Fight for Ol' DC!

The beloved Redskins currently stand at 1-2 after a defeat to the abysmal Lions…. Oh the Humanity! How can it be that a once dominant team has fallen so far? For me there is just one team and that is the Chicago Bears because they are the greatest and T formation and 1985 and Ditka and Monsters of the Midway. I need no elaboration. With that caveat, if there is one thing a Bears fan respects it is tradition—something that struggling Skins have aplenty.



Owner George Preston Marshall moved the team to Washington in 1937 after failing to draw fans in Boston. Head coach Ray Flaherty set out for Texas to recruit a young rookie quarterback out of TCU, Sammy Baugh for $8,000. In a time when the forward pass was used infrequently, Baugh was an odd choice for a quarterback, but his arm would change the way football was played, and he became known as Slingin’ Sammy. When the Redskins attended their first practice in Fairlawn Park in Anacostia, over a 1,000 fans showed up to cheer on their powerful linesmen. By August of 1937, the Redskins had their own volunteer marching band and even a fight song, “Hail to the Redskins” written by Marshall’s second wife and silent film star Corinne Griffith. Yet, Flaherty knew that the Redskin’s welcome would soon ware thin if they could not deliver out on the gridiron. Before the first game he told his team that if they wanted to keep their jobs they had to go out there and win.

And win they did, earning their first championship that season defeating the Bears at Wrigley Field 28-21. George “Papa Bear” Halas’s team did not take well to losing at home, and before long one the first NFL rivalries ignited. For the Redskins the success ’37 meant that Flaherty and his team had found a home.

As for the rivalry, payback came the following year later, when the Bears smashed the Redskins 31-7. After the game Halas commented to the Redskins, “That’s too bad, girlies…What say we all go down to the corner for a double banana split and a fistful of chocolate éclairs?” Ouch. That’s harsh, Papa Bear.

The Redskins let their hatred simmer until they teams met again in 1940. Both teams struggled back and forth, when finally the Redskins claimed a 7-3 victory, won by an ankle tackle by running back Dick Todd, stopping the Bears at the one yard line. It was three weeks until the Championship game. Marshall predicted that should the Bears play the Redskins for the championship, they’d have to win big or not win at all. As if fated, the teams would indeed meet for the championship at Griffith Stadium (at Georgia Ave and W Street, NW). Taking Marshall’s words to heart the Bears unleashed a fury, ending the game with a 73-0 victory over the Redskins (who unlike the current Lions, were playing in the championship—the Redskins were no shabby team). The score still stands as the largest margin of victory in NFL history.

Admittedly, this has turned out to be biased posting on the prowess of the Chicago Bears, but I find myself incapable of singing the praises of another team. But cheer up Redskins fans you still have: 5 championships, 3 Superbowl titles, the NFL first marching band, and the first NFL fight song. So when times get tough, think about Slingin’ Sammy and the championship in 1937, and the later days with Coach Gibbs. You have tradition! Now get out there and beat your current rival the Cowboys, whom you play in seven weeks!

Sources: Redskins: A History of Washington’s Team.

Redskin’s Homepage.

Sports Encyclopedia.

DC in the BC...and Later

Below: John Smith's Map of Virginia, 1612.

It was the end of the Ice Age, and things were looking up. The glaciers were receding, causing the rising sea levels that would form the Chesapeake Bay. The climate was warming. By ten thousand BC, the first Washingtonians settled into the area. Over the next few thousand years field and forest developed.

The surrounding land of present-day Washington was rich with game and stone to make tools. Around 800 CE, experiment with agriculture began with the growing of maize. Squash, beans, and potatoes were later added to the diet. By 1500, the people around the Potomac River had become so numerous that both hunting and farming were necessary in sustaining the population of the region. The people who had settled into the area were of the Piscataway Conoy Nation, a collection of tribes unified during the 16th century in order to ward off Iroquois invaders. These Eastern Algonquian-speaking Native Americans developed a system of chiefdom whereby the leader of a village, a werowance, was subject to a single supreme chief, known as the tayac.

One of the larger villages in the region was located in present day Anacostia. Identified by Captain John Smith in his 1612 Map of Virginia, the village and people were referred to as the Nacotchtank. Smith estimated the village population to be at around 200, with 60 warriors. The village encompassed the area from Bolling Air Force Base, following the Anacostia River to Anacostia Park. The word Nacotchtank has been translated to mean "a trading town," and this town along with the Patawomeke village were the two larger villages in the region. These towns served as "gateway communities," allowing the tayac to control long-distance trade, such as beaver pelts from the north. The Nacotchtanks were variably referred to as Nacostins or Analostans, deriving the name Anacostia.

Not much is known of daily life among the Nacotchtank. What we do know is that in 1622, the English colonists burned and plundered the Nactochtank village, in order to obtain corn. The following year, Captain Henry Spelman led a group of Englishmen on trading mission along the Potomac. Spelman was an interpreter for the British and presumed himself to be in good standing with the local Native Americans. However, whilst traveling Spelman and 19 of his men were killed by the Nacostins, with one survivor, Henry Fleet, becoming captive at the Nacotchtank village.

What happened to the Nacotchtank? Escaping 5 years later, Fleet later became a skilled trader and interpreter as Spelman had been before him. Fleet's writings mention that by the 1640s the Nacotchtanks were located at a small village in the Georgetown area. A fragment population had inhabited Analostan Island, later named Mason's Island and even later referred to as Theodore Roosevelt Island. Within 40 years of contact with the Europeans, the population of the Piscataway Conoys had dwindled to one quarter of what it was when Smith first greeted them in 1608. Violence and disease had taken its toll on the Nacotchtanks who faded into obscurity by the 1680s; their lands soon covered by farm, plantation and town.

Of Interest: Captain John Smith National Historic Water Trail, http://www.nps.gov/cajo/

Sources: National Park Service, "Civil War Defenses of Washington: The Native People, " Available online: http://www.nps.gov/cwdw/historyculture/the-native-peoples.htm (March 2009).

Piscataway Conoy Tribe of Maryland, "History," Avaiable online: http://piscatawayconoy.com/content/learn/history.html (March 2009).

Stephen R. Potter, Commoners, Tribute, and Chiefs (Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press, 1993).

John Smith, The Generall Historie of Virginia (London: Printed by I.D. and I.H. for Michael Sparkes, 1624).

Photo Source: John Smith, "Map of Virginia," Library of Congress, 1612.