Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how
Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Tracy V. Wilson and I'm Holly Frying. From time
Speaker 1: to time we get requests from listeners for an episode
Speaker 1: about some kind of sports history and what we do.
Speaker 1: I mean, we have episodes that are related to the
Speaker 1: Olympic Games and some that are on swimming and weightlifting,
Speaker 1: and several different types of racing including horses and speedboats
Speaker 1: and automobiles. We have not really talked a lot about
Speaker 1: team sports, which I think is what people are asking
Speaker 1: for when they ask for sports. Yes, today's subject is
Speaker 1: the Fort Show Indian School girls basketball team. They became
Speaker 1: world champions in nineteen o four, which is pretty early
Speaker 1: in the entire history of that sport. But the story
Speaker 1: also plays out right in the intersection of two other
Speaker 1: pretty big stories. There's the American Indian boarding school program
Speaker 1: in the United States and also the nineteen o four St.
Speaker 1: Louis World's Fair. So we're going to tackle the story
Speaker 1: in two parts. In today's part one, we have the
Speaker 1: background on this boarding school system that the Fort Shaw
Speaker 1: School was part of, as well as how basketball came
Speaker 1: to and flourished at the school, and then in part
Speaker 1: two we will talk about how the team became world
Speaker 1: champions while they were there. And as a note at
Speaker 1: the beginning, we are going to be talking about a
Speaker 1: lot of intentional efforts to quote americanized Indigenous children. And
Speaker 1: this is a weird word because the word American can
Speaker 1: encompass the whole diversity of races and ethnicities and cultures
Speaker 1: and religions. But these efforts to Americanized Native children, that
Speaker 1: was really only about one type of American, one that
Speaker 1: was white, Christian and English speaking. So we're we know
Speaker 1: that American means a lot of things besides that, but
Speaker 1: in this context, that's what it was really about. And also,
Speaker 1: if it's not obvious at this point, we're gonna be
Speaker 1: talking about some pretty abhorrent views in this episode the
Speaker 1: next one, YEA, So when we use the word Americanized
Speaker 1: in this context, know that we are referring to that
Speaker 1: usage at the time someone else's very specific, very narrow
Speaker 1: view of that. Fort Shaw, Montana, began its life in
Speaker 1: June of eighteen sixty seven as an outpost which was
Speaker 1: called Camp Reynolds, and that was on land that the
Speaker 1: United States had acquired from France through the Louisiana Purchase,
Speaker 1: which of course took place in eighteen o three. The
Speaker 1: following month it was renamed Fort Shaw Military Reservation. It
Speaker 1: remained in operation as a fort until eight The fort
Speaker 1: served to protect white travelers and traders and the troops garrison.
Speaker 1: There were an active fighting force in the United States
Speaker 1: ongoing wars against the region's native nations and tribes. Those
Speaker 1: wars had really gone on for centuries, and this is
Speaker 1: playing out towards the end of those centuries of active warfare.
Speaker 1: Also after the major removals of indigenous tribes from their
Speaker 1: home territories, like the bulk of that had happened, but
Speaker 1: it was still ongoing. So this is toward the end
Speaker 1: of that phase of history, but still things related to
Speaker 1: it were going on. So after about a year after
Speaker 1: the Fort ceased military operations, the Office of Indian Affairs
Speaker 1: converted it into a government boarding school for Native American children.
Speaker 1: The Fort Shot Indian School became part of the nation's
Speaker 1: network of federal off reservation boarding schools that were meant
Speaker 1: to Americanize the indigenous population. The flagship of this system
Speaker 1: was Pennsylvania's Carlisle Indian School, which was established in eighteen
Speaker 1: seventy nine. Its founder, Lieutenant Colonel Richard Henry Pratt, believed
Speaker 1: that Native Americans would become extinct if they didn't immediately
Speaker 1: form to white culture. By forcing them to do so,
Speaker 1: he thought he would save the indigenous population. This is
Speaker 1: often summed up as quote, kill the Indian and save
Speaker 1: the man. He's obviously not the only person who thought this.
Speaker 1: There were other policymakers who were of the same mindset.
Speaker 1: Pratt spoke at length about this whole idea a little
Speaker 1: later on in his career at the nineteen Annual Conference
Speaker 1: of Charities and Correction, and he gave an address that
Speaker 1: began quote, a great general has said that the only
Speaker 1: good Indian is a dead one, and that high sanction
Speaker 1: of his destruction has been an enormous factor in promoting
Speaker 1: Indian massacres. In a sense, I agree with the sentiment,
Speaker 1: but only in this that all the Indian there is
Speaker 1: in the race should be dead, killed the Indian in him,
Speaker 1: and save the man. Although Carlisle was the most well
Speaker 1: known of these off reservation boarding schools, it wasn't the
Speaker 1: first or only such effort. Mission schools and other religious
Speaker 1: efforts go back almost to the beginning of European colonization
Speaker 1: in North America, and we talked about some of these
Speaker 1: in past podcasts, including the Harvard Indian School in Massachusetts
Speaker 1: and the Foreign Mission School in Connecticut, and we'll link
Speaker 1: to both of those episodes in the show notes church
Speaker 1: efforts to educate the indigenous population. These earlier schools, a
Speaker 1: lot of the time were at least at first, more
Speaker 1: about spreading Christianity than about straight out cultural assimilation, but
Speaker 1: that started to shift in the early nineteenth century. In
Speaker 1: eighteen nineteen, Congress past the Civilization Fund Act, and this
Speaker 1: act set aside funding for missionary societies to run quote
Speaker 1: civilizing schools for Native Americans. Into the end of the
Speaker 1: nineteenth century, hundreds of boarding and day schools were built
Speaker 1: near and on reservation land, and they had the dual
Speaker 1: mission of educating and so called civilizing the native students.
Speaker 1: The government run off reservation boarding school is like the
Speaker 1: ones at Carlisle and Fort Shaw, joined this extensive network
Speaker 1: of boarding and day schools. Between eighteen eighty and nineteen
Speaker 1: o two, the federal government built about twenty five boarding
Speaker 1: schools that were physically removed from their students reservations, sometimes
Speaker 1: by hundreds of miles, and collectively, all these boarding and
Speaker 1: day schools, both on and off reservations, had the same
Speaker 1: goal to remove all traces of Indigenous culture from the
Speaker 1: Native population and replace it which with that which was
Speaker 1: considered appropriately quote American. To do this, the off reservation
Speaker 1: boarding schools removed Native children from their homes, families, tribes,
Speaker 1: and cultures for periods of months or years, just too
Speaker 1: far away a lot of the time for people to
Speaker 1: go home, even for breaks. Students were held to really
Speaker 1: strict scheduling and military style discipline. Classes were taught only
Speaker 1: in English, and children who didn't already have an English
Speaker 1: name were given one in called by that instead. Indigenous
Speaker 1: languages and religious practices were all forbidden, and punishments for
Speaker 1: breaking those rules were harsh and even abusive. The uniforms, meals, lessons,
Speaker 1: and recreation were all meant to americanize the students dress, speech, demeanor,
Speaker 1: and beliefs, and many of the schools teachers and administrators
Speaker 1: told the students that their Native beliefs in ways of
Speaker 1: life were wrong and backward and evil and even savage.
Speaker 1: This was such an explicit effort like at Carlisle. They
Speaker 1: even took before and after pictures after students arrived at school.
Speaker 1: They would take before pictures of people in their own
Speaker 1: traditional dress that they had come to the school in,
Speaker 1: and then like give them haircuts and dressed them in
Speaker 1: other clothes and take pictures afterwards. Most schools divided their
Speaker 1: class time between academic and vocational instruction, under the idea
Speaker 1: that students would graduate knowing some kind of productive trade.
Speaker 1: So for the boys that might be things like blacksmithing
Speaker 1: and farming. For girls, the trade was often sewing or
Speaker 1: domestic work. Some schools even hired out their students labor
Speaker 1: while they were attending school. But even so, the graduation
Speaker 1: rates were actually really low, and there were a lot
Speaker 1: of limits to the so called assimilation that the schools
Speaker 1: were enforcing. Even though the students were expected to talk, dress,
Speaker 1: act and work like white people, once they graduated or
Speaker 1: otherwise left the school, they were still considered to be
Speaker 1: Native American. They were still subject to the same segregation
Speaker 1: and discrimination as the rest of the indigenous population. In
Speaker 1: addition to all of that conditions that many of these
Speaker 1: schools were very poor, and hundreds of students died of
Speaker 1: disease and malnutrition, as well as of injury or exposure
Speaker 1: after running away from the school. There have also been
Speaker 1: numerous reports of physical, emotional, and sexual abuse taking place
Speaker 1: at the schools over the decades. Sometimes Native parents really
Speaker 1: had no other choice as to whether to send their
Speaker 1: children to these boarding schools. In some cases, there just
Speaker 1: wasn't another option available for getting an education, or life
Speaker 1: was so difficult on the reservation that it seemed like
Speaker 1: the choice was between boarding school and starvation. It is
Speaker 1: obviously not really a choice. Some government Indian agents took
Speaker 1: children by force or strongly pressured parents to send their
Speaker 1: children to boarding boarding school. This was especially true when
Speaker 1: it came to the leaders of tribes that had recently
Speaker 1: been at war with the United States. Their children were
Speaker 1: aggressively recruited, sometimes taken without their consent, and sent to
Speaker 1: far off boarding schools, almost as hostages. Simultaneously, though, there
Speaker 1: were families who sent their children voluntarily, hoping that if
Speaker 1: they received an education at a government school, learning English
Speaker 1: in the ways of white society, they might return home
Speaker 1: to better advocate for their own people. This was especially
Speaker 1: true when it came to schools that had better reputations
Speaker 1: in terms of how the students were treated or weren't
Speaker 1: so far away from the rest of the community. Somewhere
Speaker 1: between twenty thousand and thirty thousand children went to federal
Speaker 1: off reservation boarding schools from the late eighteen hundreds into
Speaker 1: the early nineteen hundreds. But at the same time, roughly
Speaker 1: a hundred thousand Native Americans went to school through similar
Speaker 1: Americanization efforts at on reservation boarding schools and day schools.
Speaker 1: So during these decades, the Native children who were receiving
Speaker 1: some kind of formal education were overwhelmingly doing so at
Speaker 1: a program that was meant to christianize and quote americanize them.
Speaker 1: The United States, we should mention, was not the only
Speaker 1: nation to have schools and other programs like this. Canada,
Speaker 1: for example, had a very similar system of residential schools
Speaker 1: that began operating in about eighteen eighty and the last
Speaker 1: of those actually closed in nineteen. In Australia, showmen, indigenous
Speaker 1: children and children of Aboriginal descent were forcibly removed from
Speaker 1: their families that they became known as the Stolen Generations.
Speaker 1: There's actually a pretty old podcast about that back in
Speaker 1: the archive, and we've gotten a number of requests related
Speaker 1: to this in some way. Over the years, we have
Speaker 1: gotten approximately an equal number of requests for the residential
Speaker 1: school program in Canada and about specifically Carlisle School in
Speaker 1: the United States. But like Carlisle, as we've just said,
Speaker 1: was part of a much, much bigger system. So after
Speaker 1: the break, we're going to talk more about Fort Shaw
Speaker 1: Indian School specifically and how it wound up starting a
Speaker 1: basketball program. Saw Indian School was centrally located among eleven
Speaker 1: different reservations that were scattered across four states. This included Colville,
Speaker 1: Spokane and kurt Elaine in eastern Washington, Fort Hall in Idaho,
Speaker 1: Wind River in Wyoming, and Blackfeet Flathead, Fort Bell, nap
Speaker 1: for Peck, Crow and Northern Cheyenne in Montana. Even though
Speaker 1: Fort Shaw was roughly central to all of these different reservations,
Speaker 1: the closest ones were still more than a hundred miles away.
Speaker 1: Fort Shaw was actually a replacement for another school, a
Speaker 1: government run day school on Fort Peck Indian Reservation, which
Speaker 1: burned down in the federal government looked too recently vacated
Speaker 1: Fort Shaw because it would be easy and inexpensive to
Speaker 1: turn it into a school. The officers quarters became housing
Speaker 1: for faculty and staff. The barracks were student housing, and
Speaker 1: since it had been a military base, had already had
Speaker 1: other necessities like a mess hall, a chapel, a laundry,
Speaker 1: and a hospital. Another bonus, from the government's point of
Speaker 1: view was that long hundred plus mile journey home, and
Speaker 1: some of them were from much farther away than a
Speaker 1: hundred miles. The school was far enough away from all
Speaker 1: of the reservations that its students came from that, in theory,
Speaker 1: it would discourage students to visit home. It would discourage
Speaker 1: family to come and visit students, both of which the
Speaker 1: administrators thought might slow down the student's assimilation or cause
Speaker 1: students to quote relapse into their native ways. They also
Speaker 1: believed that this distance would deter students from trying to
Speaker 1: run away. This was not entirely true. Children definitely tried
Speaker 1: to and did run away from Fort Shaw. After its
Speaker 1: conversion into a school, four Shaw reopened on December for
Speaker 1: students ages five to eighteen. It's students included members of
Speaker 1: numerous tribes and nations, including the Blackfeet, Chippewa, cree Crow,
Speaker 1: Northern Cheyenne, Shoshonee, Grosvan, a Sinniboine and Sue. Many were
Speaker 1: of multi tribal descent, and many had one white parent.
Speaker 1: Although only some of the students spoke English upon arrival
Speaker 1: at the school, nearly all of them spoke more than
Speaker 1: one indigenous language as we sat at the top of
Speaker 1: the show. A core element of Fort Shaw Indian School's
Speaker 1: purpose was to remove students from their own cultural beliefs
Speaker 1: and practices and instead assimilate them into white society. So
Speaker 1: this included English and cultural instruction, along with some academic
Speaker 1: and vocational classes, plus music, theater, and physical education. A
Speaker 1: lot of the youngest students spent their first couple of
Speaker 1: years learning English and white cultural norms before focusing on
Speaker 1: any academic or vocational study. Vocational classes weren't just about
Speaker 1: teaching the children useful skills that could help them earn
Speaker 1: a living once they graduated. They were also about actually
Speaker 1: keeping the school running. The children's labor at Fort Shaw
Speaker 1: included raising the vegetables and livestock that provided food and
Speaker 1: milk for the school, sewing all of the school uniforms,
Speaker 1: and laundering and mending them. They also made items that
Speaker 1: were sold to earn money for the school. Girls learned
Speaker 1: in royttery and lace making, while boys learned things like
Speaker 1: blacksmith ing, furniture making, and general carpentry. Their pe courses
Speaker 1: were also separated by gender. The boys got to play
Speaker 1: team sports along with doing track and field. The girls
Speaker 1: mainly had what was called physical culture. This is sort
Speaker 1: of a cross between a health class calisthenics and European
Speaker 1: style gymnastics that was popular at the time. Josephine Langley,
Speaker 1: known as Josie, was hired as an quote Indian assistant
Speaker 1: along with two other young women from the Blackfeet reservation
Speaker 1: in Josie wanted to be a teacher and she hoped
Speaker 1: that by taking this job as an assistant, she would
Speaker 1: be able to work her way up the ladder. She
Speaker 1: had probably learned to play basketball while studying at Carlisle
Speaker 1: Indian School, and she introduced the sport at Fort Shaw
Speaker 1: around eight, at first playing with a soccer ball and
Speaker 1: makeshift baskets until the school eventually approved the purchase of
Speaker 1: regulation equipment. Games were played in the Army base his
Speaker 1: old dance hall, which had a packed dirt floor and
Speaker 1: was easily big enough to accommodate the court and the
Speaker 1: players basketball, which was actually two words at this point
Speaker 1: was not just new to Fort Shaw Indian School. James
Speaker 1: Naismith had developed the sport only about five years before
Speaker 1: its introduction there. He had developed it at Springfield College
Speaker 1: in Connecticut, which was also known as the International y
Speaker 1: m C. A training school. He had been looking for
Speaker 1: a team sport that could be played indoors, particularly during
Speaker 1: the winter months, when the college's football team's regiment of calistinics,
Speaker 1: marching and weight training was just not sufficient to keep
Speaker 1: up their physique. Around the turn of the twentieth century,
Speaker 1: football was extremely violent. Teams basically faced off against each
Speaker 1: other in a wedge formation, and they kind of threw
Speaker 1: themselves at each other full force. It was not at
Speaker 1: all something that could be played in a confined space
Speaker 1: on an indoor surface without risking even more injuries than
Speaker 1: were already opening during regular play. So in creating basketball,
Speaker 1: Nay Smith was trying to invent a team sport that
Speaker 1: was fast paced and vigorous, but did not involve large
Speaker 1: young men hurling themselves into one another as hard as possible.
Speaker 1: That's kind of a side note here. The football that
Speaker 1: Nate Smith was trying to replace was also really new.
Speaker 1: The first college football game is generally marked as happening
Speaker 1: between Princeton and Rutgers on November six of eighteen sixty nine,
Speaker 1: although that initial game was closer to soccer than to
Speaker 1: American football as we know it today. This rugby soccer
Speaker 1: hybrid of American football grew up over the next decade
Speaker 1: or so, and the Carlysle Indian school football team, which
Speaker 1: was founded in eight played a big role in the
Speaker 1: evolution of that sport. On average, the Carlysle football players
Speaker 1: were much smaller than the players on the teams that
Speaker 1: they played against, and they came up with a ton
Speaker 1: of strategic tricks to get around this disadvantage. If there
Speaker 1: wasn't a specific rule against it, they would try it.
Speaker 1: There are still American football rules today that came about
Speaker 1: as the Intercollegiate Football Rules Committee outlawed Carlyle strategies in
Speaker 1: between seasons. I'm just gonna continue with this digression for
Speaker 1: a moment to say that I do not care about
Speaker 1: football as a sport. Uh. There are a lot of
Speaker 1: you know, social and economic and medical and political issues
Speaker 1: around football that I care a lot about, but like
Speaker 1: it's it would take a lot to make me sit
Speaker 1: down and watch a football game all the way through. Uh.
Speaker 1: Even So, this whole story of the Carlisle, Indian School
Speaker 1: football team is fascinating and I want to do an
Speaker 1: episode about it one day. Um. Jim Thorpe, whose name
Speaker 1: in the Fox language translated to bright Path, was the
Speaker 1: first Native Americans to win a gold medal at the
Speaker 1: Olympics for the United States. He was one of the
Speaker 1: players and their strategies and the ways that they bent
Speaker 1: every rule if it wasn't specific the outlawed. Their coach
Speaker 1: Pop Warner would would try it. So like that's the
Speaker 1: whole story is just fascinating and bizarre and has stuff
Speaker 1: in it like the Carlisle team sewing these leather football
Speaker 1: shaped patches on their uniforms to trick Harvard into thinking
Speaker 1: they all had the ball, and then Harvard retaliating by
Speaker 1: painting all of the ball's maroon. It's it is a
Speaker 1: great story, and it's one of the few other things
Speaker 1: about team sports. I might interest myself enough in doing
Speaker 1: podcast on it sometime later. I like a little subversion
Speaker 1: through sewing that makes it super fun. Yeah, it's it's um,
Speaker 1: it's a it's fascinating anyway. So, Nathan, this original game
Speaker 1: of basketball. To get back to basketball had thirteen rules.
Speaker 1: We're not going to read them all, but they included
Speaker 1: that the ball could be thrown or batted with one
Speaker 1: or both hands, but not with a fist, shouldering, holding, pushing, tripping,
Speaker 1: and striking opponents where all fouls as was hitting the
Speaker 1: ball with a fist. The game was played in two
Speaker 1: fifteen minute halves with a five minute rest, but otherwise
Speaker 1: the clock did not stop during play, so it was
Speaker 1: a very fast paced game, not a lot of stopping.
Speaker 1: At the low scoring compared to today, although it wasn't
Speaker 1: listed in the thirteen original rules. The games started with
Speaker 1: a jump ball or a tip off at center court,
Speaker 1: and both teams returned to center court for another jump
Speaker 1: ball after baskets were scored. Soon after Na Smith drafted
Speaker 1: the first set of rules, women's colleges in the Northeast
Speaker 1: started taking up basketball as well. Senda Baronson of Smith
Speaker 1: College released an adapted rule set for women in in
Speaker 1: eight she headed up a committee to create an even
Speaker 1: further modified set of rules for girls, which made the
Speaker 1: game so much easier and less intense that a lot
Speaker 1: of programs, especially west of the Mississippi, just ignored them
Speaker 1: and had the girls play by what we're called the
Speaker 1: quote boys rules, especially for girls teams that had already
Speaker 1: been playing by the same rules as everyone else. Uh,
Speaker 1: they were like, no, I'm not doing that. So this
Speaker 1: basketball program at Fort Shaw was actually the first basketball
Speaker 1: program organized in the state of Montana. It immediately became
Speaker 1: immensely popular among the girls at the school. Physical games
Speaker 1: played in teams were already a really important element of
Speaker 1: pretty much all of their indigenous cultures. Basketball also had
Speaker 1: some similarities to a number of Native girls games. These
Speaker 1: included double ball, which used a pair of balls tethered
Speaker 1: together and then tossed from a stick, which was exclusively
Speaker 1: a women's sport among most of the Planes tribes. There
Speaker 1: was another game called shinny, which was a lot like
Speaker 1: field hockey and used curved sticks, which was generally a
Speaker 1: women's rule or a women's game as well. Uh. Some
Speaker 1: tribes also had versions of lacrosse that were played by women. Basically,
Speaker 1: there were a lot of team sports with balls specifically
Speaker 1: played by women in among a lot of different indigenous cultures.
Speaker 1: Basketball was also a lot more fun and physically active
Speaker 1: than physical culture class, and it was the one time
Speaker 1: of day when students could really shed some of the
Speaker 1: school's cultural expectations, they could participate in unladylike behavior like
Speaker 1: running and jumping with abandon. Although the boys at the
Speaker 1: school had shown an initial interest in basketball as well,
Speaker 1: soon the girls were outperforming them on the court and
Speaker 1: their interest waned. They also had plenty of other team
Speaker 1: sports to choose from, whereas the girls did not because
Speaker 1: there was no other basketball program in Montana at the time.
Speaker 1: For the first few years of basketball at Fort Shaw
Speaker 1: Indian School, all of the games were intramural scrimmage matches.
Speaker 1: Even so, they were as popular with the local community
Speaker 1: as they were with the girls at the school. At
Speaker 1: an end of year ceremony game in eighteen nine seven,
Speaker 1: they did an intramural demonstration that brought in three hundred
Speaker 1: spectators to watch in a t Fred C. Campbell became
Speaker 1: superintendent of Fort Shaw, and he seemed to have had
Speaker 1: a genuine interest in making things better for the school,
Speaker 1: improving the school's image and that of his students, and
Speaker 1: he also wanted the community to begin seeing those students
Speaker 1: in a different light. Racism against Native Americans was endemic
Speaker 1: and severe, and Campbell recognized that all this work they
Speaker 1: were doing to quote, assimilate the students was not really
Speaker 1: going to be effective if once those students graduated from
Speaker 1: the school they were still shunned from white society. So
Speaker 1: he started inviting people from the community to the school
Speaker 1: and taking students out into the community to try to
Speaker 1: basically get everyone used to each other hopefully changed the
Speaker 1: hearts and minds within the community. So a natural way
Speaker 1: to do this was by hosting basketball games. And we're
Speaker 1: gonna talk a little bit more about that, but first
Speaker 1: we are going to pause and have a word from
Speaker 1: one of our fantastic sponsors. In addition to being the
Speaker 1: superintendent of the school, Fred Campbell had been an athlete himself.
Speaker 1: Some sources actually credit him with being the one who
Speaker 1: introduced basketball at Fort Shaw, but it was definitely played
Speaker 1: there for a couple of years before he became superintendent.
Speaker 1: From his own firsthand experience, he thought athletics were a
Speaker 1: good way to build a person's self esteem and sense
Speaker 1: of worth, on top of helping to develop a strong
Speaker 1: and healthy body. So he focused on improving and building
Speaker 1: up all the school's athletics teams, but it was really
Speaker 1: the girls basketball team that he saw as having the
Speaker 1: most promise for bringing good publicity to the school and
Speaker 1: its students. Basketball had barely made its way into Montana
Speaker 1: at this point. There were so few other teams to
Speaker 1: play against that the Fort Shaw girls team's first game
Speaker 1: against another school was actually against a boys team, and
Speaker 1: that team was from Great Falls. Then Campbell organized another
Speaker 1: girls team in sun River, which was not far away,
Speaker 1: so the Fort Shaw team would have someone else to play.
Speaker 1: When it was time for games, he would bring the
Speaker 1: sun River team in by wagon. Fort Shaw defeated sun
Speaker 1: River easily every time. Of course, more more schools, more
Speaker 1: other programs started having basketball teams, but to play against
Speaker 1: those other teams, the Fort Shaw team had to start
Speaker 1: traveling farther and farther away. In late nineteen o two,
Speaker 1: they traveled to Butte, Montana by wagon and then trained
Speaker 1: where they where they defeated the Mute High team fifteen
Speaker 1: to nine. The next day they traveled to Helena again
Speaker 1: by train, and this time they were defeated fifteen to six. Again.
Speaker 1: I will point out how much lower these scores are
Speaker 1: than what we would normally see in a basketball game today.
Speaker 1: There's only one of the one digit three. I think
Speaker 1: that original basketball sound is a little more my taste
Speaker 1: maybe than current basketball, because that is one of my
Speaker 1: things of like you could just kind of watch the
Speaker 1: last bit because there's so much scoring before that, which
Speaker 1: is not too in any way thro shaded basketball. If
Speaker 1: you love it, that's cool. That's just always been my thing,
Speaker 1: and like I could come in for the last ten minutes, right, um,
Speaker 1: that's when it's really a nail biterer. So after that
Speaker 1: loss though at Helena, Campbell started refining the girls positions
Speaker 1: on the team. He realized that Fort Shaw had lost
Speaker 1: the ball to Helena in more than half of the
Speaker 1: jump balls at center court, so he moved Nettie Worth,
Speaker 1: who wasn't the tallest on the team but had a
Speaker 1: really incredible vertical jump, to center. Nettie and her sister
Speaker 1: Lizzie were a Sinnaboine and had been among Fort Shaw's
Speaker 1: first students when it opened. This change was not quite
Speaker 1: enough to help Fort Shaw defeat Beaute Parochial school in
Speaker 1: the next game they played. They lost that one fifteen
Speaker 1: to six, so Campbell made another switch. He left Nettie
Speaker 1: Worth as center and he made Many Burton and in
Speaker 1: a sense of her forwards. Many was a member of
Speaker 1: the lem High Shoshoni Nation, which was not actually in
Speaker 1: favor of sending children away to government government boarding schools.
Speaker 1: But Many's father worked as a translator and he thought
Speaker 1: that she could benefit from getting an English education. Emma
Speaker 1: Sansor and her siblings were actually Matee of French, Canadian
Speaker 1: and Chippewa Cree descent. They were listed in their school
Speaker 1: records as Sue because their particular people were essentially landless
Speaker 1: in the United States, they were not part of a
Speaker 1: federally recognized tribe. Some of the people at the mission
Speaker 1: school that they had attended previously falsified their tribal affiliation
Speaker 1: to be able to get them into the school, which,
Speaker 1: like we talked previously about how there were all kinds
Speaker 1: of reasons for for children to go to these schools,
Speaker 1: and this was a case where Emma and her siblings
Speaker 1: were in dire financial straits and so at the people
Speaker 1: who made this change to their tribal affiliation, we're doing
Speaker 1: with it that was best for them. So this combination
Speaker 1: of girls and positions that Campbell came up with became
Speaker 1: a winning one for Fort Shaw. Their next game was
Speaker 1: against a college team, Montana State University in Missoula, now
Speaker 1: known as the University of Montana. Fort Shaw won nineteen
Speaker 1: to nine, and from there they were undefeated for the
Speaker 1: rest of the season, playing at least six more games,
Speaker 1: including against another college team, the Montana Agricultural College Farmats,
Speaker 1: and resounding wins in rematches against both Helena High School,
Speaker 1: which was ten victory, and Buque Parochial, which was an
Speaker 1: eighteen to eight score. These games were not all on
Speaker 1: the road the school. While it had that large dance
Speaker 1: hall that was great for their own scrimmages and practices,
Speaker 1: they didn't really have a large enough space to accommodate
Speaker 1: the crowds who started wanting to see the games, so
Speaker 1: they started using Luther Hall in Great Falls, Montana as
Speaker 1: their home game court. Luther Hall was a ballroom that
Speaker 1: was big enough for the playing area and hundreds of spectators.
Speaker 1: Great Falls is also about twenty five five miles away
Speaker 1: from the school, and since travel to and from there
Speaker 1: had to happen by wagon, the team and there uh
Speaker 1: their chaperones and coach wind up staying at a hotel,
Speaker 1: which was a treat for most of them. Over the
Speaker 1: course of a few games, Great Falls, Montana started to
Speaker 1: think of the Fort Shaw team as their own home team.
Speaker 1: Although game coverage in the local papers still drifted into
Speaker 1: casual racism, especially in descriptions of the girls appearances and
Speaker 1: their quote savage wins, it started to carry a little
Speaker 1: bit of a tone of local pride and to focus
Speaker 1: more on the players other accomplishments at school rather than
Speaker 1: the fact that they were quote Indian. Yeah, they didn't,
Speaker 1: they didn't, the skies the girls cultural heritage, but it
Speaker 1: stopped being written about as though it were a taboo
Speaker 1: or something to judge about them. In the end of
Speaker 1: the season, the Fort Shaw team had a record of
Speaker 1: nine wins and two losses. The game of basketball was
Speaker 1: still so new to the state of Montana that there
Speaker 1: weren't official rankings or playoffs, but nevertheless, the Fort Shaw
Speaker 1: team was regarded as the state champions. Many Burton had
Speaker 1: become so popular, especially for her scoring ability, that spectators
Speaker 1: chant whenever they were playing was shoot many shoots. The
Speaker 1: basketball games also gave the school an opportunity to show
Speaker 1: off some other talents. The band and the mandolin orchestra
Speaker 1: provided the before game and halftime entertainment. Sometimes after the games,
Speaker 1: the court was turned back into a dance floor, where
Speaker 1: the girls showed off their skills in ballroom dancing. All
Speaker 1: of this also brought in lots of coverage from the
Speaker 1: local press. Of course, racism and prejudice still existed, but
Speaker 1: the community started to see these students as talented and
Speaker 1: capable rather than as uneducable troublemakers. In three s M
Speaker 1: mcowen contacted Fred Campbell with an intriguing invitation. Mcowen had
Speaker 1: previously been super intendant of the Chillico Indian School, but
Speaker 1: he had recently moved into a new role director of
Speaker 1: the Model Indian School that was being created for the St.
Speaker 1: Louis World's Fair. McGowan asked Campbell to select some of
Speaker 1: Fort Shaw's best students to participate in the Model School,
Speaker 1: which was going to run from June one to November one,
Speaker 1: nineteen o four, and Campbell agreed. But that becomes a
Speaker 1: whole other story. So we're going to talk about what
Speaker 1: this agreement meant for the basketball team and how it
Speaker 1: led to their becoming world champions in part two of
Speaker 1: this podcast. I'm excited for part to you me too.
Speaker 1: It's a really fun story. You don't, I mean, when
Speaker 1: you think about this being a completely new sport relief
Speaker 1: for people, and now it completely shifted perceptions. I have
Speaker 1: a new appreciation for basketball. I really admire the girls
Speaker 1: and young women who played on this team. We're gonna
Speaker 1: get to talk more about them next time to ya.
Speaker 1: In the meantime, do you have listener mail to send
Speaker 1: us out? I sure do. It's from Kristen and Kristen
Speaker 1: has sent us a piece of mail that throws back
Speaker 1: to our Halloween episode on the Green Children of Wolpit,
Speaker 1: and it's entitled green Children of Woolpit might have been Blue?
Speaker 1: Question mark christ and says, sorry, this is so late.
Speaker 1: You don't need to apologize. It's fine. Um. I only
Speaker 1: listened to the podcast episode last night. I was curious
Speaker 1: about the possibility that perhaps the problem and identifying the
Speaker 1: source of these children's skin color might be in the
Speaker 1: definition of the color names. For instance, we know that
Speaker 1: different cultures have different definitions of the line between green
Speaker 1: and blue. Might not be so crazy to posit that
Speaker 1: in eleventh and twelfth century, the eleventh and twelfth century
Speaker 1: English folks might not adhere to our modern definitions. Considering
Speaker 1: this possibility opens up a lot more medical possibilities to
Speaker 1: the cause of the strange skin coloration. Maybe if we'd
Speaker 1: have seen these kids today, we would think they looked
Speaker 1: at blue. The leading thought I've got is mythiem with globinemia,
Speaker 1: the same disease of the blue figures of Kentucky were
Speaker 1: reported to have had other conditions on the differential might
Speaker 1: be to trilogy of below, which is the heart disease
Speaker 1: that Jimmy Kimmel's son has, or other congenital heart disease
Speaker 1: leading to a chronic cyonosis from right to left, shunting
Speaker 1: up the blood flow that causes the blood to bypass
Speaker 1: the lungs before being sent back out to the body.
Speaker 1: And what if in addition to having such a disorder,
Speaker 1: they also had some sort of liver disease that made
Speaker 1: them jaundiced. Yellow plus blue gives green as for our
Speaker 1: modern definition, so many possibilities. Just the thought I wondered
Speaker 1: if anyone else would have also had. I'm a second
Speaker 1: year medical student, so my knowledge is limited, but the
Speaker 1: episode was fascinating and distracted me from some deadlines. Thanks again, Kristen.
Speaker 1: Thank you Kristen for this note. It is definitely true
Speaker 1: that that blue and green are are not necessarily perceived
Speaker 1: differently but described differently among different cultures. We've gotten a
Speaker 1: couple of requests before for an episode about when words
Speaker 1: for the color blue into different languages lexicon. There's like
Speaker 1: a whole series of debate about about whether that's just
Speaker 1: an issue of language, like people coming up with names
Speaker 1: for different colors, or whether it's an actual issue of perception,
Speaker 1: like where people not perceiving a different color during that time.
Speaker 1: And I meant to jump down that rabbit hole before
Speaker 1: reading this email, I did not do it, Um Regardless,
Speaker 1: I think that is a fascinating suggestion. I also want
Speaker 1: to say that I have on my list of things
Speaker 1: to sometime at some point talk about on the podcast
Speaker 1: UM the three, the three doctors who together worked out
Speaker 1: a procedure to treat the tdrology of Felow. A lot
Speaker 1: of people have asked for Vivian Thomas, but the other
Speaker 1: two doctors who worked together and that both also have
Speaker 1: their own fascinating stories. So thank you for that interesting
Speaker 1: hypothesis about the green children of will Pit. If you
Speaker 1: would like to write to us about this or any
Speaker 1: other podcasts where history podcasts at how stuff works dot com.
Speaker 1: We are also all across social media at missed in
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Speaker 1: on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, Tumbler, all of those things.
Speaker 1: You can also come to our website, which is missed
Speaker 1: in History dot com. We will have links to those
Speaker 1: other episodes from previously in the archive. Will have links
Speaker 1: to those in the page for today's episode. We also
Speaker 1: have a fully searchable archive of all of our past episodes.
Speaker 1: Um there are links to all of the resources and
Speaker 1: sources that Holly and I have used on their episodes,
Speaker 1: so you can do all that if you come and
Speaker 1: visit us at missed in history dot com for more
Speaker 1: on this and thousands of other topics. Is it how
Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot com