"Squaw"

[Dave Robertson]

There are a lot of Americans who claim an "Indian princess" ancestor, none
that I know of claiming a "squaw".

--Dave R.



----- Original Message -----
From: "Edward Callary" <TB0EXC1 at WPO.CSO.NIU.EDU>
To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Sent: Thursday, November 02, 2006 8:52 AM
Subject: Re: "Squaw"


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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Edward Callary <TB0EXC1 at WPO.CSO.NIU.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: "Squaw"
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>>>From William Bright's "Sociolinguistics of the S-Word:"
>
> "[Rayna] Green ... notes that nineteenth century American writers tended
> to classify Indian women either as 'Indian princesses' or as 'squaws,' the
> latter routinely characterized as ugly and whorish. Thus James Fenimore
> Cooper's 1826 novel THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS refers to 'the crafty squaw
> ... the squalid and withered person of this hag. ... In 1882 the memoirs
> of Lt. James W. Steele ... referred to 'the universal "squaw" * squat,
> angular, pig-eyed, ragged, wretched, and insect-haunted.'"
>
> Bright cites Crowell's Dictionary of English Grammar (1928) where the
> definition of "squaw" includes "a contemptuous name."
>
>
> Edward Callary
>
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