By urging two professional sports teams to change their nicknames, President Donald Trump has entered a dispute that lasted decades and that for most people seemed to be resolved.
The teams, now known as Washington Commanders and Cleveland Guardians, fought for years because of their former names (Redskins and Indians, respectively), who referred to American natives and that many considered offensive. The teams apparently resolved the subject by selecting new names. Now, thanks to the president of the United States, the issue has returned to the table.
“Washington’s ‘whatever’ whatever they should immediately change his name back,” Trump wrote on Sunday on social networks. “Our great indigenous people, in massive numbers, wants it to happen,” he said, without evidence.
Research has shown that many natives opposed the old names, especially Washington. Trump also suggested that he could intervene to block an agreement about the team’s new stadium if the original name was not resumed.
Below is a history of the dispute over names of sports teams in the US.
1914: Cleveland needs a new name
The Cleveland baseball team was known as Naps, in honor of its star Nap Lajoie. But he was negotiated in 1914, and a new nickname was necessary. Baseball experts were consulted, and the team selected “Indians”. The exact impulse for choice remains obscure.
Cleveland has had a talented player named Louis Sockaxis, a native American who died two years before the change of name, and over the years it was suggested that the new name was to honor him. But there is few concrete evidence for this explanation.
Names based on indigenous tribes or images were common in the 20th century; The Braves Boston were the winners of the 1914 World Series.
1933: A new team in Boston
Washington’s football team used an insult for native Americans for decades, actually preceding the team’s time there.
When a new team joined the National Football League (NFL) in Boston in 1932, it was initially known as Boston Braves. After a year, team owner George Preston Marshall changed his name, probably to avoid confusion with the baseball team of the same name.
The new nickname he chose was “Redskins”. For a game against the Bears, Marshall told his players to apply facial paint. The name changed with the team to Washington in 1937.
Marshall was also known to be the last owner of the NFL to join his team, doing so only in 1962.
Protests start
Already in the 1960s, movements were underway to press the change of uncomfortable and offensive nicknames by alluding to the natives that had been given to school teams. One of the first to act was Dartmouth College, who abandoned his nickname “Indians” in 1974.
Native Americans were at the forefront of protests, although the movement also received external support.
Despite the protests, the teams of Cleveland and Washington did not move to change their nicknames and instead defended them. Washington noted in a 2013 statement that dozens of high schools across the country often used the same nickname with pride. Many, but not all, fans of the home team vigorously defended the nicknames of the teams they had cheered for years.
Other professional teams, such as Atlanta Braves and Kansas City Chiefs, faced scrutiny by both their nicknames and the use of American pseudo-native images, such as the “Tomahawk Chop” singing among fans.
The change comes
In 2018, Cleveland announced that he would abandon his logo, a cartoonish caricature of an American native known as Chief Wahoo. The name of the team remained.
New scrutiny came to the nicknames in the wake of Black Lives Matter protests.
In July 2020, Washington announced that he was abandoning his nickname, and also removed references to his stadium Marshall. After two seasons playing like the generically named Washington Football Team, he adopted the nickname Commanders in 2022.
In December 2020, Cleveland announced that he would play another season as Indians, then change his name. The new nickname, Guardians, refers to two giant statues, known as the traffic guardians at the Hope Memorial Bridge in Cleveland.
Trump also opposed at that time. “Oh no!” He wrote on social networks at the time. “What’s going on? This is not good news, even for the ‘Indians’. Cancellation culture in action!”
And now, in 2025, he renewed his objections, claiming that “times have been different now from what they were three or four years ago.”
Both teams said the new names came to stay.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
