The agency said the change was taken to remove the "offensive name" from America's first national park. Photo / Unsplash
Yellowstone National Park's Mount Doane will be renamed First Peoples Mountain according to the National Park Service.
Last Thursday the agency said the change would be made because America's first national park included an "offensive name".
A vote by the US Board on Geographic Names was unanimous, 15-0, affirming the choice according to Fox News.
The mountain, which is 3,215 metres high and east of Yellowstone Lake, was named after the explorer Gustavus Doane.
Doane was born in Illinois inn 1840 but grew up in California, where he attended the University of the Pacific at Santa Clara and enlisted in a federal volunteer unit called the "California Hundred".
Over the next 30 odd years, Doane worked as a sergeant, lieutenant, captain (and, briefly, a mayor of Yazoo City Mississippi) in various brigades and cavalries.
In 1870, Doane lead an attack on a group of Piegan Blackfeet, an indigenous people group, during which at least 173 American Indians were killed.
According to the agency, the Marias Massacre involved the death of "many women, elderly Tribal members and children suffering from smallpox".
"Doane wrote fondly about this attack and bragged about it for the rest of his life," the agency added.
Issues with the name were sent to the Board on Geographic Names in June 2022 by the Rocky Mountain Tribal Council.
After reaching out to the 27 associated Tribes, Yellowstone National Park unsurprisingly received no opposition about changing the name.
The new name will take only a few days before it is reflected in The Domestic Names Geographic Names Information System (GNIS).
Future changes to other names considered "derogatory or inappropriate" were not ruled out by the park.
The park said it may consider additional changes to other "derogatory or inappropriate names in the future."
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