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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how

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Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.

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Speaker 1: I'm Tracy V. Wilson and I'm Holly Frying. From time

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Speaker 1: to time we get requests from listeners for an episode

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Speaker 1: about some kind of sports history and what we do.

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Speaker 1: I mean, we have episodes that are related to the

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Speaker 1: Olympic Games and some that are on swimming and weightlifting,

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Speaker 1: and several different types of racing including horses and speedboats

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Speaker 1: and automobiles. We have not really talked a lot about

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Speaker 1: team sports, which I think is what people are asking

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Speaker 1: for when they ask for sports. Yes, today's subject is

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Speaker 1: the Fort Show Indian School girls basketball team. They became

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Speaker 1: world champions in nineteen o four, which is pretty early

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Speaker 1: in the entire history of that sport. But the story

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Speaker 1: also plays out right in the intersection of two other

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Speaker 1: pretty big stories. There's the American Indian boarding school program

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Speaker 1: in the United States and also the nineteen o four St.

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Speaker 1: Louis World's Fair. So we're going to tackle the story

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Speaker 1: in two parts. In today's part one, we have the

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Speaker 1: background on this boarding school system that the Fort Shaw

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Speaker 1: School was part of, as well as how basketball came

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Speaker 1: to and flourished at the school, and then in part

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Speaker 1: two we will talk about how the team became world

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Speaker 1: champions while they were there. And as a note at

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Speaker 1: the beginning, we are going to be talking about a

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Speaker 1: lot of intentional efforts to quote americanized Indigenous children. And

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Speaker 1: this is a weird word because the word American can

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Speaker 1: encompass the whole diversity of races and ethnicities and cultures

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Speaker 1: and religions. But these efforts to Americanized Native children, that

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Speaker 1: was really only about one type of American, one that

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Speaker 1: was white, Christian and English speaking. So we're we know

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Speaker 1: that American means a lot of things besides that, but

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Speaker 1: in this context, that's what it was really about. And also,

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Speaker 1: if it's not obvious at this point, we're gonna be

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Speaker 1: talking about some pretty abhorrent views in this episode the

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Speaker 1: next one, YEA, So when we use the word Americanized

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Speaker 1: in this context, know that we are referring to that

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Speaker 1: usage at the time someone else's very specific, very narrow

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Speaker 1: view of that. Fort Shaw, Montana, began its life in

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Speaker 1: June of eighteen sixty seven as an outpost which was

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Speaker 1: called Camp Reynolds, and that was on land that the

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Speaker 1: United States had acquired from France through the Louisiana Purchase,

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Speaker 1: which of course took place in eighteen o three. The

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Speaker 1: following month it was renamed Fort Shaw Military Reservation. It

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Speaker 1: remained in operation as a fort until eight The fort

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Speaker 1: served to protect white travelers and traders and the troops garrison.

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Speaker 1: There were an active fighting force in the United States

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Speaker 1: ongoing wars against the region's native nations and tribes. Those

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Speaker 1: wars had really gone on for centuries, and this is

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Speaker 1: playing out towards the end of those centuries of active warfare.

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Speaker 1: Also after the major removals of indigenous tribes from their

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Speaker 1: home territories, like the bulk of that had happened, but

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Speaker 1: it was still ongoing. So this is toward the end

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Speaker 1: of that phase of history, but still things related to

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Speaker 1: it were going on. So after about a year after

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Speaker 1: the Fort ceased military operations, the Office of Indian Affairs

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Speaker 1: converted it into a government boarding school for Native American children.

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Speaker 1: The Fort Shot Indian School became part of the nation's

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Speaker 1: network of federal off reservation boarding schools that were meant

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Speaker 1: to Americanize the indigenous population. The flagship of this system

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Speaker 1: was Pennsylvania's Carlisle Indian School, which was established in eighteen

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Speaker 1: seventy nine. Its founder, Lieutenant Colonel Richard Henry Pratt, believed

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Speaker 1: that Native Americans would become extinct if they didn't immediately

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Speaker 1: form to white culture. By forcing them to do so,

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Speaker 1: he thought he would save the indigenous population. This is

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Speaker 1: often summed up as quote, kill the Indian and save

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Speaker 1: the man. He's obviously not the only person who thought this.

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Speaker 1: There were other policymakers who were of the same mindset.

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Speaker 1: Pratt spoke at length about this whole idea a little

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Speaker 1: later on in his career at the nineteen Annual Conference

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Speaker 1: of Charities and Correction, and he gave an address that

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Speaker 1: began quote, a great general has said that the only

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Speaker 1: good Indian is a dead one, and that high sanction

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Speaker 1: of his destruction has been an enormous factor in promoting

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Speaker 1: Indian massacres. In a sense, I agree with the sentiment,

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Speaker 1: but only in this that all the Indian there is

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Speaker 1: in the race should be dead, killed the Indian in him,

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Speaker 1: and save the man. Although Carlisle was the most well

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Speaker 1: known of these off reservation boarding schools, it wasn't the

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Speaker 1: first or only such effort. Mission schools and other religious

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Speaker 1: efforts go back almost to the beginning of European colonization

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Speaker 1: in North America, and we talked about some of these

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Speaker 1: in past podcasts, including the Harvard Indian School in Massachusetts

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Speaker 1: and the Foreign Mission School in Connecticut, and we'll link

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Speaker 1: to both of those episodes in the show notes church

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Speaker 1: efforts to educate the indigenous population. These earlier schools, a

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Speaker 1: lot of the time were at least at first, more

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Speaker 1: about spreading Christianity than about straight out cultural assimilation, but

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Speaker 1: that started to shift in the early nineteenth century. In

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Speaker 1: eighteen nineteen, Congress past the Civilization Fund Act, and this

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Speaker 1: act set aside funding for missionary societies to run quote

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Speaker 1: civilizing schools for Native Americans. Into the end of the

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Speaker 1: nineteenth century, hundreds of boarding and day schools were built

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Speaker 1: near and on reservation land, and they had the dual

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Speaker 1: mission of educating and so called civilizing the native students.

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Speaker 1: The government run off reservation boarding school is like the

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Speaker 1: ones at Carlisle and Fort Shaw, joined this extensive network

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Speaker 1: of boarding and day schools. Between eighteen eighty and nineteen

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Speaker 1: o two, the federal government built about twenty five boarding

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Speaker 1: schools that were physically removed from their students reservations, sometimes

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Speaker 1: by hundreds of miles, and collectively, all these boarding and

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Speaker 1: day schools, both on and off reservations, had the same

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Speaker 1: goal to remove all traces of Indigenous culture from the

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Speaker 1: Native population and replace it which with that which was

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Speaker 1: considered appropriately quote American. To do this, the off reservation

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Speaker 1: boarding schools removed Native children from their homes, families, tribes,

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Speaker 1: and cultures for periods of months or years, just too

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Speaker 1: far away a lot of the time for people to

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Speaker 1: go home, even for breaks. Students were held to really

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Speaker 1: strict scheduling and military style discipline. Classes were taught only

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Speaker 1: in English, and children who didn't already have an English

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Speaker 1: name were given one in called by that instead. Indigenous

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Speaker 1: languages and religious practices were all forbidden, and punishments for

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Speaker 1: breaking those rules were harsh and even abusive. The uniforms, meals, lessons,

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Speaker 1: and recreation were all meant to americanize the students dress, speech, demeanor,

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Speaker 1: and beliefs, and many of the schools teachers and administrators

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Speaker 1: told the students that their Native beliefs in ways of

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Speaker 1: life were wrong and backward and evil and even savage.

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Speaker 1: This was such an explicit effort like at Carlisle. They

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Speaker 1: even took before and after pictures after students arrived at school.

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Speaker 1: They would take before pictures of people in their own

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Speaker 1: traditional dress that they had come to the school in,

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Speaker 1: and then like give them haircuts and dressed them in

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Speaker 1: other clothes and take pictures afterwards. Most schools divided their

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Speaker 1: class time between academic and vocational instruction, under the idea

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Speaker 1: that students would graduate knowing some kind of productive trade.

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Speaker 1: So for the boys that might be things like blacksmithing

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Speaker 1: and farming. For girls, the trade was often sewing or

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Speaker 1: domestic work. Some schools even hired out their students labor

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Speaker 1: while they were attending school. But even so, the graduation

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Speaker 1: rates were actually really low, and there were a lot

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Speaker 1: of limits to the so called assimilation that the schools

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Speaker 1: were enforcing. Even though the students were expected to talk, dress,

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Speaker 1: act and work like white people, once they graduated or

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Speaker 1: otherwise left the school, they were still considered to be

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Speaker 1: Native American. They were still subject to the same segregation

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Speaker 1: and discrimination as the rest of the indigenous population. In

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Speaker 1: addition to all of that conditions that many of these

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Speaker 1: schools were very poor, and hundreds of students died of

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Speaker 1: disease and malnutrition, as well as of injury or exposure

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Speaker 1: after running away from the school. There have also been

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Speaker 1: numerous reports of physical, emotional, and sexual abuse taking place

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Speaker 1: at the schools over the decades. Sometimes Native parents really

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Speaker 1: had no other choice as to whether to send their

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Speaker 1: children to these boarding schools. In some cases, there just

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Speaker 1: wasn't another option available for getting an education, or life

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Speaker 1: was so difficult on the reservation that it seemed like

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Speaker 1: the choice was between boarding school and starvation. It is

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Speaker 1: obviously not really a choice. Some government Indian agents took

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Speaker 1: children by force or strongly pressured parents to send their

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Speaker 1: children to boarding boarding school. This was especially true when

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Speaker 1: it came to the leaders of tribes that had recently

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Speaker 1: been at war with the United States. Their children were

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Speaker 1: aggressively recruited, sometimes taken without their consent, and sent to

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Speaker 1: far off boarding schools, almost as hostages. Simultaneously, though, there

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Speaker 1: were families who sent their children voluntarily, hoping that if

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Speaker 1: they received an education at a government school, learning English

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Speaker 1: in the ways of white society, they might return home

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Speaker 1: to better advocate for their own people. This was especially

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Speaker 1: true when it came to schools that had better reputations

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Speaker 1: in terms of how the students were treated or weren't

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Speaker 1: so far away from the rest of the community. Somewhere

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Speaker 1: between twenty thousand and thirty thousand children went to federal

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Speaker 1: off reservation boarding schools from the late eighteen hundreds into

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Speaker 1: the early nineteen hundreds. But at the same time, roughly

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Speaker 1: a hundred thousand Native Americans went to school through similar

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Speaker 1: Americanization efforts at on reservation boarding schools and day schools.

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Speaker 1: So during these decades, the Native children who were receiving

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Speaker 1: some kind of formal education were overwhelmingly doing so at

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Speaker 1: a program that was meant to christianize and quote americanize them.

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Speaker 1: The United States, we should mention, was not the only

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Speaker 1: nation to have schools and other programs like this. Canada,

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Speaker 1: for example, had a very similar system of residential schools

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Speaker 1: that began operating in about eighteen eighty and the last

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Speaker 1: of those actually closed in nineteen. In Australia, showmen, indigenous

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Speaker 1: children and children of Aboriginal descent were forcibly removed from

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Speaker 1: their families that they became known as the Stolen Generations.

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Speaker 1: There's actually a pretty old podcast about that back in

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Speaker 1: the archive, and we've gotten a number of requests related

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Speaker 1: to this in some way. Over the years, we have

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Speaker 1: gotten approximately an equal number of requests for the residential

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Speaker 1: school program in Canada and about specifically Carlisle School in

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Speaker 1: the United States. But like Carlisle, as we've just said,

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Speaker 1: was part of a much, much bigger system. So after

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Speaker 1: the break, we're going to talk more about Fort Shaw

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Speaker 1: Indian School specifically and how it wound up starting a

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Speaker 1: basketball program. Saw Indian School was centrally located among eleven

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Speaker 1: different reservations that were scattered across four states. This included Colville,

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Speaker 1: Spokane and kurt Elaine in eastern Washington, Fort Hall in Idaho,

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Speaker 1: Wind River in Wyoming, and Blackfeet Flathead, Fort Bell, nap

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Speaker 1: for Peck, Crow and Northern Cheyenne in Montana. Even though

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Speaker 1: Fort Shaw was roughly central to all of these different reservations,

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Speaker 1: the closest ones were still more than a hundred miles away.

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Speaker 1: Fort Shaw was actually a replacement for another school, a

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Speaker 1: government run day school on Fort Peck Indian Reservation, which

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Speaker 1: burned down in the federal government looked too recently vacated

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Speaker 1: Fort Shaw because it would be easy and inexpensive to

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Speaker 1: turn it into a school. The officers quarters became housing

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Speaker 1: for faculty and staff. The barracks were student housing, and

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Speaker 1: since it had been a military base, had already had

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Speaker 1: other necessities like a mess hall, a chapel, a laundry,

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Speaker 1: and a hospital. Another bonus, from the government's point of

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Speaker 1: view was that long hundred plus mile journey home, and

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Speaker 1: some of them were from much farther away than a

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Speaker 1: hundred miles. The school was far enough away from all

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Speaker 1: of the reservations that its students came from that, in theory,

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Speaker 1: it would discourage students to visit home. It would discourage

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Speaker 1: family to come and visit students, both of which the

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Speaker 1: administrators thought might slow down the student's assimilation or cause

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Speaker 1: students to quote relapse into their native ways. They also

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Speaker 1: believed that this distance would deter students from trying to

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Speaker 1: run away. This was not entirely true. Children definitely tried

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Speaker 1: to and did run away from Fort Shaw. After its

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Speaker 1: conversion into a school, four Shaw reopened on December for

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Speaker 1: students ages five to eighteen. It's students included members of

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Speaker 1: numerous tribes and nations, including the Blackfeet, Chippewa, cree Crow,

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Speaker 1: Northern Cheyenne, Shoshonee, Grosvan, a Sinniboine and Sue. Many were

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Speaker 1: of multi tribal descent, and many had one white parent.

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Speaker 1: Although only some of the students spoke English upon arrival

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Speaker 1: at the school, nearly all of them spoke more than

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Speaker 1: one indigenous language as we sat at the top of

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Speaker 1: the show. A core element of Fort Shaw Indian School's

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Speaker 1: purpose was to remove students from their own cultural beliefs

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Speaker 1: and practices and instead assimilate them into white society. So

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Speaker 1: this included English and cultural instruction, along with some academic

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Speaker 1: and vocational classes, plus music, theater, and physical education. A

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Speaker 1: lot of the youngest students spent their first couple of

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Speaker 1: years learning English and white cultural norms before focusing on

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Speaker 1: any academic or vocational study. Vocational classes weren't just about

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Speaker 1: teaching the children useful skills that could help them earn

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Speaker 1: a living once they graduated. They were also about actually

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Speaker 1: keeping the school running. The children's labor at Fort Shaw

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Speaker 1: included raising the vegetables and livestock that provided food and

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Speaker 1: milk for the school, sewing all of the school uniforms,

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Speaker 1: and laundering and mending them. They also made items that

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Speaker 1: were sold to earn money for the school. Girls learned

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Speaker 1: in royttery and lace making, while boys learned things like

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Speaker 1: blacksmith ing, furniture making, and general carpentry. Their pe courses

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Speaker 1: were also separated by gender. The boys got to play

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Speaker 1: team sports along with doing track and field. The girls

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Speaker 1: mainly had what was called physical culture. This is sort

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Speaker 1: of a cross between a health class calisthenics and European

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Speaker 1: style gymnastics that was popular at the time. Josephine Langley,

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Speaker 1: known as Josie, was hired as an quote Indian assistant

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Speaker 1: along with two other young women from the Blackfeet reservation

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Speaker 1: in Josie wanted to be a teacher and she hoped

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Speaker 1: that by taking this job as an assistant, she would

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Speaker 1: be able to work her way up the ladder. She

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Speaker 1: had probably learned to play basketball while studying at Carlisle

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Speaker 1: Indian School, and she introduced the sport at Fort Shaw

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Speaker 1: around eight, at first playing with a soccer ball and

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Speaker 1: makeshift baskets until the school eventually approved the purchase of

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Speaker 1: regulation equipment. Games were played in the Army base his

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Speaker 1: old dance hall, which had a packed dirt floor and

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Speaker 1: was easily big enough to accommodate the court and the

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Speaker 1: players basketball, which was actually two words at this point

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Speaker 1: was not just new to Fort Shaw Indian School. James

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Speaker 1: Naismith had developed the sport only about five years before

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Speaker 1: its introduction there. He had developed it at Springfield College

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Speaker 1: in Connecticut, which was also known as the International y

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Speaker 1: m C. A training school. He had been looking for

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Speaker 1: a team sport that could be played indoors, particularly during

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Speaker 1: the winter months, when the college's football team's regiment of calistinics,

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Speaker 1: marching and weight training was just not sufficient to keep

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Speaker 1: up their physique. Around the turn of the twentieth century,

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Speaker 1: football was extremely violent. Teams basically faced off against each

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Speaker 1: other in a wedge formation, and they kind of threw

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Speaker 1: themselves at each other full force. It was not at

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Speaker 1: all something that could be played in a confined space

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Speaker 1: on an indoor surface without risking even more injuries than

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Speaker 1: were already opening during regular play. So in creating basketball,

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Speaker 1: Nay Smith was trying to invent a team sport that

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Speaker 1: was fast paced and vigorous, but did not involve large

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Speaker 1: young men hurling themselves into one another as hard as possible.

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Speaker 1: That's kind of a side note here. The football that

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Speaker 1: Nate Smith was trying to replace was also really new.

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Speaker 1: The first college football game is generally marked as happening

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Speaker 1: between Princeton and Rutgers on November six of eighteen sixty nine,

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Speaker 1: although that initial game was closer to soccer than to

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Speaker 1: American football as we know it today. This rugby soccer

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Speaker 1: hybrid of American football grew up over the next decade

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Speaker 1: or so, and the Carlysle Indian school football team, which

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Speaker 1: was founded in eight played a big role in the

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Speaker 1: evolution of that sport. On average, the Carlysle football players

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Speaker 1: were much smaller than the players on the teams that

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Speaker 1: they played against, and they came up with a ton

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Speaker 1: of strategic tricks to get around this disadvantage. If there

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Speaker 1: wasn't a specific rule against it, they would try it.

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Speaker 1: There are still American football rules today that came about

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Speaker 1: as the Intercollegiate Football Rules Committee outlawed Carlyle strategies in

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Speaker 1: between seasons. I'm just gonna continue with this digression for

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Speaker 1: a moment to say that I do not care about

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Speaker 1: football as a sport. Uh. There are a lot of

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Speaker 1: you know, social and economic and medical and political issues

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Speaker 1: around football that I care a lot about, but like

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Speaker 1: it's it would take a lot to make me sit

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Speaker 1: down and watch a football game all the way through. Uh.

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Speaker 1: Even So, this whole story of the Carlisle, Indian School

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Speaker 1: football team is fascinating and I want to do an

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Speaker 1: episode about it one day. Um. Jim Thorpe, whose name

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Speaker 1: in the Fox language translated to bright Path, was the

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Speaker 1: first Native Americans to win a gold medal at the

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Speaker 1: Olympics for the United States. He was one of the

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Speaker 1: players and their strategies and the ways that they bent

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Speaker 1: every rule if it wasn't specific the outlawed. Their coach

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Speaker 1: Pop Warner would would try it. So like that's the

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Speaker 1: whole story is just fascinating and bizarre and has stuff

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Speaker 1: in it like the Carlisle team sewing these leather football

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Speaker 1: shaped patches on their uniforms to trick Harvard into thinking

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Speaker 1: they all had the ball, and then Harvard retaliating by

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Speaker 1: painting all of the ball's maroon. It's it is a

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Speaker 1: great story, and it's one of the few other things

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Speaker 1: about team sports. I might interest myself enough in doing

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Speaker 1: podcast on it sometime later. I like a little subversion

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Speaker 1: through sewing that makes it super fun. Yeah, it's it's um,

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Speaker 1: it's a it's fascinating anyway. So, Nathan, this original game

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Speaker 1: of basketball. To get back to basketball had thirteen rules.

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Speaker 1: We're not going to read them all, but they included

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Speaker 1: that the ball could be thrown or batted with one

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Speaker 1: or both hands, but not with a fist, shouldering, holding, pushing, tripping,

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Speaker 1: and striking opponents where all fouls as was hitting the

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Speaker 1: ball with a fist. The game was played in two

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Speaker 1: fifteen minute halves with a five minute rest, but otherwise

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00:20:06,760 --> 00:20:09,399
Speaker 1: the clock did not stop during play, so it was

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Speaker 1: a very fast paced game, not a lot of stopping.

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Speaker 1: At the low scoring compared to today, although it wasn't

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Speaker 1: listed in the thirteen original rules. The games started with

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Speaker 1: a jump ball or a tip off at center court,

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Speaker 1: and both teams returned to center court for another jump

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Speaker 1: ball after baskets were scored. Soon after Na Smith drafted

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Speaker 1: the first set of rules, women's colleges in the Northeast

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Speaker 1: started taking up basketball as well. Senda Baronson of Smith

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Speaker 1: College released an adapted rule set for women in in

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Speaker 1: eight she headed up a committee to create an even

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Speaker 1: further modified set of rules for girls, which made the

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Speaker 1: game so much easier and less intense that a lot

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Speaker 1: of programs, especially west of the Mississippi, just ignored them

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Speaker 1: and had the girls play by what we're called the

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Speaker 1: quote boys rules, especially for girls teams that had already

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Speaker 1: been playing by the same rules as everyone else. Uh,

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Speaker 1: they were like, no, I'm not doing that. So this

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Speaker 1: basketball program at Fort Shaw was actually the first basketball

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Speaker 1: program organized in the state of Montana. It immediately became

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Speaker 1: immensely popular among the girls at the school. Physical games

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Speaker 1: played in teams were already a really important element of

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Speaker 1: pretty much all of their indigenous cultures. Basketball also had

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Speaker 1: some similarities to a number of Native girls games. These

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Speaker 1: included double ball, which used a pair of balls tethered

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Speaker 1: together and then tossed from a stick, which was exclusively

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Speaker 1: a women's sport among most of the Planes tribes. There

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Speaker 1: was another game called shinny, which was a lot like

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Speaker 1: field hockey and used curved sticks, which was generally a

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Speaker 1: women's rule or a women's game as well. Uh. Some

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Speaker 1: tribes also had versions of lacrosse that were played by women. Basically,

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Speaker 1: there were a lot of team sports with balls specifically

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Speaker 1: played by women in among a lot of different indigenous cultures.

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Speaker 1: Basketball was also a lot more fun and physically active

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Speaker 1: than physical culture class, and it was the one time

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Speaker 1: of day when students could really shed some of the

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Speaker 1: school's cultural expectations, they could participate in unladylike behavior like

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Speaker 1: running and jumping with abandon. Although the boys at the

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Speaker 1: school had shown an initial interest in basketball as well,

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Speaker 1: soon the girls were outperforming them on the court and

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Speaker 1: their interest waned. They also had plenty of other team

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Speaker 1: sports to choose from, whereas the girls did not because

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Speaker 1: there was no other basketball program in Montana at the time.

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Speaker 1: For the first few years of basketball at Fort Shaw

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Speaker 1: Indian School, all of the games were intramural scrimmage matches.

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Speaker 1: Even so, they were as popular with the local community

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Speaker 1: as they were with the girls at the school. At

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Speaker 1: an end of year ceremony game in eighteen nine seven,

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Speaker 1: they did an intramural demonstration that brought in three hundred

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Speaker 1: spectators to watch in a t Fred C. Campbell became

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Speaker 1: superintendent of Fort Shaw, and he seemed to have had

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Speaker 1: a genuine interest in making things better for the school,

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Speaker 1: improving the school's image and that of his students, and

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Speaker 1: he also wanted the community to begin seeing those students

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Speaker 1: in a different light. Racism against Native Americans was endemic

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Speaker 1: and severe, and Campbell recognized that all this work they

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Speaker 1: were doing to quote, assimilate the students was not really

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Speaker 1: going to be effective if once those students graduated from

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Speaker 1: the school they were still shunned from white society. So

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Speaker 1: he started inviting people from the community to the school

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Speaker 1: and taking students out into the community to try to

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Speaker 1: basically get everyone used to each other hopefully changed the

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Speaker 1: hearts and minds within the community. So a natural way

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Speaker 1: to do this was by hosting basketball games. And we're

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Speaker 1: gonna talk a little bit more about that, but first

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Speaker 1: we are going to pause and have a word from

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Speaker 1: one of our fantastic sponsors. In addition to being the

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Speaker 1: superintendent of the school, Fred Campbell had been an athlete himself.

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Speaker 1: Some sources actually credit him with being the one who

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Speaker 1: introduced basketball at Fort Shaw, but it was definitely played

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Speaker 1: there for a couple of years before he became superintendent.

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Speaker 1: From his own firsthand experience, he thought athletics were a

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Speaker 1: good way to build a person's self esteem and sense

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Speaker 1: of worth, on top of helping to develop a strong

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Speaker 1: and healthy body. So he focused on improving and building

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00:24:28,280 --> 00:24:31,439
Speaker 1: up all the school's athletics teams, but it was really

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Speaker 1: the girls basketball team that he saw as having the

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00:24:34,240 --> 00:24:37,600
Speaker 1: most promise for bringing good publicity to the school and

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00:24:37,680 --> 00:24:42,240
Speaker 1: its students. Basketball had barely made its way into Montana

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Speaker 1: at this point. There were so few other teams to

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00:24:45,200 --> 00:24:48,280
Speaker 1: play against that the Fort Shaw girls team's first game

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00:24:48,359 --> 00:24:51,720
Speaker 1: against another school was actually against a boys team, and

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00:24:51,760 --> 00:24:55,879
Speaker 1: that team was from Great Falls. Then Campbell organized another

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00:24:55,920 --> 00:24:58,600
Speaker 1: girls team in sun River, which was not far away,

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00:24:58,760 --> 00:25:02,040
Speaker 1: so the Fort Shaw team would have someone else to play.

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00:25:02,160 --> 00:25:04,119
Speaker 1: When it was time for games, he would bring the

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00:25:04,160 --> 00:25:07,880
Speaker 1: sun River team in by wagon. Fort Shaw defeated sun

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Speaker 1: River easily every time. Of course, more more schools, more

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00:25:14,760 --> 00:25:18,160
Speaker 1: other programs started having basketball teams, but to play against

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00:25:18,160 --> 00:25:20,480
Speaker 1: those other teams, the Fort Shaw team had to start

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00:25:20,480 --> 00:25:24,560
Speaker 1: traveling farther and farther away. In late nineteen o two,

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00:25:24,640 --> 00:25:28,119
Speaker 1: they traveled to Butte, Montana by wagon and then trained

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Speaker 1: where they where they defeated the Mute High team fifteen

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Speaker 1: to nine. The next day they traveled to Helena again

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Speaker 1: by train, and this time they were defeated fifteen to six. Again.

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Speaker 1: I will point out how much lower these scores are

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Speaker 1: than what we would normally see in a basketball game today.

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00:25:46,400 --> 00:25:52,720
Speaker 1: There's only one of the one digit three. I think

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00:25:52,840 --> 00:25:56,359
Speaker 1: that original basketball sound is a little more my taste

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Speaker 1: maybe than current basketball, because that is one of my

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00:25:59,440 --> 00:26:01,080
Speaker 1: things of like you could just kind of watch the

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00:26:01,160 --> 00:26:04,280
Speaker 1: last bit because there's so much scoring before that, which

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00:26:04,320 --> 00:26:06,639
Speaker 1: is not too in any way thro shaded basketball. If

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00:26:06,640 --> 00:26:08,640
Speaker 1: you love it, that's cool. That's just always been my thing,

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00:26:08,680 --> 00:26:11,560
Speaker 1: and like I could come in for the last ten minutes, right, um,

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00:26:11,600 --> 00:26:14,679
Speaker 1: that's when it's really a nail biterer. So after that

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00:26:14,800 --> 00:26:18,320
Speaker 1: loss though at Helena, Campbell started refining the girls positions

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00:26:18,400 --> 00:26:21,280
Speaker 1: on the team. He realized that Fort Shaw had lost

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00:26:21,280 --> 00:26:23,359
Speaker 1: the ball to Helena in more than half of the

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00:26:23,440 --> 00:26:26,960
Speaker 1: jump balls at center court, so he moved Nettie Worth,

434
00:26:27,080 --> 00:26:29,040
Speaker 1: who wasn't the tallest on the team but had a

435
00:26:29,119 --> 00:26:33,560
Speaker 1: really incredible vertical jump, to center. Nettie and her sister

436
00:26:33,680 --> 00:26:36,360
Speaker 1: Lizzie were a Sinnaboine and had been among Fort Shaw's

437
00:26:36,359 --> 00:26:40,080
Speaker 1: first students when it opened. This change was not quite

438
00:26:40,160 --> 00:26:43,480
Speaker 1: enough to help Fort Shaw defeat Beaute Parochial school in

439
00:26:43,520 --> 00:26:46,200
Speaker 1: the next game they played. They lost that one fifteen

440
00:26:46,200 --> 00:26:50,119
Speaker 1: to six, so Campbell made another switch. He left Nettie

441
00:26:50,160 --> 00:26:52,800
Speaker 1: Worth as center and he made Many Burton and in

442
00:26:52,840 --> 00:26:56,240
Speaker 1: a sense of her forwards. Many was a member of

443
00:26:56,280 --> 00:26:59,040
Speaker 1: the lem High Shoshoni Nation, which was not actually in

444
00:26:59,119 --> 00:27:02,760
Speaker 1: favor of sending children away to government government boarding schools.

445
00:27:03,160 --> 00:27:06,800
Speaker 1: But Many's father worked as a translator and he thought

446
00:27:06,800 --> 00:27:10,840
Speaker 1: that she could benefit from getting an English education. Emma

447
00:27:10,920 --> 00:27:14,600
Speaker 1: Sansor and her siblings were actually Matee of French, Canadian

448
00:27:14,640 --> 00:27:17,960
Speaker 1: and Chippewa Cree descent. They were listed in their school

449
00:27:17,960 --> 00:27:23,119
Speaker 1: records as Sue because their particular people were essentially landless

450
00:27:23,160 --> 00:27:25,000
Speaker 1: in the United States, they were not part of a

451
00:27:25,000 --> 00:27:28,119
Speaker 1: federally recognized tribe. Some of the people at the mission

452
00:27:28,160 --> 00:27:33,480
Speaker 1: school that they had attended previously falsified their tribal affiliation

453
00:27:33,560 --> 00:27:35,520
Speaker 1: to be able to get them into the school, which,

454
00:27:36,480 --> 00:27:39,120
Speaker 1: like we talked previously about how there were all kinds

455
00:27:39,119 --> 00:27:41,520
Speaker 1: of reasons for for children to go to these schools,

456
00:27:41,520 --> 00:27:44,320
Speaker 1: and this was a case where Emma and her siblings

457
00:27:44,760 --> 00:27:48,760
Speaker 1: were in dire financial straits and so at the people

458
00:27:48,760 --> 00:27:51,720
Speaker 1: who made this change to their tribal affiliation, we're doing

459
00:27:51,720 --> 00:27:55,280
Speaker 1: with it that was best for them. So this combination

460
00:27:55,720 --> 00:27:59,280
Speaker 1: of girls and positions that Campbell came up with became

461
00:27:59,320 --> 00:28:02,200
Speaker 1: a winning one for Fort Shaw. Their next game was

462
00:28:02,240 --> 00:28:06,440
Speaker 1: against a college team, Montana State University in Missoula, now

463
00:28:06,440 --> 00:28:10,520
Speaker 1: known as the University of Montana. Fort Shaw won nineteen

464
00:28:10,560 --> 00:28:13,199
Speaker 1: to nine, and from there they were undefeated for the

465
00:28:13,240 --> 00:28:16,040
Speaker 1: rest of the season, playing at least six more games,

466
00:28:16,080 --> 00:28:21,200
Speaker 1: including against another college team, the Montana Agricultural College Farmats,

467
00:28:21,240 --> 00:28:24,960
Speaker 1: and resounding wins in rematches against both Helena High School,

468
00:28:25,000 --> 00:28:28,560
Speaker 1: which was ten victory, and Buque Parochial, which was an

469
00:28:28,600 --> 00:28:32,360
Speaker 1: eighteen to eight score. These games were not all on

470
00:28:32,400 --> 00:28:36,240
Speaker 1: the road the school. While it had that large dance

471
00:28:36,280 --> 00:28:39,200
Speaker 1: hall that was great for their own scrimmages and practices,

472
00:28:39,320 --> 00:28:42,160
Speaker 1: they didn't really have a large enough space to accommodate

473
00:28:42,200 --> 00:28:45,040
Speaker 1: the crowds who started wanting to see the games, so

474
00:28:45,080 --> 00:28:48,640
Speaker 1: they started using Luther Hall in Great Falls, Montana as

475
00:28:48,680 --> 00:28:52,080
Speaker 1: their home game court. Luther Hall was a ballroom that

476
00:28:52,200 --> 00:28:57,040
Speaker 1: was big enough for the playing area and hundreds of spectators.

477
00:28:58,120 --> 00:29:00,920
Speaker 1: Great Falls is also about twenty five five miles away

478
00:29:00,920 --> 00:29:03,400
Speaker 1: from the school, and since travel to and from there

479
00:29:03,440 --> 00:29:07,480
Speaker 1: had to happen by wagon, the team and there uh

480
00:29:07,560 --> 00:29:10,959
Speaker 1: their chaperones and coach wind up staying at a hotel,

481
00:29:11,120 --> 00:29:13,840
Speaker 1: which was a treat for most of them. Over the

482
00:29:13,880 --> 00:29:17,480
Speaker 1: course of a few games, Great Falls, Montana started to

483
00:29:17,520 --> 00:29:20,560
Speaker 1: think of the Fort Shaw team as their own home team.

484
00:29:20,600 --> 00:29:23,520
Speaker 1: Although game coverage in the local papers still drifted into

485
00:29:23,600 --> 00:29:27,880
Speaker 1: casual racism, especially in descriptions of the girls appearances and

486
00:29:27,920 --> 00:29:31,520
Speaker 1: their quote savage wins, it started to carry a little

487
00:29:31,520 --> 00:29:33,880
Speaker 1: bit of a tone of local pride and to focus

488
00:29:33,920 --> 00:29:37,560
Speaker 1: more on the players other accomplishments at school rather than

489
00:29:37,600 --> 00:29:41,480
Speaker 1: the fact that they were quote Indian. Yeah, they didn't,

490
00:29:41,600 --> 00:29:44,920
Speaker 1: they didn't, the skies the girls cultural heritage, but it

491
00:29:45,160 --> 00:29:48,360
Speaker 1: stopped being written about as though it were a taboo

492
00:29:48,560 --> 00:29:52,600
Speaker 1: or something to judge about them. In the end of

493
00:29:52,600 --> 00:29:56,440
Speaker 1: the season, the Fort Shaw team had a record of

494
00:29:56,520 --> 00:29:59,640
Speaker 1: nine wins and two losses. The game of basketball was

495
00:29:59,680 --> 00:30:01,920
Speaker 1: still so new to the state of Montana that there

496
00:30:01,960 --> 00:30:06,000
Speaker 1: weren't official rankings or playoffs, but nevertheless, the Fort Shaw

497
00:30:06,160 --> 00:30:10,040
Speaker 1: team was regarded as the state champions. Many Burton had

498
00:30:10,080 --> 00:30:14,560
Speaker 1: become so popular, especially for her scoring ability, that spectators

499
00:30:14,680 --> 00:30:18,320
Speaker 1: chant whenever they were playing was shoot many shoots. The

500
00:30:18,360 --> 00:30:21,560
Speaker 1: basketball games also gave the school an opportunity to show

501
00:30:21,600 --> 00:30:25,160
Speaker 1: off some other talents. The band and the mandolin orchestra

502
00:30:25,280 --> 00:30:30,080
Speaker 1: provided the before game and halftime entertainment. Sometimes after the games,

503
00:30:30,080 --> 00:30:32,520
Speaker 1: the court was turned back into a dance floor, where

504
00:30:32,560 --> 00:30:36,360
Speaker 1: the girls showed off their skills in ballroom dancing. All

505
00:30:36,360 --> 00:30:38,600
Speaker 1: of this also brought in lots of coverage from the

506
00:30:38,640 --> 00:30:43,520
Speaker 1: local press. Of course, racism and prejudice still existed, but

507
00:30:43,600 --> 00:30:46,840
Speaker 1: the community started to see these students as talented and

508
00:30:46,960 --> 00:30:52,960
Speaker 1: capable rather than as uneducable troublemakers. In three s M

509
00:30:53,080 --> 00:30:58,400
Speaker 1: mcowen contacted Fred Campbell with an intriguing invitation. Mcowen had

510
00:30:58,440 --> 00:31:02,760
Speaker 1: previously been super intendant of the Chillico Indian School, but

511
00:31:02,840 --> 00:31:06,360
Speaker 1: he had recently moved into a new role director of

512
00:31:06,440 --> 00:31:09,240
Speaker 1: the Model Indian School that was being created for the St.

513
00:31:09,320 --> 00:31:13,240
Speaker 1: Louis World's Fair. McGowan asked Campbell to select some of

514
00:31:13,320 --> 00:31:17,440
Speaker 1: Fort Shaw's best students to participate in the Model School,

515
00:31:17,480 --> 00:31:20,360
Speaker 1: which was going to run from June one to November one,

516
00:31:20,560 --> 00:31:25,000
Speaker 1: nineteen o four, and Campbell agreed. But that becomes a

517
00:31:25,000 --> 00:31:27,480
Speaker 1: whole other story. So we're going to talk about what

518
00:31:27,520 --> 00:31:30,480
Speaker 1: this agreement meant for the basketball team and how it

519
00:31:30,560 --> 00:31:33,600
Speaker 1: led to their becoming world champions in part two of

520
00:31:33,680 --> 00:31:39,440
Speaker 1: this podcast. I'm excited for part to you me too.

521
00:31:40,240 --> 00:31:42,520
Speaker 1: It's a really fun story. You don't, I mean, when

522
00:31:42,560 --> 00:31:45,640
Speaker 1: you think about this being a completely new sport relief

523
00:31:45,640 --> 00:31:50,440
Speaker 1: for people, and now it completely shifted perceptions. I have

524
00:31:50,520 --> 00:31:55,440
Speaker 1: a new appreciation for basketball. I really admire the girls

525
00:31:55,440 --> 00:31:57,400
Speaker 1: and young women who played on this team. We're gonna

526
00:31:57,400 --> 00:32:00,280
Speaker 1: get to talk more about them next time to ya.

527
00:32:00,800 --> 00:32:02,840
Speaker 1: In the meantime, do you have listener mail to send

528
00:32:02,880 --> 00:32:06,560
Speaker 1: us out? I sure do. It's from Kristen and Kristen

529
00:32:06,920 --> 00:32:09,640
Speaker 1: has sent us a piece of mail that throws back

530
00:32:09,680 --> 00:32:13,000
Speaker 1: to our Halloween episode on the Green Children of Wolpit,

531
00:32:13,200 --> 00:32:16,200
Speaker 1: and it's entitled green Children of Woolpit might have been Blue?

532
00:32:16,920 --> 00:32:20,440
Speaker 1: Question mark christ and says, sorry, this is so late.

533
00:32:20,480 --> 00:32:23,640
Speaker 1: You don't need to apologize. It's fine. Um. I only

534
00:32:23,680 --> 00:32:26,600
Speaker 1: listened to the podcast episode last night. I was curious

535
00:32:26,640 --> 00:32:30,400
Speaker 1: about the possibility that perhaps the problem and identifying the

536
00:32:30,400 --> 00:32:33,280
Speaker 1: source of these children's skin color might be in the

537
00:32:33,320 --> 00:32:36,200
Speaker 1: definition of the color names. For instance, we know that

538
00:32:36,360 --> 00:32:39,960
Speaker 1: different cultures have different definitions of the line between green

539
00:32:40,200 --> 00:32:43,320
Speaker 1: and blue. Might not be so crazy to posit that

540
00:32:43,440 --> 00:32:46,600
Speaker 1: in eleventh and twelfth century, the eleventh and twelfth century

541
00:32:46,640 --> 00:32:50,640
Speaker 1: English folks might not adhere to our modern definitions. Considering

542
00:32:50,680 --> 00:32:54,200
Speaker 1: this possibility opens up a lot more medical possibilities to

543
00:32:54,240 --> 00:32:57,680
Speaker 1: the cause of the strange skin coloration. Maybe if we'd

544
00:32:57,680 --> 00:32:59,800
Speaker 1: have seen these kids today, we would think they looked

545
00:32:59,840 --> 00:33:04,080
Speaker 1: at blue. The leading thought I've got is mythiem with globinemia,

546
00:33:04,280 --> 00:33:07,560
Speaker 1: the same disease of the blue figures of Kentucky were

547
00:33:07,600 --> 00:33:11,080
Speaker 1: reported to have had other conditions on the differential might

548
00:33:11,120 --> 00:33:14,560
Speaker 1: be to trilogy of below, which is the heart disease

549
00:33:14,600 --> 00:33:18,320
Speaker 1: that Jimmy Kimmel's son has, or other congenital heart disease

550
00:33:18,400 --> 00:33:21,520
Speaker 1: leading to a chronic cyonosis from right to left, shunting

551
00:33:21,560 --> 00:33:23,800
Speaker 1: up the blood flow that causes the blood to bypass

552
00:33:23,840 --> 00:33:26,520
Speaker 1: the lungs before being sent back out to the body.

553
00:33:26,640 --> 00:33:29,520
Speaker 1: And what if in addition to having such a disorder,

554
00:33:30,120 --> 00:33:32,560
Speaker 1: they also had some sort of liver disease that made

555
00:33:32,560 --> 00:33:35,680
Speaker 1: them jaundiced. Yellow plus blue gives green as for our

556
00:33:35,720 --> 00:33:39,160
Speaker 1: modern definition, so many possibilities. Just the thought I wondered

557
00:33:39,160 --> 00:33:41,200
Speaker 1: if anyone else would have also had. I'm a second

558
00:33:41,280 --> 00:33:44,000
Speaker 1: year medical student, so my knowledge is limited, but the

559
00:33:44,040 --> 00:33:47,920
Speaker 1: episode was fascinating and distracted me from some deadlines. Thanks again, Kristen.

560
00:33:48,000 --> 00:33:50,920
Speaker 1: Thank you Kristen for this note. It is definitely true

561
00:33:51,800 --> 00:33:57,640
Speaker 1: that that blue and green are are not necessarily perceived

562
00:33:57,640 --> 00:34:01,080
Speaker 1: differently but described differently among different cultures. We've gotten a

563
00:34:01,080 --> 00:34:05,360
Speaker 1: couple of requests before for an episode about when words

564
00:34:05,480 --> 00:34:11,279
Speaker 1: for the color blue into different languages lexicon. There's like

565
00:34:11,600 --> 00:34:14,360
Speaker 1: a whole series of debate about about whether that's just

566
00:34:14,400 --> 00:34:17,000
Speaker 1: an issue of language, like people coming up with names

567
00:34:17,000 --> 00:34:19,759
Speaker 1: for different colors, or whether it's an actual issue of perception,

568
00:34:19,880 --> 00:34:22,600
Speaker 1: like where people not perceiving a different color during that time.

569
00:34:22,920 --> 00:34:25,160
Speaker 1: And I meant to jump down that rabbit hole before

570
00:34:25,160 --> 00:34:28,480
Speaker 1: reading this email, I did not do it, Um Regardless,

571
00:34:29,080 --> 00:34:33,160
Speaker 1: I think that is a fascinating suggestion. I also want

572
00:34:33,239 --> 00:34:36,320
Speaker 1: to say that I have on my list of things

573
00:34:36,320 --> 00:34:39,279
Speaker 1: to sometime at some point talk about on the podcast

574
00:34:39,880 --> 00:34:44,600
Speaker 1: UM the three, the three doctors who together worked out

575
00:34:44,600 --> 00:34:48,200
Speaker 1: a procedure to treat the tdrology of Felow. A lot

576
00:34:48,239 --> 00:34:50,480
Speaker 1: of people have asked for Vivian Thomas, but the other

577
00:34:50,560 --> 00:34:53,640
Speaker 1: two doctors who worked together and that both also have

578
00:34:53,719 --> 00:34:58,080
Speaker 1: their own fascinating stories. So thank you for that interesting

579
00:34:58,200 --> 00:35:01,440
Speaker 1: hypothesis about the green children of will Pit. If you

580
00:35:01,440 --> 00:35:03,200
Speaker 1: would like to write to us about this or any

581
00:35:03,239 --> 00:35:06,560
Speaker 1: other podcasts where history podcasts at how stuff works dot com.

582
00:35:06,600 --> 00:35:09,600
Speaker 1: We are also all across social media at missed in

583
00:35:09,719 --> 00:35:11,680
Speaker 1: History dot com. That is where you will find us

584
00:35:11,719 --> 00:35:16,600
Speaker 1: on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, Tumbler, all of those things.

585
00:35:17,080 --> 00:35:19,040
Speaker 1: You can also come to our website, which is missed

586
00:35:19,040 --> 00:35:22,160
Speaker 1: in History dot com. We will have links to those

587
00:35:22,200 --> 00:35:25,040
Speaker 1: other episodes from previously in the archive. Will have links

588
00:35:25,080 --> 00:35:28,239
Speaker 1: to those in the page for today's episode. We also

589
00:35:28,280 --> 00:35:31,719
Speaker 1: have a fully searchable archive of all of our past episodes.

590
00:35:32,239 --> 00:35:35,439
Speaker 1: Um there are links to all of the resources and

591
00:35:35,760 --> 00:35:38,120
Speaker 1: sources that Holly and I have used on their episodes,

592
00:35:38,480 --> 00:35:40,200
Speaker 1: so you can do all that if you come and

593
00:35:40,320 --> 00:35:48,439
Speaker 1: visit us at missed in history dot com for more

594
00:35:48,440 --> 00:35:50,759
Speaker 1: on this and thousands of other topics. Is it how

595
00:35:50,800 --> 00:36:00,000
Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot com