Feds mull renaming Wayne National Forest because of ties to enslaved people, Indigenous killings
The USDA Forest Service says the name is offensive based on Wayne’s past. Some vehemently object.
The U.S. Forest Service has caused a firestorm by proposing that Ohio’s only national forest undergo a name change.
The Forest Service wants to change the name of the forest in southeastern Ohio from Wayne National Forest to Buckeye National Forest. Ohio is nicknamed the Buckeye State.
“The national forest is currently named after General Anthony Wayne, whose complicated legacy includes leading a violent campaign against the Indigenous peoples of Ohio that resulted in their removal from their homelands,” the Forest Service said in a press release. Wayne also owned 47 enslaved people.
But a group of Ohio lawmakers ripped the name-change effort, calling it an attempt to obscure the history of a great man.
“This federal effort denigrates Ohio history and represents a lack of fidelity to our nation’s founding generation,” Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio, wrote to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and Randy Moore, chief of the Forest Service, which is part of the USDA.
Vance also partnered with another Ohio Republican, Rep. Warren Davidson, in criticizing the effort. “There are instances in our history where great men accomplished extraordinary things, and they deserve to be honored and remembered for it. Gen. Wayne is one of those men,” the pair wrote.
A day later, three other Ohio Republicans — Reps. Troy Balderson, Brad Wenstrup and Bill Johnson — wrote jointly to the Forest Service and the Department of Agriculture decrying the move and requesting more time for public comments.
Wayne, born in 1745, was a prominent military figure during the country’s founding days, according to his biography in Brittanica. He was a colonel in the Continental Army in 1776 and just a year later became a brigadier general. Nicknamed “Mad Anthony” for his courage on the battlefield, Wayne fought in several campaigns against the British. He and his troops are credited with holding West Point after its commander, Benedict Arnold, agreed to give the fort to the British for money.
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But Wayne also had 47 enslaved people who worked on his rice plantations near Savannah, Georgia. He led portions of the Northwest Territory Wars, during which fighters killed Indigenous people and burned their villages so white Europeans could settle on the land.
Wayne has hundreds of cities, roadways and institutions named after him, including Wayne County, Michigan; Fort Wayne, Indiana and Wayne County, New York. But it’s the proposed Wayne National Forest name change that has caused a fuss.
The Forest Service, in its press release, wrote: “The current forest name is offensive because of this history of violence. Buckeye National Forest is one of the names suggested to the Forest Service by American Indian Tribes.”
Some lawmakers don’t agree.
Ohio Speaker of the House Jason Stephen criticized “the woke Biden administration” for a campaign to erase “Major General Anthony Wayne — an integral part in the settling of Ohio,” he said in a statement to the Ironton Tribune.
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