This Indian Nation Wants Jeep to Drop the Cherokee Name

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published Feb 23, 6:19AM EST

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This Indian Nation Wants Jeep to Drop the Cherokee Name — © Courtesy of Jeep

Jeep, with its roots in a 4×4 used by the U.S. military in World War II, has been commercially available since 1945. Jeep has had a number of models over those years. The high end of its model line today is the Jeep Cherokee, introduced in 1974. The head of the Cherokee Nation has asked Jeep to drop the Cherokee name.

In a note to magazine Car & Driver magazine, Chuck Hoskin Jr., principal chief of the Cherokee Nation, said, “I’m sure this comes from a place that is well-intended, but it does not honor us by having our name plastered on the side of a car.” Jeep is owned by massive international auto company Fiat Chrysler and is among its best-selling brands in the United States.

Hoskin pointed out that there was already precedent for removing Indian names from other branding. He also said to Car & Driver, “I think we’re in a day and age in this country where it’s time for both corporations and team sports to retire the use of Native American names, images and mascots from their products, team jerseys and sports in general.” Many colleges and high schools have dropped the Indian names for their teams. The Washington Redskins dropped the offending part of its name after decades and is currently known as the Washington Football Team.
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Jeep did not offer much of a response:

Our vehicle names have been carefully chosen and nurtured over the years to honor and celebrate Native American people for their nobility, prowess, and pride. We are, more than ever, committed to a respectful and open dialogue with Cherokee Nation Principal Chief Chuck Hoskin, Jr.

In fact, Jeep can ill afford to drop the Cherokee name. It has decades of branding behind the vehicles, and sales of the Cherokee lineup are essential to Jeep products. Jeep calls it the “most awarded SUV.” The Cherokee and Grand Cherokee are Jeep’s two most expensive models. The Cherokee has a base price of $26,555. The Grand Cherokee has a base price of $34,220. With a number of options, that price rises as high as $87,915 for the Trailhawk model.

Jeep does risk a great deal, however, by keeping the Cherokee name. National boycotts of products are common if customers believe a company has mistreated a person or group. The pressure to take the “redskin” name off the NFL team was tremendous. The Cleveland Indians face the same pressure. The press has reported in the past several weeks that the team’s name will be dropped, after 105 years.

The Cherokee problem will not end for Jeep. The name, once again in the public eye, will continue to cause controversy.

Click here to read about the car that research shows Americans don’t want to buy.

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.