Arizona’s Squaw Peak Is Renamed to Honor Soldier

After a stormy debate over a name change, Piestewa Peak stood bathed in sunlight Friday as a tribute to the first female soldier -- a Native American -- who was killed in combat in the war in Iraq.

Advocates said the decision to honor Army Pfc. Lori Ann Piestewa, a Hopi who was slain in a firefight after members of the Army’s 507th Ordnance Maintenance Company made a wrong turn and were ambushed March 23 near Nasiriyah, also was designed to remove a name many Native Americans found derogatory.

The 2,608-foot mountain in Phoenix previously was called Squaw Peak.

Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano had lobbied hard for the name change.

“The main issues for the governor were she wanted to find a suitable way to honor Lori Piestewa and everything she means to Arizona. She is the first Native American woman to die in combat in a U.S. military capacity,” said Kris Mayes, a spokeswoman for the state’s chief executive.

“At the same time, the governor wanted to find a way to erase one of the wrongs we have been living with in Arizona for a while, which is the fact we have a major landmark in Phoenix called Squaw which many Native Americans find offensive.... It is something we needed to get behind us.”

The Arizona State Board on Geographic and Historic Names voted 5 to 1 Thursday for the change, but its decision was not without controversy.

The board erased the customary waiting period of five years before a landmark can be officially renamed.

“There is no disrespect meant to Private 1st Class Piestewa by my vote on the board,” said Lloyd Clark, an historian, who was the only member to cast the dissenting vote. “It did not follow our practice over many years of waiting five years for a person to be deceased before we could accept an application.”

Clark said the policy corresponded to the practice of the U.S. Board of Geographic Names, which considers changing names on federal maps and other documents.

He said the decision of the board in Arizona “compromised the integrity of the process we have been following in every other application.”

“I voted for her [Napolitano],” Clark added. “But I think she’s wrong on this because she is seeking to subvert the process that this state board has followed diligently all these years.

“I was the only voting member on the board who is not a state employee, and all the others, I feel, were thinking of their jobs first before they were considering the facts of changing the name,” he said. “By this decision, the board has sacrificed the name and memory of Private 1st Class Piestewa on the altar of political expediency.”

Richard Pinkerton, another board member, resigned in protest before the meeting held in the former Supreme Court chambers at the Arizona state Capitol tower.

In his resignation letter, Pinkerton said he thought serving on the board “is no longer worth the effort,” adding that he refused to “sacrifice and prostitute my integrity in the interest of satisfying a certain political venue.”

“This board was created as a state board, not subject to the governor’s beck and call,” Pinkerton said.

The group’s chairman, Tim J. Norton, did not attend the meeting. Napolitano requested his resignation last week when he initially declined to consider the petition to change the name of the mountain.

Martin J. Pasqualetti, a geography professor at Arizona State University, who voted for the resolution, said there was no political pressure.

“I don’t care if it was the governor or a convicted felon who proposed this name change. It was the right thing to do,” he said. “There is no doubt that the word ‘squaw’ is offensive to many people, particularly Native Americans.”

Pasqualetti said that before casting his vote with the majority, he did extensive research and found “there are few hard and fast laws that govern the naming of individual landmarks. They are largely policies.”

“Changing it from Squaw ... is a proper move. It is an appropriate change,” he said. “Secondly, this woman was singular in her sacrifice.”

The professor said that when he spoke during the meeting, he asked, “How many times will the first Native American be killed in combat? The obvious answer is once.”