National parks center colonizer histories through place names
A recent study analyzes the impacts of appropriated and derogatory place names in the nation’s national parks.
In early April, a research article was published in the academic journal People and Nature that evaluated the place names in 16 national parks, ranging from Canyonlands to Yellowstone. The authors assessed the available data on geographical sites to determine whether a given place name “perpetuates settler colonial mythologies.” Their research reveals that many of the place names employ racist slurs concerning racial minority groups.
Below, here are numbers illuminated in the report:
2:1
The ratio at which Indigenous and Black place names are outnumbered by names that "perpetuate settler colonialism."
4.8%
The percentage of traditional Indigenous place names found within the 16 reviewed parks.
16-for-16
Every park examined contained “at least one or more places or features named after people who supported racist ideologies, capitalized on Indigenous dispossession and colonization, and/or participated in acts of genocide.”
10
Names in parks that use widely acknowledged racial slurs, including the words “sq—” (in Canyonlands and Theodore Roosevelt), “c—n” (in Everglades) and “savage” (in Denali).
45
Place names with English translations of traditional Indigenous names.
205
Settler colonizer place names that replaced a known traditional Indigenous place name.
0.03%
The percentage by which the occurrence of Indigenous place names increased as the study moved westward through the parks system.
Miacel Spotted Elk is an editorial intern at High Country News reporting on the Indigenous Affairs desk. Email her at [email protected] or submit a letter to the editor. See our letters to the editor policy.
