Final replacement names have been voted on by the Board on Geographic Names for nearly 650 geographic features that have what has been determined to be “an offensive ethnic, racial and sexist slur” for Indigenous women.
The Department of the Interior had announced in February the list of candidate replacement names for geographic features with the name “squaw,” which the Secretary’s Order 3404 declared to be a derogatory term, a Feb. 22 Department of the Interior news release said.
“I feel a deep obligation to use my platform to ensure that our public lands and waters are accessible and welcoming,” Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland said in a Sept. 8 news release. “That starts with removing racist and derogatory names that have graced federal locations for far too long.”
The 13-member Derogatory Geographic Names Task Force created by the order first replaced a full spelling of the derogatory term with “sq___” for all official communications, the February news release said. Tribal consultations and public comment period were held.
“Prior to the implementation of the Task Force, changes to derogatory names for geographic features were submitted as a proposal to the Board on Geographic Names, which then worked through its deliberative process,” the February release reported. “The BGN has received 261 proposals to replace geographic features with sq___ in the name in the past 20 years.
The Task Force will recommend replacements for more than 660 geographic features in a matter of months, starting from a list of five candidate names for each individual feature, according to the February release.
"This process stands to significantly advance and accelerate the name change process across the nation,” the February release reported.
“During the public comment period, the Task Force received more than 1,000 recommendations for name changes. Nearly 70 Tribal governments participated in nation-to-nation consultation, which yielded another several hundred recommendations,” the September release said. “While the new names are immediately effective for federal use, the public may continue to propose name changes for any features — including those announced today — through the regular BGN process."
The renaming effort included evaluation of multiple public or Tribal recommendations for the same feature; features that cross Tribal, federal and state jurisdictions; inconsistent spelling of certain Native language names; and reconciling diverse opinions from various proponents. The Task Force carefully evaluated each comment and proposal, the release reported.
The list of geographic features with name changes is available here.
