Historian says Raider mascot origins benign

Now, two groups have their sights set on Stowe’s Raiders, along with more than half a dozen other school mascots they say have problematic pasts.

Last month, the Rutland Area NAACP and Gedakina, a nonprofit organization supporting Indigenous culture and teachings, wrote a letter to Vermont’s secretary of education, Dan French, calling for the removal of mascots at eight Vermont schools, including Stowe High.

In the letter, the groups note that a mascot is “a person, animal, or object adopted by a group as a symbolic figure especially, to bring them good luck,” and while there is an argument that symbols “that are connected to Natives” are meant to honor them, they instead objectify those people.

“With this in mind, it is denigrating to be used as a symbol of good luck especially for peoples who have been long subjected to violence because of their racial and ethnic identity,” the letter states. “We are at a point in time where we must remove this symbolism in order to remove the legacy of white supremacy which harms all students and people.”

According to the letter, the Raiders name isn’t a problem, just the images associated with it. They said the same about the U-32 Raiders and Green Mountain Chieftains — calling for the removal of the images but not the nicknames.

A request to both organizations for comment went unanswered.

Stowe historian Barbara Baraw asserts the origin of Stowe’s mascot is benign. She said the current Stowe Raider is simply an update of the previous mascot, the Smuggler, a clear nod to Smugglers Notch, locally mythologized as a key passage for rumrunners and other scofflaws transporting valuables between the U.S. and Canada.

The school’s 1958 yearbook is called The Smuggler and is emblazoned with a drawing of man wearing an eyepatch and a bandanna. She said she is still researching when the school made the change from smuggler to raider, but said the current mascot still shares some similarities, including the eyepatch — although the bandanna has been replaced with a tricorne hat sporting a skull and crossbones logo. Some iterations also feature a parrot on the mascot’s shoulder, which Baraw says are clear indications that the mascot is a nod toward pirates and not Native Americans.

School superintendent Ryan Heraty said the first time he or Stowe High School officials heard that Gedakina and the NAACP were targeting the mascot was when they read about it in VTDigger last month. He said the Stowe School Board will discuss the matter at its next meeting, which is April 5.

“We have also not received any communication from the agency around this topic,” Heraty said. “We take great pride in creating a safe and supportive learning environment for all of our children and families.”

Little movement has been made on Gedakina’s and the NAACP’s requests and, in fact, the Abenaki Nation of Missisquoi rejected the complaint directed at Missisquoi Valley Union High School’s Thunderbird mascot, one of the eight targeted.

According to VTDigger, the nation posted a message online Feb. 28 saying that “at no time does the symbol evoke recrimination.”

“In 1971 when the school district chose the Thunderbird, it was a welcome acknowledgement of the important history of this area’s indigenous people,” they wrote.