Records of Native Athletics from Chemawa Indian School

This is something I have been thinking about for a few years, since my essays about Reuben Sander and Jim Thorpe. Since the beginnings of amateur sports in the Willamette Valley native peoples have been involved. The best records are those from Chemawa Indian school. At the school there was broad support for sports because of the educational policy which supported the notion that young people had to be fit and active when in school. This is a policy and educational model which directs the reason we have athletics in our public schools today. But at the Indian boarding schools the sports programs were supported by federal money. There were baseball and basketball teams at many reservations, and these “town teams” would play amateur games in cobbled together leagues every year. Many of the reservation teams were inspired by the student’s experiences in day schools and in Boarding schools. Many of those boarding school students who returned to their home reservations became part of the reservation teams. These teams were very competitive, and few records were kept of their games.
In many newspapers there are sports games and scores listed for the town teams. Every town seemed to have their own team, and some towns had several. Many “white” towns had athletic clubs and these club teams would play high school, reservation, and town teams. League play would be cobbled together each season and usually each team would play another at least twice during the season. I think it was this way so that the losing team in the first contest would have a chance to avenge their loss. In addition, the rules of play for each sport were not as defined as they are today. There was much cheating and many times, adults could play on school teams without issues. There was also a lot of hiring of ringers, good players, who would get paid to play one or more games to assure a win. Native men would be hired all the time by teams outside of their town. Some good players could be involved in a contest 3-4 days a week during the peak season, sometimes playing for different teams in the same week. Really good athletes could even play different sports in the same week, and would be constantly chosen because of their reputation. Such was the early years of semi-amateur sports.
Nationally, we have seen how Native athletes developed much of what we now take for granted as part of the game. First, the game of basketball is said to have been developed in the US, but few people know that Mayans, Aztecs and many tribes of the Southwest and even Southeast US had games developed around a ball court, with teams having to get the ball, a rubber ball through a stone hole. This game type of the Americas seems to be clearly the start of Basketball. I am sure purists will have some other words to say about this, but the construct of ball courts and ball games among Native tribes is undeniable. Next, we know that the Carlisle team developed the forward pass in football. We also know that some early Native athletes grew popular to such an extent that they popularized the game. Thank Jim Thorpe for the popularization of football. What is not well known, outside of Native community circles, are the many sports that reservation populations are involved in challenging other reservations in contests. Indian basketball, baseball, track, long distance running, rodeo, bareback riding & racing, dog-sledding, stick game, and many other athletic sports. Many reservations also have imported sports, skateboarding, horse racing, golf, and others.
What is most interesting is how little we all know about the early history of Native peoples in sports. Records were kept, but today’s sports fans do not know much about the records of the early games. In Oregon, records for High school sports begin in the 1940s for football, while some records for baseball and other sports go back to the 1920s (see OCCA website). But these records are scattered and they do not include Chemawa because of the late start and incompleteness in building the Oregon records website. (I think this is discriminatory for OSSA to leave out the early records of early league play which include Chemawa Indian school). Because of the late start of regular record keeping, much of the early history of the development of sports, and the native peoples and teams, are not acknowledged. But there are records and we are increasingly finding more.
A survey of early Oregon newspapers reveals many records of team and league play that are not available anywhere else. The following is a sample.
Football season played by Chemawa Indian school, this season – 1908 – they played nine games, won every contest -except against Albany College- and even beat powerhouse University of Oregon 2nd team (5-0)! You see clubs, high schools and colleges in their league this season, because there had yet to be developed different league rules for amateur and professional teams. College athletics were club sports during this period, hardly the multi-million funded empire it is today.
The above are basketball games from 1909. Chemawa was one of the few schools to have a girls team, but their scores were rarely reported or they simply did not have a lot of contests outside of the school. There were many contests played at the school between different factions, like contests between the Liberal arts and the Industrial arts students. Chemawa was clearly a powerhouse in the valley in 1909 in Basketball.
Baseball in 1909, not a lot of contests were reported. The game relies on better weather so the season may be difficult some years in Oregon with rainfall many years. And school is out much of the summer so many students would return home, after the school year ended, leaving only a few around Salem who could play. Many of these men were adults, not in school any longer, some working as staff while others were just part of the community and living in the area. Chemawa was very good at baseball and won most of its contests in 1909. They split the UO series, losing the first game, winning the second, and losing the third.
There were additionally many athletes were were perpetual players in the games.
Reuben Sanders- Sanders I have written up in other essays, he was a member of the Confederated Tribes of Siletz, but more specifically, Joshua tribe (Southwestern Oregon Coast), Star Athlete Chemawa football, baseball, basketball, track and field (1895-1918), Multisport Coach (1911-1941)
Joseph Teabo (Grand Ronde; baseball and football),
Robert Service (Clatsop; baseball),
Chief Tommy Thompson (Warm Springs) as football head coach- won the state title in football in 1941, with Reuben Sanders as assistant Coach.
Leonard Vivette (Grand Ronde; basketball),
Sam Morris (Nez Perce; baseball)
Warren “Lefty Wild Eagle” Wilder (Karok; football).
Charles Larsen- (Clatsop Chinook- Never placed on a reservation) Multisport athlete, Captain of Football team and later administrator of the school (1943). The Charles Larsen Collection at Willamette University has many copies and clipped articles about the athletics program and its statistics. (see CLC book 1 image 34 for a short bio of Larsen in the WU archives online)
Levi Sortor- (Clatsop, Black)- multi-sport athlete constantly played on the teams. His brother Richard Sortor was also at Chemawa (see “Rolls of certain Indian tribes” statement 97).
Amos Smoker- (Klamath) football and long distance running, multi-sport athlete, see image and story in Chemawa American.
Frank Shattuck (Coastal Salish, Western Washington), Shattuck was at the Forest Grove School and evidently moved with the school to Salem, and remained playing multiple sports for the school.
Arthur Bensell (Siletz)- there appears to have been several generations of Bensells playing athletics at Chemawa. Art Bensell Sr. (1909-1988) the well known and respected late 20th century leader of the Siletz tribe played football in 1934 for Chemawa. It appears that his father, Arthur Bensell, played football, baseball, track, for Chemawa around 1900.
There are other students as well who hung around and played on the many teams into their adulthood, many worked at the school but other stayed in Salem and worked in the town. There were many students who were native yet did not belong to a reservation. In many ways they would have nothing to return to if they went home. So these people remained in the valley.
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Records can be found in many locations, most online. Willamette University archives has the Charles Larsen records. Chemawa Indian school records are all found through the Chemawa American newspapers and in other valley newspapers that featured sports reporting- see the Historic Oregon Newspapers website. Other records for Chemawa or Salem Indian Industrial school are in the annual censuses available on the Internet Archive or at the NARA digital website.