When the newly formed Boston Redskins traveled to Chicago’s Soldier Field to play the Bears on Oct. 1, 1933, the visiting players were barely recognizable. The owner, George Preston Marshall, ordered team members to smear themselves with face paint before going out onto the field. His was the first pro-sports team to co-opt an American Indian identity with such fervor: The Redskins’ halftime band marched in tribal regalia; the coach wore feathers on the sideline; and Marshall had an Indian-head logo printed across the center of their uniforms.

Interest in American Indian culture spiked in the 1930s, says Sherry L. Smith, a historian at Southern Methodist University, but Indian iconography was already widely used. From 1859 until 1909, U.S. pennies showed an Indian face in profile, with a feathered headdress and a straight nose; Indian gold pieces and buffalo nickels with less-European-looking faces followed. The Redskins logo resembled these designs.

In sports, the Indian head conjured the perceived athleticism of American Indians. The scholar Ellen J. Staurowsky cites an 1897 article from The Sporting Life about a Penobscot batter on the Cleveland team, headlined, “Indian in ball: The race has a natural inclination for sphere games.”

Indian sports logos and nicknames may also have harked back to the Indian-only boarding schools, which excelled at collegiate sports. The Carlisle School’s football team, the Indians, was among the best in the nation. When Carlisle closed down in 1918, other (non-Indian) college programs were more inclined to use Indian names and symbols. The costumed Chief Illiniwek mascot at the University of Illinois debuted at a football game in 1926.