Savage (pejorative term)
[5] In the 1776 United States Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson describes Native Americans as "merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions".
"[9] In 1901, the US Supreme Court described inhabitants of its recently acquired territories — Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines — as "savage tribes" as part of the Insular Cases' DeLima v. Bidwell ruling.
[10][1] In 2023, the ACLU condemned this language, stating it was a method of denying "millions of people...certain constitutional rights and protections", which "showed obvious contempt for the predominately Asian, Black, Indigenous, Latine, and Pacific Islander residents of these territories".
[1] In 2023, the National Park System's Advisory Committee on Reconciliation in Place Names stated their belief that "all instances of 'savage' should be removed from lands, including geographic features".
[15] Citing 1922 Wild West Weekly illustrations, Bowling Green State University claims that, "Historically and today, representations of Native American men have frequently relied on stereotypes of violence, savagery, or primitivism".
The Every Child Matters shirt was designed for nonprofits, to honor "the thousands of children who died in the federally funded, church-run boarding schools", but was frequently misappropriated by non-charitable groups.
[18] Douglas Stewart, a teacher of the Sylix/Okanagan Nation, pointed out the similarities and told CBC News, "It's important to understand that for Indigenous people, this word is our N-word".
[17]The restaurant SHIFT (formerly named Savage) in St. Louis, Missouri issued an apology the same year, stating the term has "a troubled history and it was a mistake to celebrate that" and described themselves as "truly sorry".
Funded for €269 857,80, the project aimed to "reconfigure how historians debate Europe’s colonial past, as well as influence current popular interpretations of this crucial period of world history".
