Redmen stay Redmen, if residents have their way
Natick votes 2-1 to keep calling its teams the Redmen.
Dear Boston Globe: I know times are tough, but you should really consider hiring a historian to proof stories like this, so you can avoid gaffes like this:
Redmen traditionalists say the name is part of town history and refers to red athletic jerseys, not the Native Americans who settled in this Boston suburb in the 1600s.
Two things, guys:
1) How can you run an assertion like that when the very photo you use to illustrate your story shows "Redmen" atop an Indian-chief head? Also, Natick was founded for "Praying Indians," the high-school newspaper and the town golf course are both named Sassamon (go research why); a main street (Speen Street) was named for one of those Indians (and another one is named for the minister who converted them to Christianity); there's a part of West Natick named for another one (Captain Tom's Hill); the town seal even has words in the native language on it. In other words: You can't throw a brick in Natick without hitting some reference to the "Redmen" who didn't wear red shirts.
2) OK, but maybe that's all just proof that Natickites can be the equal of Southern whites rationalizing the Confederate flag. As a newspaper, however, you should know better than to write that Native Americans settled in "this Boston surburb" in the 1600s. The Native Americans didn't settle in this Boston suburb in the 1600s because they were already frickin' there. It was the whites who moved in in the 1600s - and eventually kicked all the natives out (in fact, they consigned them to death on Deer Island).
Harry is also amazed.
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Wait a sec ...
According to the Globe, yesterday's vote was to revisit last year's vote to get rid of the name. It doesn't sound like yesterday means anything but another discussion. Or did the Globe get it wrong?
No, they were right
I've modified my headline to reflect that the vote was merely advisory. The School Committee has the ultimate say.
Not to mention...
that Natick would hardly have considered itself a 'Boston suburb' in the 1600s. Before the railroad arrived, this place was far away from Boston.
Very Much Far Away
Natives were settled outside of Boston - far enough to not be threatening even if they were "christianized". Newtown in Littleton/Acton was another such settlement. These were more than a day's travel from Boston at the time.
Until VERY recently there was a law that was still on the books that forbade native peoples from even entering Boston without an escort of two musketeers. I once handed my husband's boss a three musketeers bar as a joke, so he'd be more than legal to enter the city limits.
Ah, but Natick was different
Eliot converted the Indians who lived along the Charles (in what is now South Natick) to Christianity, published British North America's first bible for them (after first converting their oral language into a written form), then persuaded the colonial legislature to establish the place as a town - complete with its own Town Meeting.
Then came King Phillip's War, and even though the Natick Indians were generally on the British side (Captain Tom served as a spy for the British), naturally the settlers promptly exiled them all to Deer Island, where most died because there was no wood to build shelters or fires and they weren't allowed out to gather any.
More on America's first resettlement camp.
More on the Praying Indians.
John Sassamon
Praying Indian John Sassamon, after whom the high school yearbook is named, is thought to have been assassinated for tipping off the colonists regarding the imminent King Phillip's War. Sassamon helped John Eliot, founder of both the first settlement of Natick and the Roxbury Latin School, to learn the Indians' language. Sassamon was also instrumental in the production of the first Bible in an American Indian language.
Also not to mention ...
That a Boston newspaper shouldn't have to refer to Natick as a "Boston suburb," unless it assumes all its readers live in Wyoming.
OK, I made that up, but let's not forget this is the paper that has referred to "downtown Brookline" and explained, in a story on truck restrictions, that many local residents call the Longfellow Bridge "the Salt-and-Pepper Bridge."