Let's start in 1888 - with the real definition of the word 'squaw' and why this is important.

I thought it would be best to open up this dialogue with an explanation of the word "squaw" because it is the oldest entries I have (at this time) that shows an American Indian protesting a word or phrase that they find offensive, all the while others (white people) use it commonly.

There is still a team who calls themselves "squaws" in Eastman, Georgia, and just last year a 14-year-old female from the Choctaw Nation was speaking out against McLoud HS (Okla), when someone yelled  -- "Get off the stage, Squaw!" -- while she was testifying in front of the school board for their use of the team name and imagery -- Redskins. So yeah.. the definition of this most-hated word is a good place to start. 

In 1883, James W. Steele, a prominent literary figure who first came into prominence in 1872 while writing for Kansas Magazine,  publishes "Frontier Army Sketches," a collection of stories about life in 1860's Southwest, which he chronicled during his time in the US army.

In Chapter 5, Copper Distilled, page 83, Steele describes an Indian woman.
           "Everywhere and always the men are idle and the squaws at work. The hideous and toothless crone, the picture of unpitied age and misery, is never too old to toil, never old enough to rest. To her and her daughters fall all the endless tasks of a nomadic life. Her place is that of a slave; a slave born and predestined, to whom rest and liberty shall never come. She is beaten, abused, reviled, driven like any other beast of burden. She is bought and sold; wife, mother, and pack-animal, joined in one hideous and hopeless whole - a squaw."  ...
         "There is really no more beauty to be found among Indian "maidens: than there is among gorillas. Never were the features that pertain to the unmixed race modified for beauty's sake. More false than ever Cooper's wonderful tales, are the poems which descant upon the charms of dusky love and the romance of wilderness affection.... But the man who invented those charming but phenomenally false Indian ideals, and first crowned the universal squaw - squat, angular, pig-eyed, ragged, wretched, and insect-haunted - with the roses of love, ought to see the woman once, and, as a punishment, to be subjected for a season to her indescribable blandishments."

This was a highly successful book, and pretty much the common perception of Native women for the next hundred years. Basically, he's saying that this term describes an Indian woman in a derogatory manner. And this description continues.

In 1885, an article appears in The Topeka Daily Capital, Woman And Home - The Wife Who Would Just As Soon Be A Squaw.

It's an early pro-woman manifesto, of sorts. A husband and a wife are carrying on a conversation where the woman said she wants to go be a squaw, because she's nothing but a slave to her husband. (I've snipped a section of the article below.)

The wife lists all the things a white wife has to do for her husband, that, she claims, an indigenous woman doesn't have to do:
     Patch clothes
     Wash clothes
     Wash dishes
     Clean spittoons
     Keep children tidy
     Be on her feet all day long
     Sew buttons until eyeballs ache
     Clean house
     Worry about the chimney
     Stay in the house with no fresh air
     Stay home 4 nights a week alone while hubby is at the lodge

"No, sir, she don't have to do anything of the kind. About all she has to do is to boil dog and bead a pair of moccasins once in a while. She may get a few more kicks in the ribs than the white slaves, but I suppose she gets used to that and don't mind it much."

So here we have a woman saying that squaws are slaves, but they get used to being kicked around, and don't work as hard as a white wife, who is an actual slave to her husband.

Does this sound complimentary to an indigenous woman?

Native American's have been trying to educate the public on the negative connotation associated with this word, including "A Cherokee Lady" in 1888, who write a letter to the editor of the Globe-Democrat about Senator Dawes use of the word - squaw - in a proposed bill in front of Congress. She states that there is a difference between Cherokee women and "blanket" Indians, and she wanted him to know.

From A Cherokee Lady

1888, Jan 11. Cherokee Advocate 

To the Editor of the Globe-Democrat

      Prairie City, I.T. - Jan 2 - Will you please accept a short communication from an Indian "squaw," as Senator Dawes terms us, in his proposed bill in Congress. I am a Cherokee by blood. I was born and raised in the Cherokee Nation. I think I know the history of the Cherokee people, and also the present condition of the Cherokee Nation. In th first place, we propose to prove to Senator Dawes that we are not, what he terms us - squaws. We do not deny, nor are we ashamed of, our blood, but we do claim to be far superior to the squaws of blanket Indians. 

1888, Jan 11. Cherokee Advocate 

In 1909, an article explains: "The term 'squaw' is misused by white people. An Indian's squaw is an Indian's woman of low repute. To call an Indian's woman a squaw would be an insult. My sister was once asked to attend a social function among the upper ten in one of the great cities, and the ladies in attendance thought they would ply her with questions. One of the ladies laid particular stress upon the word squaw in her remarks to sister and sister answered her question thusly:
          'We squaws never think of having high heels put in the middle of our moccasins. No squaw was ever seen with a poodle in her arms where there ought to be a baby.' "- Source: 1909, Aug 28. The Oshkosh Northwestern 

1909, Aug 28. The Oshkosh Northwestern 

Next: 1918 - "We have always resented the word" [squaw] "which carries with it a sense of derision and insult."