Well, it’s about time. Trustees of Amherst College have banished the school’s unofficial mascot, “Lord Jeff,” a buffoonish, big-headed representation of the school’s namesake, Lord Jeffery Amherst. A British general, during the French and Indian War Amherst signed off on a rudimentary sort of biological warfare against Native Americans, approving the idea of one of his officers to have blankets from the Fort Pitt smallpox ward distributed among the Indians.
For all the horror we hear about Lord Jeff’s eagerness to let germs do his dirty work, perhaps more appalling is the old general’s attitude toward the tribes his troops were fighting. “I wish to hear of no prisoners,” he told a subordinate. Sending a Lieutenant Grimble to have it out with the Seneca, he instructed the junior officer to “Destroy their Huts and Plantations, putting to Death everyone of that Nation that may fall into your Hands.” Here’s Amherst’s general assessment of the American Indian: “the Vilest Race of Beings that ever Infested the Earth & whose Riddance from it must be Esteemed a Meritorious Act for the Good of Mankind.”
Yes, this was in the context of a war of tit-for-tat atrocities. Still, there’s a reason General Amherst’s reputation has not fared well in the history books, and his Riddance from the campus of Amherst College will itself be Esteemed a Meritorious Act by many.
But why banish just the cartoon manifestation? Isn’t it a more serious business that the name of the institution—Amherst College—is derived from the genocidal scoundrel? Students are regularly seen on campus committing the microaggression of wearing T-shirts, sweatshirts, and ballcaps emblazoned with his shameful name. When they graduate, they are presented with diplomas branded with the same—diplomas many of them will frame and hang on their walls.
Stripping Amherst College of the A-word should just be the start. Given the enormity of Gen. Amherst’s crimes, why is the school willing to remain in a city whose very name celebrates him? If the college had the courage of its convictions, and was willing to do more than just what is convenient and self-congratulatory, it would pack up shop and move the whole institution out of the tainted town.
The Scrapbook suggests that Amherst College may want to consider moving even further than just the next town over. Because, you see, there is the problematic fact of being located in the state of Massachusetts, whose name is derived from that of an indigenous tribe that once inhabited the land around what is now Boston. How cringe-inducing to name an entire state after dispossessed people driven from that very land. (And while we’re talking about smallpox, don’t forget that the Massachusett were killed off in large part by the viral diseases of the white man, notably smallpox.)
Of course the University of Massachusetts Amherst has similar problems. There is that dreadful name, but also a problem with that school’s mascot, too, a cartoon Minuteman named “Sam.” Activists protest that Sam is a symbol of colonization and gender insensitivity. And don’t even get them started on that gun he carries . . .
