Yellowstone peak rename honours Native Americans

First Peoples Mountain (centre) rises between Top Notch Peak (foreground) and Mt Stevenson (back right)

The name of a mountain in Yellowstone National Park has been changed from that of an explorer who massacred Native Americans to honour those he killed instead.

Previously Mount Doane, First Peoples Mountain is the latest in efforts by the US government to change honours deemed offensive.

The 10,551ft (3,215 meter) peak sits east of Yellowstone Lake in Wyoming.

Its former namesake, Army Lt Gustavus Doane, led a massacre that killed 173.

He was also one of the members of the original expedition that year which led to the creation of Yellowstone as the first US national park.

The decision was announced after a 15-0 vote by the US Board on Geographic Names, the federal body responsible for maintaining uniform geographic name usage throughout the federal government.

All 27 native tribes associated with the Yellowstone region were consulted on the new name, according to the National Park Service, and none objected.

According to the park, in 1870 Doane responded to the alleged murder of a white fur trader by leading an attack on a band of Piegan Blackfeet people.

"During what is now known as the Marias Massacre, at least 173 American Indians were killed, including many women, elderly Tribal members and children suffering from smallpox," the park said in a news release, adding that he "wrote fondly about this attack and bragged about it for the rest of his life".

Local tribes have praised the decision to rename the peak.

"We heard our Blackfeet sisters screams as they ran to the river on that cold January morning in 1870," Blackfeet Tribal member Tom Rodgers told CNN.

"We heard their cry for justice. We sought justice. We sought an accounting. We sought a reckoning with history.

"It has taken far far too long for this journey of healing to arrive."