Just years after the game of basketball was invented, an all-girls team of Indigenous players was going full-court — in woolen dresses. The Fort Shaw Indian Girls Basketball Team blazed a trail for those who’d come after them. So — what made the team so special? MTPR’s Victoria Traxler caught wind of the team and wanted to find out.
Austin Amestoy: Welcome to the Big Why, a series from Montana Public Radio where we find out what we can discover together. I’m your host, Austin Amestoy. This is a show about listener-powered reporting. We’ll answer your questions – large or small – about anything under the Big Sky. By Montanans for Montana, this is The Big Why.
Austin Amestoy: Today MTPR reporter Victoria Traxler has a different kind of Big Why question for us. Victoria, What are we looking into ?
Victoria Traxler: Hey Austin! This story actually stems from a phone call I got in May inviting me to attend a mural unveiling in Fort Benton.
Austin Amestoy: Murals are pretty common in Montana. What made this one stand out?
Victoria Traxler: This mural is a dedication to a basketball team formed in 1897 composed of girls from tribes across Montana, North Dakota and Wyoming. They were the Fort Shaw Indian Girls Basketball Team and they were known for being exceptional athletes and Austin you’re from Montana, born and raised, had you ever heard of this team?
Austin Amestoy: I had not! Though, if there’s one thing I’ve learned doing this show, I’ve got a lot left to learn about Montana history.
Victoria Traxler: Well, it turns out the Fort Shaw team really shattered expectations at the time both of female athletes and of indigenous people. It’s a story rooted in Montana that’s more than a century old — but far bigger than Fort Benton or Montana alone.
The team’s accomplishments are vast, we’re actually digging into their story in two parts. In the first one today, we’re looking back in time: What was the Fort Shaw Indian Girls Basketball Team, and why did they make such a wave over a century ago?
Austin Amestoy: Alright, so where do we start?
Victoria Traxler: Well, since this story starts 129 years ago , I had to find an expert. Linda Peavy co-wrote a book - called Full Court Quest - about the team. She and her late partner Urusula Smith spent years researching the team, talking to family and digging through archives. Here’s how she summarized 13 years of research:
Linda Peavy: This amazing group of young women, they went to a Native American boarding school and were given the opportunity to learn the new game of basketball, along with other things, and were given this opportunity to learn the game well enough to play it and excel at it. They became examples of what all young Native Americans could do.
Victoria Traxler: Especially since they were able to succeed while enduring a very abhorrent part of U.S. history.
Austin Amestoy: Right, these were the days of Native American boarding schools.
Victoria Traxler: Exactly. These boarding schools were places where indigenous children were often forcibly taken, removed from their native cultures and traditions.
There were more than 500 of these institutions enacting the policy: “Kill the Indian, Save the Man.” By 1926, 83 percent of Native school-age children were in these institutions.
Austin Amestoy: So, can you tell me more about the game? Was it like the basketball we know today?
Victoria Traxler: Ok so picture this:
There were two teams of five girls running around a small court in near-floor-length wool dresses on wooden floors. There might be a small set of bleachers for mostly white audiences to sit in and watch the game. There was more passing than dribbling in those days because of differences in the basketballs we have today, but they were relatively the same size.
Some Montana historians theorize they may be the state’s first official girls basketball team.
Austin Amestoy: So who were they playing against?
Victoria Traxler: They played games against local schools, usually composed of only white players, beginning in 1897 before later playing exhibition games around the west. Ultimately, their goal was to play their way to the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair.
Austin Amestoy: Oh I think I’ve heard about that. That was a major event celebrating the Louisiana Purchase Expedition. It went on for months, right?
Victoria Traxler: Yes and the team made it there and stayed for five months. But the story of their time at the world's fair is fascinating in its own right: They played so well that they went undefeated. They took home the title of “World Champions”.
Austin Amestoy: Wow. With such a big claim to fame, I’m surprised I’ve never heard of them growing up.
Victoria Traxler: You’re certainly not alone in that. In fact, one woman I met, Ardis Cecil, had no idea her ancestors played on this team.
Ardis Cecil: I knew Lizzie Wirth, she was my grandmother, and she died in 69 when I was in high school, so I had some contact with her.
Victoria Traxler: That was until she picked up Smith and Peavy’s book in 2023.
Ardis Cecil: I didn't get [more than] a few pages in the book and there was my great-grandfather, Jacob Wirth, Grandma Lizzie's name, and then an aunt named Nettie, which I really didn't know anything about who was the player on the team.
Victoria Traxler: Cecil told me she began eagerly investigating this part of her family’s history. Along with her sister, she dove into uncovering more by talking to family members and asking for memorabilia.
Ardis Cecil: I'm impressed with them. I can't believe what they did, I can believe that they made it that far. I keep thinking in my mind, such a perfect timing of these girls coming together.
Austin Amestoy: Cecil obviously has a lot of pride for what her family and others did on that team. But I imagine she has some pretty complex feelings about all of this — after all, they were accomplishing these amazing feats in a place that was working to erase their culture.
Victoria Traxler: She told me it’s a complicated story to sort through emotionally. She is cognizant of the severe harm and the atrocities that have taken place at boarding schools. But she says her ancestors’ experiences at Fort Shaw weren’t black and white.
Though they were forcibly separated from their families, many of the girls, like Cecil’s grandmother, had white fathers or family.
Ardis Cecil: They had been exposed to the culture, and so adapting at a boarding school probably was an easier transition for them.
Victoria Traxler: Fort Shaw also let the girls perform literary, musical and cultural displays after some of the games, like reading excerpts of poems like this one.
[From the brow of Hiawatha
Gone was every trace of sorrow,
As the fog from off the water,
As the mist from off the meadow.] - Hiawatha excerpt, Ch. 22
Victoria Traxler: The players also displayed aspects of their tribal cultures, like hand-sewn, beaded buckskin dresses. Cecil says the girls’ education at Fort Shaw, though rooted in racist ideology, gave them a leg up later in life. Here’s what she had to say about this very difficult, nuanced topic.
Ardis Cecil: I think it's hard for people to hear that it could be positive and I accept that because there was so much tragedy, or beatings, or sexual abuse. All of those things are a reality also. But that's not the only reality I guess is what I want to take away from that. That was not the only reality.
Austin Amestoy: Ok so let me see if I’ve got the story down now. The Fort Shaw Indian Girls Basketball Team was probably the first women’s basketball team in the history of Montana, it was started in 1897?
Victoria Traxler: Exactly. So when I received this call about the mural, I knew I had to learn more.
What I found out is that there’s been a resurgence of recognition of these girls and their history. In 2004 a memorial was built in Fort Shaw. Then, in 2008 came Peavy’s book. And in 2009, Montana PBS released their documentary “Playing for the World.”But, since then, it seemed like things had been relatively quiet. That’s until Cecil told me what she had been doing ever since picking up that book in 2023.
Austin Amestoy: What has she been doing?
Victoria Traxler: Well, you’ll just have to meet me back here for part two to find out. The story of the girls’ team didn't end a century ago, nor when Peavy and Smith finished their book.
But I’ll give you some spoilers: yes there’s a mural, but there’s cross-country community gatherings, investigations and something about a gravestone.
Austin Amestoy: I can’t wait to find out what else you’ve learned!
Austin Amestoy: Now we want to know what makes you curious about Montana. Submit your questions below, or leave a message at 406-640-8933. Let's see what we can discover together! Find us wherever you listen to podcasts and help others find the show by sharing it and leaving a review.
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