American Indian Sport History

Abstract

This chapter traces the history of sport in Indigenous contexts in the lands that became the United States. The chapter surveys Indigenous sports including lacrosse, shinny, and double-ball before highlighting tribal investment in running and horse-racing. The chapter identifies how sports connects to Indigenous religious, political, and communal practices. It then highlights the impact of colonization and the boarding school movements on Indigenous sports. It suggests that baseball, basketball, and football were sites of resistance for Native athletes who used them as sites of community, opportunity, and resistance to forces of assimilation and modernity. This is expanded through an examination of Kanaka Maoli surfing and canoeing as well as the development of games in Native Alaska that mimic traditional survival skills. The chapter closes by briefly identifying the challenges that contemporary Native athletes face as well as how Indigenous sport contributes to decolonization.