It seems like most people in Massapequa either do not know the local history of Native Americans and the origin of our school mascot or are intentionally avoiding it all in an uncritical attempt to combat a ‘political woke culture’ regardless of the complexity of the situation or what positive change it could foster. The perspective of present-day Massapequans may be challenging to understand by outsiders but there is an interesting point, especially considering the State’s priorities as to how they wish to help the Indigenous communities within our state; not by listening to Native communities themselves, but rather their own ideas as to what would best help Natives.
On Tuesday (April 18th), I logged onto Facebook and discovered that the New York State Education Department had unanimously voted to ban all public-school mascots depicting Native Americans, where roughly 60 school districts in NY have been identified. A decision that was a long time coming to rectify injustices against the Indigenous community of our state and country. However, there was a roaring upset over this decision by communities on Long Island whose schools will be affected. After all, these mascots are now a part of the present-day community identity, even if those communities are not Native American. This upset over school mascots, alone, represents not only a tradition of failure in education from those school districts to educate their communities about the local Indigenous past, but a lack of present-day educational resources available to community members.
On November 17th, 2022 Senior Deputy Commissioner, James N. Baldwin, of The State Education Department, sent notice to all school districts to end the use of Native American mascots. The primary reason was stated “there is a State interest in providing a safe and supportive learning environment for every child” and citing a 2020 literature review which stated that these mascots “demonstrate[d] either direct negative effects on Native Americans or that these mascots activate[d], reflect[ed], and/or reinforce[d] stereotyping and prejudice among non-Native persons”. I am not challenging this research, rather drawing attention to the fact that in the following month, on December 30th, 2022, Governor Kathy Hochul vetoed the “Protection of Unmarked Graves Act” which would have brought real change and justice to Native American communities in New York State; change that the Native communities were explicitly fighting for; change that the Native community have been fighting for centuries and finally began to see progress in June of 2022 when the New York Legislature voted unanimously to pass. The bill had only to pass through the Governors desk before resolving one Indigenous-lead struggle for Native sovereignty and survivance, but unfortunately with one decision, was axed before becoming a law. Governor Hochul had also vetoed the Montaukett Act in that same December which would have given the Montaukett tribe State recognition as a tribal government. This moment reflects a long tradition of the State disregarding the changes that Native communities are fighting for and instead mandating changes which State authorities deem appropriate in their stead.
I am from one of those towns, Massapequa, who have been particularly vocal in a fight to preserve their mascot “The Massapequa Chief”. Numerous Facebook groups for the Massapequa community have rallied behind the High School's homecoming battle cry “Once a Chief, Always a Chief”. Many Long Island school districts have chosen to comply with the new policy with some schools foregoing Native mascots starting as far back as the 1970s. However, the Massapequa School District is one of few schools today challenging the order and seeking legal ways to maintain the Indian Chief mascot. Community arguments focused on preserving town heritage, battling a growing woke culture in the current political sphere, and a belief that Native-depicted mascots and team names honors the Indigenous past of our hometown. These sentiments fail to see the hypocrisy of honoring Native heritage whether it be preserving or forgoing Native mascots. On one hand, New York’s government has decided to back a movement to remove mascots based on an academic literature review study, while ignoring a centuries old battle of the Indigenous community to protect their buried family members. On the other hand, predominantly white communities are battling the State to preserve their Indigenous mascots under the belief that erasure of Native depictions (be it on a team sports jersey or elsewhere) is an erasure of the Native past and disrespectful to Native Americans. These arguments disregard the issues present-day Native Americans have been fighting for. I specifically look to my own hometown, Massapequa, to examine the situation in New York State at a local level.
Massapequa residents who are proponents of preserving the mascot frankly choose not to acknowledge the history of their town’s own Indigenous past. A cursory look at Facebook comments from these proponents proudly tout how our mascot represents Chief Tackapausha, leader of the Massapequans (or Marsapagues) who once lived here but sold their lands to European settlers. Understandably, the Massapequa School District does not teach this history or history of the Indigenous past. The nearby Tackapausha Museum whose namesake is an attempt to honor this historical figure, no longer focuses on the Indigenous history of this region but rather the ecology of Long Island. The cultural institutions which do offer educational programs about the Indigenous past, like the Massapequa Historical Society and Garvies Point Museum are largely underfunded and incredible welcoming to any new members who would like to learn and participate. But frankly, there are limited resources for residents of Massapequa to learn about the Indigenous communities who once resided here and seemingly little interest from the community. If schools taught students about the Indigenous past of Long Island and our hometown, then those lessons might have included that there really wasn’t a “Massapequa Tribe”, at least not until after the arrival of European settlers. Massapequa was not the name of the people but rather the name of the land as called by the local Natives. Europeans had clerically invented these tribal units by referring to all the people within a bounded area as “Massapequans” in order to simplify real estate transactions in their record books.
Perhaps an educational program might have also taught how Indigenous villages and land were stolen through a particularly European process that disenfranchised Indigenous people and prevented them from fighting back against the divestment from their own land. Five major ways Europeans achieved this was to: find or create a puppet sachem (tribal chief), confuse and seduce Natives with alcohol, intimidate Native communities by armed force, harass them with continual pressures from the encroaching private citizens, and force people into debt and take land as payment. The first strategy of creating a puppet sachem involved the selection of an Indigenous person by European regimes in order to bestow social value onto that individual by providing that specific Native person with military support, trade resources, and the means to amass a following. This individual would then have the authority to sign over land to European puppet masters. The second strategy involved the use of alcohol to confuse, seduce, and coax Natives into the sale of land ownership. The third strategy involved the use of military force to bully Native Americans off their land. The fourth strategy involved the “testing” of Native land boundaries by European settlers, such as building homes that encroached on Native land (which already had loosely defined boundaries), letting livestock roam free on Native property, and even cultivating farms on Native land. This was the most common strategy of encroachment on Indigenous land. The final strategy was the creation of laws and policies that targeted Indigenous communities and practices. These unequitable laws would burden Indigenous families with hefty fines for the committed “offenses” and thereby drive Indigenous families into debt and consequentially force those families to sell their land to ease that said debt. Over time Indigenous lands would become smaller and smaller until the present day.
Tackapausha, the historical figure who present-day Massapequa residents claim to honor, was pushed away from Massapequa and was forced to petition for a tract of land on Cows Neck near Sands Point to live out the last of his days. The site of Tackapausha’s final home was forgotten over the years and is now largely inaccessible to the general public, located at a country club called Village Club of Sands Point which now resides on the spot.
A vocal concern by Massapequa residents today about replacing the “Chief” mascot focuses on the heritage of the Indian mascot during the last 70 years. Frankly, Massapequa feels a connection to the logo since it's both familiar and embodies a shared memory of the experience of growing up and living here. In fact, the Chief logo was adopted by the Massapequa School District in 1955, around the same time the Massapequa High School opened its doors for the first time. Frank E. Cassot, president of the school’s Dad’s Club, designed the mascot costume and Gustav J. Dopslaff, the trustee of the Massapequa Board of Education publicly accepted the design and adoption of the Native American mascot. The same trustee Dopslaff came under fire ten years later for banning a school play on African American history titled “In White America” arguing that it was “against school policy to use school grounds for activities that would provoke a controversial situation in the community”[a retrospectively ironic sentiment considering where we are 58 years later]. Understanding the origins of symbols and mascots we take for granted today is a crucial step towards understanding who we are, which direction we are moving in as a community, and what kind of heritage we are choosing to embrace.
People thought differently about local Native Americans in 1955 when Massapequa High School was welcoming its first students. Natives were not seen as the displaced and marginalized neighbors that they were in the 50's. In fact, they were not seen at all and instead would be thought of as a mythical and extinct race, a feature of the bygone past, or even part of the backdrop when discussing European settlers arriving on Long Island. In Massapequa, local Native Americans were referred to as the Marsapagues and were believed to be extinct, a notion that was seemingly supported by archaeological work in the 1930s that identified a seventeenth century Native American Fort in the Harbor Green neighborhood. Newspapers had erroneously attributed this fort with a local legend that Captain John Underhill in 1644 led a militia of European settlers to annihilate the Massapequa tribe and were successful, leaving a mound of Native bodies which they used to block the harsh winter wind so that they could eat their meals. Archaeologist Ralph Solecki who worked at the site debunked this idea, yet the legend persisted and was continually published in local interest stories and touted as fact. For the Massapequa community of 1955, conjuring the Native image for the High School sports team was not out of respect for the Native American athletic prowess or success, but a symbolic imagery of the Euro-American conquering of the local landscape and people. On a larger scale, Massapequa High School’s formative years (mid 1950’s to late 1960’s) coincided nationally with what is termed the Termination Era; a time period in which the United States government had been systematically reversing policies throughout the United States that previous allowed Native American tribes to self-govern, now removing them from their homes, and selling off their homes and reservation lands in a forced attempt to urbanize Native communities.
Taking this Indigenous history into consideration presents an argument that using Native Americans as a team mascot is very problematic, especially the Massapequa Chief. Using this mascot is not “honoring” Native Americans, but rather a hollow attempt at signaling some virtuous reason for preserving the mascot while ultimately not doing anything else to actually help or “honor” Natives with the battles they are currently facing. The core issue with the "honoring natives" argument is that it perpetuates a centuries old issue; one of disregarding how Natives demand to be acknowledged and helped, and instead choosing for them how we wish to honor.
However, this is not the full argument. There also persists the 68 years of experience, memories, and emotions that Massapequa shared together under the symbol of the Massapequa Chief. If it was easy to separate those shared experiences which unify the Massapequa experience, then there wouldn’t be such a resistance towards replacing the symbol. However, replacing the Massapequa Chief would not erase history but rather correct a social injustice that has gone unaddressed for far too long. There is no easy way to deal with change. The Massapequa graduating classes of 1956 to 2023 will always recognize the motto “Once a Chief, Always a Chief” but as Sam Cooke would say “It's been a long time coming, but I know a change gon' come”. Whatever is to become of our mascot, and if the district retires the Chief, we will learn to adapt and make way for the next generation within our community. It was not the Chief mascot which shaped our community’s history but the decisions and experiences we made during those years.
Cited References:
Sign up for free local newsletters and alerts for the
Massapequa, NY Patch
Patch.com is the nationwide leader in hyperlocal news.
Visit Patch.com to find your town today.