CIVILIZED INDIAN a portrait of assimilation, reimagined take on the old Cleveland Indians logo dives deep into the painful legacy of forced assimilation. The CIVILIZED INDIAN wears a single red feather and a cross-bearing headband—a uniform imposed by systems that sought to erase his ancestral identity and replace it with something palatable to the colonizer’s gaze. He represents the Indigenous man stripped of tribal regalia and spiritual symbols, remade in the image of a “good Indian” under European-Christian rules. Programs like the Indian Boarding Schools and federal policies like the Dawes Act didn’t just steal land—they reshaped faces, erased tongues and replaced sacred teachings with scripture and servitude. His hypnotic eyes reflect a people caught between two worlds—tribal memory and colonial reprogramming. While his smile may appear wide, it’s hollow. Behind it is the trauma of generations told to forget who they are to survive. This image is not satire—it’s a coded survival file. A distorted mirror showing what happens when identity becomes a costume and culture is compressed into a caricature. But from distortion comes clarity and through this art, we RMBR.

🔑 PRODUCT FEATURES:

• Matte Canvas, Stretched, 0.75″
• Back hanging included
• Soft rubber dots on bottom back corners for support
• Frame made with radial pine sourced from renewable forests
• Cotton and polyester canvas composite with a special proprietary coating