The mountain, about 30 miles west of Denver, will be renamed Mestaa’ėhehe (pronounced mess-taw-HAY) Mountain, and honors a translator also known at the time as Owl Woman, who was responsible for mediating between Native Americans and white settlers around southern Colorado.
The word “squaw” from the Algonquin language once likely just referred to a woman, but over time it has become more associated with racist and misogynistic attacks on Native American women.
Deb Haaland, U.S. Interior Secretary and the first Native American Cabinet official, formally declared the term derogatory last month, and said the government is working to rename landmarks and other sites with ties to derogatory terms.
Northern Cheyenne Tribal Historic Preservation Office Director Teanna Limpy was a leading advocate for the name change, submitting the proposal for the name that was unanimously approved by the federal panel, according to Colorado Politics.
“A derogatory name that is meant to diminish the sacredness and power of our women is no more,” Limpy said in a statement. “Mestaa’ėhehe will be standing tall on that mountain for many generations to come, continuing to be a story of inspiration for all and perhaps a story that also inspires others to continue to learn other Indigenous cultures and languages.”
Thursday’s unanimous vote by the U.S. Geological Survey’s Board on Geographic Names comes as part of national efforts to address a history of colonialism and oppression against Native Americans and other people of color after 2020 protests calling for racial justice reform.
Earlier this year, California’s Squaw Valley Ski Resort changed its name to Palisades Tahoe. The resort is in Olympic Valley, which was known as Squaw Valley until it hosted the 1960 Winter Olympics. Tribes in the region had been asking the resort to change its name for decades.
The name change of the 11,486-foot (3,501-meter) peak, located in the Arapahoe and Roosevelt national forests, is the first of several geographic name changes being considered by a state panel.
Among them is 14,265-foot (4,348-meter) Mount Evans, named after John Evans, Colorado’s second territorial governor. Evans resigned after an 1864 U.S. cavalry massacre of more than 200 Arapaho and Cheyenne people, most of them women, children and the elderly, at Sand Creek in what is now southeastern Colorado.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
