In discussions about the history of Dartmouth’s former “Indian” nickname, mascot, and symbol, the subject of the Carlisle Indian Industrial School never seems to come up. Yet Dartmouth was one of Carlisle’s main football opponents in the early twentieth century, and Dartmouth had little reason to become known as “the Indians” as long as the Carlisle Indians were playing.

Carlisle (Wikipedia) was the dominant team in the east for several years up to the school’s closure in 1918, with “Pop” Warner coaching winning teams that included Jim Thorpe (1911-1912) and others. The phrase “Carlisle Indians” was a shortened reference to the school’s name and a literal description of its teams as well as a nickname that sportswriters used the way they used “Princeton Tigers.”

Dartmouth had a more distant connection to Native America, and students and administrators sometimes tried to make something of it. During events such as the 1901 Webster Centennial celebration or the 1906 Dartmouth Hall dedication, Charles Eastman would portray Samson Occom in a historical pageant or a few students would dress as “Indians” in a torchlight parade. Dartmouth football teams simply were not known as “the Indians,” however — instead they were known as “the Green,” referring to the green color that students had adopted as their sporting color around 1865. Some writers also used non-standard references to Dartmouth’s location in New Hampshire. Some examples from the New York Times:

• “Princeton met the Green at the Polo Grounds” (“Princeton Plays Dartmouth Team,” October 29, 1910, p. 12; notes that “[t]he Tigers will put forth a stronger team than opposed the [Carlisle] Indians last Week”).
• “Indians to Play Dartmouth Here” (February 3, 1913, p. 9; describes “the Green Mountain team”).
• “Indians Best Against Dartmouth” (December 6, 1913, p. 12).
• “Indians Smother Dartmouth, 35-10; Hanoverians No Match for the Wonderful Carlisle Team in Game at the Polo Grounds” (November 16, 1913, p. S1; notes “Green Line Crumples; Indians’ ‘Scoop-Shovel’ and Criss-Cross Attack Deadly”; describes “the New Hampshire mountaineers” and “the Green line”; states that “[t]he Indians showed a concerted smash against the mid-section of the Hanover line.[]”).
• “Hanover to Claim Football Title; Coach Cavanaugh Says Dartmouth Will Deserve It if Team Beats Indians” (November 14, 1913, p. 12).

Writers continued to refer to the Carlisle Indians into the 1920s. Someone has probably documented the first reference to “the Dartmouth Indians” in this period, once the team could no longer be confused with that of Carlisle. The introduction of “the Dartmouth Indians” might have occurred in bizarre fashion in an article of 1925:

Two of the rapidly dwindling list of undefeated football teams, the White Indians of Dartmouth and the Red Terrors of Cornell, are quietly encamped here on the eve of one of the big struggles of the season. The Green is a slight favorite.

Allison Danzig, “Dartmouth Picked to Defeat Cornell; Eastern Championship May Depend on Clash of Unbeaten Teams at Hanover Today. All Ithacans in Shape; Only Smith Out of Green Line-Up — 15,000 to See Game on Field Expected to Be Good,” New York Times (November 7, 1925, p. S10) (emphasis added).

[Update 10.14.2007: year of Dartmouth Hall dedication corrected from 1904 to 1906 and Webster Centennial example added.]