Mission Statement

The Committee of 500 Years of Dignity and Resistance is a coalition of community organizations and community activists in Northeast Ohio. The Committee is committed to enhancing and protecting the cultural human rights and heritage rights of indigenous people living in Northeast Ohio. The Committee shall promote financial and, technical assistance; advocacy and other supportive activities to the Ohio indigenous community. Through media events, and various public forums the Committee will educate the general public on the unacceptable individual and institutional racism that exists in our communities. The Committee is specifically committed to ending the use of the racist Chief Wahoo and the name Indians and will use all its available resources to accomplish this goal.

History of The 500 Year Committee

The Committee of 500 Years of Dignity and Resistance organized in 1991. The purpose then was to educate the public on the truth about Columbus. This was the 500 year anniversary of Columbus Day.

The Committee of 500 Years now holds conferences during the weekend of the opening day of the Cleveland Baseball Team, organizes demonstrations against the name and logo of the Cleveland Baseball Team, lectures and leads workshops in all settings educating the public on racism against Indigenous People through the media and sports. The Committee of 500 Years of Dignity and Resistance is based in Cleveland Ohio with supporters nationally and internationally

The imaginary and true origins
of the “indians” name for the Cleveland baseball team.
by James Watson and Juanita Helphrey

The Cleveland indians baseball team, in its official version of its history, claims that the team was named in honor of Louis Sockalexis the first Indigenous Major League player. On its web page (www.indians.com) the Cleveland indians MLB organization propagates its mythology about how the name was chosen.

“The Cleveland Indian” (1871-1913)
Louis Sockalexis was a Penobscot Indian from Old Town, Maine and the first American Indian to play major league baseball.
Sockalexis, who played collegiate baseball at Holy Cross College in Worchester, MA, joined the Cleveland club in 1897. In his first season with the team, he hit at a .338 clip.
His career was short-lived as Louis played for only three seasons. Over his brief career he compiled a .313 batting average. In his second season with Cleveland, Louis saw his average dip to .224. His final summer in the majors was 1899 when he appeared in only seven games and batted .273.
The team employed several nicknames throughout the years prior to the arrival of Sockalexis and after his departure. The one that was used for the longest period of time was “Naps”, in honor of the team’s player-manager Napolean Lajoie.
After Lajoie was released in 1914, a Cleveland newspaper held a contest to rename the team. The winning entry in the contest was “Indians”. The fan who sent it in explained that the name would be a testament to the game’s first American Indian player. The memory of Louis Sockalexis was not forgotten then, and today, decades later, he is still remembered.

This same story is told in two other places in the website:

1915 Indians; A local daily newspaper ran a contest and the name “Indians” was suggested by a fan who said he was doing it in honor of the player, Louis Sockalexis

The Early Years
A new name, new owner and new star ushered in the next era of Cleveland baseball. Lajoie’s departure mandated a new team nickname. In fan balloting through a local newspaper, Indians was chosen to honor former Spider LOUIS SOCKALEXIS, the first well known Native American professional baseball player.

When asked by e-mail which Cleveland newspaper it was that ran the naming contest, and announced the name in honor of Louis Sockalexis, the MLB organization never answered.

Even if this story were true, it would still show that the “Indians” name were steeped in racism. Notice that when the team was named after a Caucasian player, it was named for the indidiual, not his race. But this story has little basis in historical fact. The 500 Year Committee then checked the daily newspapers published in Cleveland in January, 1915, when the Indians name was chosen (Plain Dealer, Press, News and Leader), and found the true story:

The Cleveland Press, January 7, 1915

FANS WILL HELP SELECT NEW NICKNAME FOR NAPS
When the Naps take the field in the first game of the coming season they’ll no longer be the Naps. Now that Napoleon Lajoie, after whom the club was named, has been sold to the Athletics, the team is to have a new nickname.
President C. W. Somers of the Naps has appointed the sporting editor of The Press a members of a committee of sport writers to select a new nickname for the team.
The sporting editor wants the fans to help name the team. If you have in mind what you think a suitable nickname for the club, Mr. Fan or Miss Faness, send it to the nickname editor of the Press. Nicknames suggested will be submitted to the committee.

This is the only mention of fan input into the name change in any of the newspapers—so there was no fan naming contest. There was no mention of Sockalexis, and no mention of honor to Indigenous Peoples. If you read the newspaper accounts of the day, you see the blatant racism of the sportswriters and degradation of Indigenous Peoples. Reprinted below are the ALL the articles in the four Cleveland dailies that mention the name change.

The following article and cartoon appeared in the Sunday
Plain Dealer, January 17, 1915

BASEBALL WRITERS SELECT “INDIANS” AS THE BEST NAME TO APPLY TO THE FORMER NAPS
With the going of Nap Lajoie to the Athletics, a new name had to be selected for the Cleveland American league club. President Somers invited the Cleveland baseball writers to make the selection. The title of Indians was their choice, it’s having been one of the names applied to the old National league club of Cleveland many years ago.
The nickname, however, is but temporarily cognomen bestowed, as the club may so conduct itself during the present season as to earn some other cognomen which may be more appropriate. The choice of a name that would be significant just now was rather difficult with the club itself anchored in last place.
While picking a name for the Cleveland A.L. team, the committee also agreed that the Cleveland A.A. team owned too many names, and that while they were at it, it might be well to agree on just one name for the erstwhile Bearcats. Consequently, the other old nickname of the Cleveland National leaguers was adopted and henceforth all the local papers will call the A.A. club the Spiders.
So there you are ——Indians and Spiders.

The Cleveland Press, January 18, 1915

Now that the Naps have been re-nicknamed the Indians, we hope they will become very Indian-like and wake up.
A series of real indian war dances is what the Cleveland fans want next season. Let’s hope the team will be equal to the task, even if not equal to winning a pennant.
The spiders are to remain the Spiders and, with spidery Jack Knight at their head, ought to show better than they did last season.
The Cleveland ball club was anxious to get a nickname that couldn’t be converted into a joke. Indians delighted Vice President Barnard.
“They won’t be able to poke fun at the Indians,” said Barney.
Oh, no, but wait until they begin to lose and see how soon the fans will dub them the “squaws”.

The Cleveland News, January 18, 1915

INDIANS IS A POPULAR NICKNAME
The new nickname of the Naps, has met with the popular approval of Cleveland fans. At least a large number of letters which came to hand in Monday mornings mail leads one to this opinion.
James Thayer is one Cleveland fan who thinks the “Indians” may emulate the example of their National league counterparts, the Boston “Braves,” and show just such a wonderful reversal in form the coming season as the “Braves” did in 1914.

The Cleveland Leader, January 17, 1915

“INDIANS REPLACE THE NAPS”
“New Name for local American League Club is Selected by Writers.”
The Indians are with us! That’s what will greet the Cleveland American League club when it hits a rival city this year, as the Naps have been officially laid to rest. In place of the Naps, we’ll have the Indians, on the warpath all the time, and eager for scalps to dangle at their belts.
At a meeting of local sport writers yesterday afternoon, this was decided upon. The Association team will be known as the Spiders in the future.
Now, if the Naps get going good, and many here think they will, we’ll have the old Indians on the warpath, mowing down their opponents in whirlwind fashion, but, if they follow in the footsteps of the 1914 Naps, we’ll have the Indians getting licked most very day.
But the name should prove a good one and may be a mascot which will aid the locals in more ways than one. Ball players as a rule are superstitious and the change in name may work wonders with them. The old “Naps” seemed to imply lack of speed and fight and the new one shows just the opposite.
The fans, who have heard of the new names, were loud in their approval of it, many stating that it would emulate interest in the club among the fans, as a new name implies that something new will be shown. That’s what Manager Birmingham wants to do, show the fans a fighting team, one which (sic) never quits.

Either the honor to Indigenous Peoples and particularly Louis Sockalexis somehow escaped the notice of the 4 Cleveland Dailies at the time, or the official Cleveland indians history is a fabrication. But the re-naming did not escape notice by the Cleveland newspapers. In fact it prompted the articles we have reprinted here--all of which contained racist, demeaning references to Indigenous Peoples.
The only mention of Louis Sockalexis in association with the new name was an obscure, op-ed piece that offers the Sockalexis history as an afterthought to embellish the new name.

The Plain Dealer, January 18, 1915

Many years ago there was an Indian nam Sockalexis who was the star player of the Cleveland baseball club. As batter, fielder and base runner, he was a marvel. Sockalexis so far outshone his teammates that he naturally came to be regarded as the whole team. The “fans” throughout the country began to to call Clevelanders the “Indians”. It was an honorable name, and while it stuck, the team made an excellent record.
It has now been decided to revive the name. The Clevelands of 1915 will be the “Indians.” There will be no real Indians on the roster, but the name will recall fine traditions. It is looking backwards to a time when Cleveland had on of the most popular teams in the United States. It also serves to revive the memory of a single great player who has been gathered to his fathers in the happy hunting grounds of the Abenakis.

The need to remind fans of Sockalexis after the new name had already been chosen suggests that his memory was not prominent in Cleveland, and did not influence the name choice. This article has huge historical inaccuracies. Sockalexis showed great promise but played only one full season. He could hardly be regarded as the whole team. The newspaper accounts of his 1897 season reported that fans at home and away games continually harassed Sockalexis with racist taunts and derision, so the name “Indians” may have been a mockery, not an honor. The Cleveland team he played for, did not make “an excellent record,” but was mired in fifth place for the entire 1897 season.
In 1915, 25 years after the Wounded Knee Massacre, 6 years after Geronimo died a US prisoner in Fort Sill Okla., the attitudes of the Americans were still genocidal not admiring. The team and the fans should just admit that the name and logo of the baseball team were not intended to honor anybody but were chosen to capture the mythological savagery of “indians” in the sporting arena. Indigenous peoples are not savages, they are not anxious to get scalps, they are not mascots and there is no honor in being used as a sports mascot!