In 1897 a University of Nebraska law school graduate named Guy Green founded a baseball team he called the Nebraska Indians. While some of the players were white, Green recruited most from Genoa Indian Industrial School, the Santee Normal School, and from the Omaha and Winnebago reservations. The Indians were a barnstorming team, belonging to no league but touring the country to play college and semi-pro teams for paying audiences.
“Fans also came to be entertained,” writes Jeffrey Powers-Beck in a 2004 Nebraska History article, “and the Indians obliged with a combination of Wild West showmanship and zany baseball antics.”
Spectators were drawn by the novelty of Indians playing America’s game, but stereotypes were a burden for the players. In 1909, Green commented on fans’ treatment of pitcher George Howard Johnson:
“He has never yet stepped to the mound to pitch a game anywhere on earth that three things have not happened. Numerous local humorists have started what they imagine to be Indian war cries; others have yelled, ‘Back to the reservation,’ and the third variety of town pump jester has shrieked ‘Dog soup! Dog soup!’”
Powers-Beck adds that sportswriters commonly referred to the players as “Injuns,” “Redskins,” “Savages,” and other insulting terms.
Though billed as the “Only Ones on Earth,” the Indians were far from being America’s only Native American baseball team, but they may have been the most successful, winning more than 80 percent of their games and playing into the 1920s.
Photos: Above, circa-1905 Nebraska Indians promotional postcard. (NSHS RG3064-0-2) Below, Genoa Indian Industrial School baseball team, circa 1915 (Detail of RG2198-3-5), and students in formation near the boys’ dorm at Genoa Indian Industrial School, circa 1930. (Detail of RG4422-1-16)
—David L. Bristow, Editor
This article was first published in the Spring 2022 issue of Nebraska History magazine.
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David Bristow
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