Tribe fighting Redskins attemps to open casino honoring work L. Frank Baum

“The Whites, by law of conquest, by justice of civilization, are masters of the American continent, and the best safety of the frontier settlements will be secured by the total annihilation of the few remaining Indians,” he wrote in late 1890 for the Aberdeen Saturday Pioneer in South Dakota. “Why not annihilation? Their glory has fled, their spirit broken, their manhood effaced; it’s better that they should die than live the miserable wretches that they are.”

Two weeks later, Baum, the newspaper’s publisher, reiterated his point in an editorial written after the slaughter of as many as 300 Sioux at Wounded Knee. He demanded that the U.S. government “wipe these untamed creatures from the face of the earth.” So why would the Oneida — a small tribe that has condemned the Redskins for a name they consider patently racist- embrace the legacy of a writer whose own descendants have apologized for his patent racism?

That apology is the reason, said Oneida leader Ray Halbritter, calling the tribe’s future casino the product of reconciliation. “I think that’s a wonderful message - that we’re able to overcome by repentance and by forgiveness,” Halbritter said. “It’s looking forward rather than backward.”  But some Native Americans have voiced astonishment over the tribute to Baum.

Ernestine Chasing Hawk, a descendant of the Wounded Knee victims, called the Oneida’s decision a betrayal. “How can they be so ignorant of history and traitors to their own race?” she asked in an essay published in the Native American Times.?”

Halbritter insisted that the homage does not represent a “whitewashing of Baum’s writings,” but noted that his popular stories have noble themes and, obviously, immense commercial appeal. “We are aware that some people have difficulty separating the good from the bad,” he said. “I think we can separate and try to extract the good and focus on the good.”

In the battle for moral high ground, those who oppose the name of the Redskins often note that it was given to the team by another racist, George Preston Marshall. Halbritter referred to the former owner as a “famous segregationist” in a December 2013 Post op-ed.

Halbritter also argued the name was a demeaning term commonly used by conquering settlers - the very same settlers Baum urged to massacre the remaining Indians.