A rare image of the Nebraska Indian baseball team, taken only five years after their founding. Ten years before Jim Thorpe won an Olympic gold medal and debuted for the New York Giants, the Nebraska Indians were, at the time this photo was taken, probably amongst the most visible Native American sportspersons in the US.
The image shows fourteen members of the team, posed in an array of homemade looking kit, some with “N.I.” appliquéd onto shirts. Several hold bats or catchers’ mitts, and at the centre of the portrait is the catcher holding his gear, which is emblazoned with the team name and the date. Beneath sits a Jack Russell Terrier, presumably the team mascot.
“Before the Kansas City Monarchs, before the House of David, before the bloomer girl teams of the early twentieth century, the Nebraska Indians took the diamond, one of the first great barnstorming teams to leave an indelible mark on American culture. For twenty-one years, from 1897 to 1917, the team averaged over 150 games per season in almost as many towns, often drawing crowds of thousands, […] they were only one of many American Indian professional teams, but they were the longest lived and most successful such pan-Indian club. In many of their seasons for which records survive, the Indians won over 80 percent of their games, and they scored victories against talented amateur teams, college teams, and Minor League teams. Crowds assembled eagerly, hoping that their local heroes would play the Indians competitively. Fans also came to be entertained, and the Indians obliged with a combination of Wild West showmanship and zany baseball antics” (Powers-Beck, 51).
To match this Wild West show comparison, the Nebraska Indians had their own Buffalo Bill-style character in their founder Guy Wilder Green. Green, a law graduate from the University of Nebraska, founded the team in 1897 recruiting players from amongst Indigenous students at local Agricultural and Industrial Schools, including Genoa, Santee Normal School, and Haskell Institute, as well as nearby Omaha and Winnebago reservations. The Native players were joined by a few white players, as evident in the team lineup depicted in this early photograph. As part of his carnival barking antics, Green would often dress up his players in exaggerated Indian dress, or, in the case of his white players, in clown or hobo costume. They would travel by train, and “set up an encampment or “Indian village” on the local baseball grounds.” To this end, the team were sometimes called a “travelling baseball circus” (ibid, 55). It is notable that this picture shows them simply in their sports gear, with no props or accessories.
Green wrote and published two pamphlets about his experiences managing and travelling with the team, titled Fun and Frolic with an Indian Ball Team and The Nebraska Indians: A Complete History. Alongside their sporting achievements and barnstorming hijinks, these publications recount the darker side of the Indian team’s experiences on the road. These include racist epithets shouted at the players, harassment from local townspeople and law enforcement, as well as prejudicial treatment from biased umpires. Green sold copies of his pamphlets as well as postcards of the players in the towns where they played. It’s entirely possible that this photograph was produced and distributed to the same ends.
We have traced one copy of this photograph held institutionally, at the University of Nebraska Archives.
Powers-Beck, J. The American Indian Integration of Baseball. Lincoln, University of Nebraska Press, 2004.
