under circumstances which call loudly for the establishment of a Vigilance Committee. The treaty documents arrived in D.C. in early 1852. Its a nod to the past, sure, but a shitty one. 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. He pointed to "the distance it takes to travel to polling locations, the distance it takes to travel to county seats to obtain voter IDs, the ability to use a tribal ID to vote, the lack of access to transportation, the lack of access to a residential address, when those are made requirements for voting." CNN Sans & 2016 Cable News Network. San Francisco is now one game away from returning to the Super Bowl. What did Georgias Nolan Smith say at the NFL Combine about the death of his teammate Devin Willock? During one game against the Washington Redskins a team whose name is a literal ethnic slur against Native Americans (an infamous 2016 poll tried to prove that 90 percent of Native Americans were "not bothered" by the name, but did nothing to verify that respondents were actually Native American and/or enrolled in tribes) Native American Journalists Association founder Tim Giagorecalled that "a group of white fans brought a couple of small pigs they had painted red, pigs with tiny war bonnets and feathers attached to their heads, and ran them around the fifty yard line at halftime. And this campaign of exploitation and genocide against the 150,000 people who had originally lived in what's nowCalifornia was hardly accidental. The "49ers" is the nickname for those who flocked to northern California in 1849 hoping to take advantage of the gold rush. Meeting in a closed-door executive session on July 8, 1852, a majority of senators voted to reject all 18 treaties. Companies are refusing to broker Redskins merchandise. With Jed York serving as president, the 49ers are once again on the cusp of greatness. With Montana, they became the standard against which every QB/WR duo would be judged. Perhaps the clearest throwback to the inspiration, though, is the team mascot, Sourdough Sam. The sleeping Indians werent even members of the same Maidu tribe, but to the miners, it didnt matter: Indian was Indian. The voided agreements would not see the light of day again until 1905. When it comes to the 49ers and the Chiefs, the problem is that their names, iconographiesand fan cultures play off of and in some cases trivialize real history and real suffering that has occurred and continues to occurto real people. Any able-bodied Indian who shall be found loitering and strolling about, the law decreed, shall be liable to be arrested on the complaint of any resident citizen of the county. Once arrested, the Indian would be brought before a mayor, magistrate, or county clerk and put up for auction. And guess what? The-CNN-Wire 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, like the 49ers of the gold rush, team founder Tony Morabito saw opportunity where others saw uncertainty. In the 1940s, when the team was founded, the idea of expanding the league that far across the country was considered a very risky move. The area consisted of several hundred Americans; about 6,500 Californios (people of Spanish or Mexican descent); and roughly 150,000 Native Americans. A party of Maidu men retaliated by killing five of the miners, who then recruited a posse of 20 armed white men and invaded another nearby village. The teams name is a nod to history. 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.". Its just a number after all. The 49ers theme also ties in with Californias nickname as The Golden State. Campbell also expressed concern about a number of issues which impact Native American communities. California, at this time, was still a part of Mexico, but in just a few days, the United States and Mexico would sign the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, ending their two-year war and transferring a huge swath of territoryincluding present-day Californiato the Americans. The teams mascot was a gold miner named Sourdough Sam (pictured above). He was initially a director of strategic planning for the 49ers before being promoted to vice president of strategic planning. 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 . Half of them will be rooting for a team represented by a genocidal land thief known as Sourdough Sam. 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. 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. The San Francisco 49ers drafted Ohio State pass rusher Nick Bosa with the second overall pick of the 2019 NFL Draft, but a number of left-leaning 49ers fans were not happy. And not anybody in an American Indian community can wear an eagle feather headdress. I know they starve; I know they perish by hundreds It is a crying sin that our government, so wealthy and so powerful, should shut its eyes to the miserable fate of these rightful owners of the soil.. But those aggressive gold miners would give their nickname to a football team one hundred years later. The science backs me up on this. 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. Lea noted, with some chagrin, that there was violent opposition to [the California treaties] in the legislature of that State, but he nonetheless requested their adoption by the U.S. Senate. Its also deepening stereotypes that are taking funds out of Indigenous peoples pockets while making it harder for them to get loans. In just four years, Harbaugh left the 49ers as one of their most successful head coaches. Sure, people should feel free to enjoy the Super Bowl if they like. Taylor and his Indian affairs advisers were excited to test an idea that had been attracting growing interest. (Last Updated On: April 18, 2019) What Is a Caste? All rights reserved. Reproduction of material from any Salon pages without written permission is strictly prohibited. That, to me, provides some hope. The 49ers then enacted the Act for the Government and Protection of Indians, also called Chapter 133, which, contrary to its name, stripped Californias Indians of nearly all legal protections. 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