The 1904 Anthropology Days and Olympic Games: Sport, Race, and American Imperialism

Chapter 6. "Leav[ing] the White[s] . . . Far Behind Them": The Girls from Fort Shaw (Montana) Indian School, Basketball Champions of the 1904 World's Fair

243 On a chilly October afternoon, a steady stream of people made their way across the fairgrounds toward the basketball court marked off on the plaza in front of the Model Indian School. A full hour before tip-off, the human rainbow curving around the sides of the court stretched all the way back to the Navajo, Arapaho, Cheyenne, and Pawnee encampments along the perimeter of “Indian Hill.” From the portico at the top of the school’s broad steps, referees and school officials assessed the situation, conceded the impossibility of keeping the growing mass of spectators from inching onto the playing field, and called in the Jefferson Guard, the world’s fair security corps. Within minutes a contingent of soldiers, unarmed except for the ceremonial swords at their sides, marched onto the plaza, formed a protective cordon around the court, and managed to push the crowd far enough back for play to begin.1 The game that had enticed so many fairgoers away from the myriad attractions that vied for their attention was the second in a three-game series between the Missouri All-Stars, alumnae of Central High in St. Louis, perennial state champions, and five teenaged girls from an off-reservation boarding school in Montana who had spent the summer playing exhibition games at the Model Indian School. Stakes were high, for the Indians had soundly defeated the All-Stars in their first meeting a month earlier. Colorful Chapter 6. “Leav[ing] the White[s] . . . Far Behind Them” linda peavy and ursula smith The Girls from Fort Shaw (Montana) Indian School, Basketball Champions of the 1904 World’s Fair 244 newspaper accounts of that rough-and-tumble contest had helped generate the curiosity and enthusiasm that had drawn hundreds of men, women, and children to Indian Hill for the long-awaited rematch.2 At last the referee’s whistle signaled the start of what one reporter described as “the most exciting game ever played in Missouri.” Exciting, but one-sided, for in forty minutes of play the All-Stars scored but one goal from the field. Lightning speed, dazzling plays, and impeccable teamwork carried the day, and when the final whistle blew, the score stood 17 to 6. The girls from Fort Shaw Indian School in Montana were the “basket ball” champions of the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair.3 Who were these young women and how did they come to be at the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair? These five girls so renowned for their teamwork and 17. Fort Shaw team in front of the Anthropology Division’s Model Indian School at the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair. Standing (from left): Rose LaRose, Flora Lucero, Katie Snell, Minnie Burton, Genevieve Healy, Sarah Mitchell. Seated (from left): Emma Sansaver, Genie Butch, Belle Johnson, Nettie Wirth. Photo by Jessie Tarbox Beals. From the Missouri Historical Society, St. Louis, World’s Fair Presentation Album 11, plate 801. “Leav[ing] the White[s] . . . Far Behind Them” 245 unselfish play came from four different tribes, some of which had a lengthy history of animosity toward one another. Captain and right guard Belle Johnson was a Piegan from the Blackfeet Reservation. Left guard Genie Butch was an Assiniboine from Fort Peck Reservation, as was the team’s center, Nettie Wirth. At forward were Emma Rose Sansaver, Chippewa-Cree and one of Montana’s landless Indians, and Minne Burton, a Shoshone from Idaho’s Lemhi Reservation.4 The team’s rise to basketball glory began at an Indian boarding school established in 1892 on the grounds of an abandoned military post in Montana ’s Sun River Valley. Modeled after Carlisle in Pennsylvania and Haskell in Kansas, Fort Shaw School drew its students from tribes across Montana and from Idaho and Wyoming as well. In keeping with prevailing federal policies, the school’s mission was to strip its students of the ways of their people and teach them English, academic subjects, and vocational skills that would enable them to make their way in the “white world.”5 The members of the Fort Shaw girls’ basketball squad—the five who played in the world’s fair championship game and the five reserves who accompanied them to St. Louis—were not only superior athletes, they were also well-rounded students who had proved themselves in classroom and workroom and were skilled performers in music, dance, and rhetoric. They were...