[katana]

The Shawnee lived along the Ohio River valley. Other Ohio tribes included the Chippewa (there was an old camp and lake amusement park near Cleveland under that name when I was a kid), Ottawa (came in from Ontario), Delaware (aka Lenape, from the Delaware region of Pennsylvania and New Jersey, relocated after being cheated of their land by PA's proprietors in Britain, the Penn family ... I'm a descendant on my mother's Ohio side).

Ohio was fought over fiercely. It was a rich land with rivers everywhere, a great lake passage to the Atlantic to the north, and river passage to the Mississipi and Gulf of Mexico to the south. The tribes here lived in organized towns and all of them were forcibly pushed west after the battle of Fallen Timbers in 1794. So what we have left are just place names and, as with me, some ancestry.

The baseball team went through several name changes but settled on "Indians" in 1915, a nickname the Cleveland Spiders acquired at the end of the 19th century because one of their star players was a Penobscot named Louis Sockalexis (picture below). Possibly the first Native American to be on a major league baseball team. The "L" on his jersey probably relates to the former team's name "Lakeshores".

So to sum up, we've got every freaking right to claim Indians as our team's symbol. And having seen Chief Wahoo on baseball caps worn on the reservations, the objections are mostly from ever offended pasty faced Liberals who should butt out and find something productive to occupy their time with.

[Right Wing Assault]

Thanks for the great history!

...pasty faced Liberals who should butt out and find something productive to occupy their time with.

The job of all true libs is to find something people like and set out to destroy it.