BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) - The Bismarck Park Board has voted to keep the name of Custer Park, despite efforts to change it because of the eponym’s history with Native Americans.
Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer fought against Native Americans on the Great Plains in the 1860s and 1870s.
Two Bismarck women led the effort to change the name. Three Affiliated Tribes member M. Angel Moniz says that to some, Custer is a reminder of violence and genocide.
The Bismarck Tribune says commissioners Thursday adopted a formal process to rename city parks and to install an educational marker at Custer Park. Under the new process, there can’t be another proposal to rename Custer Park for 15 years.
In 1868, Custer launched an attack on Chief Black Kettle’s Southern Cheyenne Village near present-day Cheyenne, Oklahoma, in which Native American women were raped and killed in an assault known as the Washita Massacre.
Custer spent several years stationed at Fort Abraham Lincoln in Mandan before his death..
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