Squaw Teats*, Harney Peak, and Negrohead Creek*: A Corpus-Linguistic Investigation of Proposals to Change Official US Toponymy to (Dis)honor Indigenous US Americans

Abstract

Each year, the US Government receives hundreds of petitions to alter the official name of a geographical feature. Since the nineteenth century, the US Board on Geographic Names (USBGN) has had the task of assessing these requests with a view toward standardizing the nation’s toponymic inventory. During its decision-making, the Board seeks to maximize consistency in the formation, selection, and application of official toponyms, while minimizing potential public injury. The challenges in this regulatory balancing act are particularly apparent with regard to indigenous place names. Using an original corpus compiled from 10 years of USBGN petitions, this empirical study identified patterns in the type, motivation, and argumentation used to (dis)honor Native American identities, histories, and cultures via names and naming. After introducing the UsBGN's policies and practices, these findings are presented with several illustrative examples. The article ends by contextualizing the findings within the broader PC debate and offering future research suggestions.

Keywords:

• Native American
• toponym
• language policy
• indigenous

Notes

1. For historico-political discussions of the *s-word use in US toponymy, see: Bright (2000, 2004); King (2003); Merskin (2010).

2. For a detailed discussion of state legislation prohibiting potentially offensive official toponymy, see: Gasque (2000); Monmonier (2006).

3. For more on the Anglicization of Native American place names in Oregon, see McArthur (1996).

4. The word “official” is underlined to emphasize the point that many geographical formations registered as “nameless” by governments may well carry long-standing indigenous names (Wilkinson, Marika, and Williams 2009).

5. Cases involving this potential opprobrium constituted 65.48% of the total corpus. This prevalence may say more about the effectiveness of recent bilateral Tribal and federal efforts than substantive changes in the attitudes of many local residents. Repeatedly, in the case summaries, it was noted that non-indigenous community members insisted that squaw* was a positive semantic equivalent to “maiden”. This insistence upon privileging non-indigenous linguistic sensitivities is endemic of racism.

6. For more on the controversy over the etymology of this term and its impact on official toponymy, see Bright (2000).

7. For example, in an editorial featured in the Las Vegas Review Journal, legislation to prohibit the use of squaw* in US toponyms was ridiculed as “political correctness on crack” King (2003, 3).