Occupation of Alcatraz - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Occupation of Alcatraz was an occupation

Occupation (protest)

An as an act of protest, is the entry into and holding of a building, space or symbolic site. As such, occupations often combine some of the following elements: a challenge to ownership of the space involved, an effort to gain public attention, the practical use of the facilities occupied, and a...

of Alcatraz Island

Alcatraz Island

Alcatraz Island is an island located in the San Francisco Bay, offshore from San Francisco, California, United States. Often referred to as "The Rock" or simply "Traz", the small island was developed with facilities for a lighthouse, a military fortification, a military prison, and a Federal...

by the group Indians of All Tribes

Indians of All Tribes

Indians of All Tribes may refer to one of two organizations:*Indians of All Tribes, based out of San Francisco, and responsible for the Occupation of Alcatraz...

(IAT). The Alcatraz Occupation lasted for nineteen months, from November 20, 1969, to June 11, 1971, and was forcibly ended by the U.S. government

Federal government of the United States

The federal government of the United States is the national government of the constitutional republic of fifty states that is the United States of America. The federal government comprises three distinct branches of government: a legislative, an executive and a judiciary. These branches and...

Background

According to the IAT, the Treaty of Fort Laramie (1868)

Treaty of Fort Laramie (1868)

The Treaty of Fort Laramie was an agreement between the United States and the Oglala, Miniconjou, and Brulé bands of Lakota people, Yanktonai Dakota, and Arapaho Nation signed in 1868 at Fort Laramie in the Wyoming Territory, guaranteeing to the Lakota ownership of the Black Hills, and further...

between the U.S. and the Sioux returned all retired, abandoned or out-of-use federal land to the Native people from whom it was acquired. Since Alcatraz penitentiary had been closed on March 21, 1963, and the island had been declared surplus federal property in 1964, a number of Red Power activists felt the island qualified for a reclamation.

On March 8, 1964, a small group of Sioux demonstrated by occupying the island for four hours. The entire party consisted of about 40 people, including photographers, reporters, and the lawyer (Elliot Leighton) representing those claiming land stakes. According to Adam Fortunate Eagle

Adam Fortunate Eagle

Adam Fortunate Eagle , hereditary member of the Ojibwa Nation, is a Native American activist and was the principal organizer of the 1969-71 occupation of Alcatraz Island by "Indians of All Tribes."-Early life:...

, this demonstration was an extension of already prevalent Bay Area street theater used to raise awareness. The Sioux activists were led by Richard McKenzie, Mark Martinez, Garfield Spotted Elk, Walter Means, and Allen Cottier. Cottier acted as spokesman for the demonstration, stating that it was “peaceful and in accordance with Sioux treaty rights.” The protesters were publicly offering the federal government the same amount for the land that the government had initially offered them; at 47 cents per acre, this amounted to $9.40 for the entire rocky island, or $6.54 for the twelve usable acres. Cottier also stated that the federal government would be allowed to maintain use of the Coast Guard lighthouse located on the island.

In 1969, Mohawk

Mohawk nation

Mohawk are the most easterly tribe of the Iroquois confederation. They call themselves Kanien'gehaga, people of the place of the flint...

Richard Oakes

Richard Oakes (activist)

Richard Oakes was a Mohawk Native American activist who promoted the fundamental idea that Native peoples have a right to sovereignty, justice, respect and control over their own destinies...

and a larger group of activists planned another occupation on November 9. After Adam Fortunate Eagle

Adam Fortunate Eagle

convinced the owner of the Monte Cristo, a three-masted yacht, to pass by the island, Oakes, Jim Vaughn (Cherokee

Cherokee

The Cherokee are a Native American people historically settled in the Southeastern United States . Linguistically, they are part of the Iroquoian language family...

), Joe Bill (Eskimo

Eskimo

Eskimos or Inuit–Yupik peoples are indigenous peoples who have traditionally inhabited the circumpolar region from eastern Siberia , across Alaska , Canada, and Greenland....

), Ross Harden (Ho-Chunk

Ho-Chunk

The Ho-Chunk, also known as Winnebago, are a tribe of Native Americans, native to what is now Wisconsin and Illinois. There are two federally recognized Ho-Chunk tribes, the Ho-Chunk Nation of Wisconsin and Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska....

) and Jerry Hatch jumped overboard, swam to shore, and claimed the island by right of discovery

Terra nullius

Terra nullius is a Latin expression deriving from Roman law meaning "land belonging to no one" , which is used in international law to describe territory which has never been subject to the sovereignty of any state, or over which any prior sovereign has expressly or implicitly relinquished...

. The Coast Guard quickly removed the men, but later that day, a larger group made their way to the island again, and fourteen stayed overnight. The following day, Oakes delivered a proclamation, written by Fortunate Eagle, to the General Services Administration

General Services Administration

The General Services Administration is an independent agency of the United States government, established in 1949 to help manage and support the basic functioning of federal agencies. The GSA supplies products and communications for U.S...

(GSA) which claimed the island by right of discovery, after which the group left the island.

Though recently many people have claimed that the American Indian Movement

American Indian Movement

The American Indian Movement is a Native American activist organization in the United States, founded in 1968 in Minneapolis, Minnesota by urban Native Americans. The national AIM agenda focuses on spirituality, leadership, and sovereignty...

was somehow involved in the Takeover, AIM had nothing to do with the planning and execution of the Occupation, though they did send a delegation to Alcatraz in the early months in order to find out how the operation was accomplished and how things were progressing.

Occupation

In the early morning hours of November 20, 1969, 79 American Indians, including students, married couples and six children, set out to occupy Alcatraz Island. A partially-successful Coast Guard blockade prevented most of them from landing, but fourteen protesters landed on the island to begin their occupation.

The protesters, predominately students, drew inspiration and tactics from contemporary civil rights demonstrations, some of which they had themselves organized. The original fourteen students who occupied the Island were LaNada Means War Jack, Richard Oakes, Joe Bill, David Leach, John Whitefox, Ross Harden, Jim Vaughn, Linda Arayando, Vernell Blindman, Kay Many Horse, John Virgil, John Martell, Fred Shelton, and Rick Evening. Jerry Hatch and Al Miller, both present at the initial landing but unable to leave the boat in the confusion after the Coast Guard showed up, quickly turned up in a private boat. The first landing party was joined later by many others in the following days, including Joe Morris (a key player later as a representative of the Longshoreman's Union, which threatened to close both ports if the Occupiers were removed), and the man who would soon become 'the Voice of Alcatraz,' John Trudell.

After a fire destroyed a San Francisco Indian center and Interior Secretary Walter J. Hickel offered to turn Alcatraz into a national park, the protesters mobilized.

The stated intention of the Occupation was to gain Indian control over the island for the purpose of building a center for Native American Studies, an American Indian spiritual center, an ecology center, and an American Indian Museum. The occupiers specifically cited their treatment under the Indian termination policy

Indian termination policy

Indian termination was the policy of the United States from the mid-1940s to the mid-1960s. The belief was that Native Americans would be better off if assimilated as individuals into mainstream American society. To that end, Congress proposed to end the special relationship between tribes and the...

and they accused the U.S. government of breaking numerous Indian treaties.

Richard Oakes sent a message to the San Francisco Department of the Interior:
President Richard Nixon

Richard Nixon

Richard Milhous Nixon was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. The only president to resign the office, Nixon had previously served as a US representative and senator from California and as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961 under...

's Special Counsel Leonard Garment

Leonard Garment

Leonard Garment was acting Special Counsel to U.S. President Richard Nixon for the last two years of his presidency.Garment was born in Brooklyn, New York. In 1949, Garment joined the law firm of Mudge, Stern, Baldwin, and Todd. He became the head of litigation and a partner in the late fifties...

took over negotiations from the GSA.

On Thanksgiving Day, hundreds of supporters made their way to Alcatraz to celebrate the Occupation. In December, one of the occupiers, Isani Sioux John Trudell

John Trudell

John Trudell is a Native American-Mexican author, poet, actor, musician, and former political activist. He was the spokesperson for the United Indians of All Tribes' takeover of Alcatraz beginning in 1969, broadcasting as Radio Free Alcatraz...

, began making daily radio broadcasts from the island, and in January 1970, occupiers began publishing a newsletter. Joseph Morris, a Blackfoot

Blackfoot

The Blackfoot Confederacy or Niitsítapi is the collective name of three First Nations in Alberta and one Native American tribe in Montana....

member of the local longshoreman's union, rented space on Pier 40 to facilitate the transportation of supplies and people to the island.

Cleo Waterman (Seneca Nation) was president of the American Indian Center during the takeover. As an elder, she chose to stay behind and work on logistics to support the occupiers. She worked closely with Grace Thorpe and the singer Kay Starr to bring attention to the occupation and its purpose.

Grace Thorpe, daughter of Jim Thorpe

Jim Thorpe

Jacobus Franciscus "Jim" Thorpe * Gerasimo and Whiteley. pg. 28 * americaslibrary.gov, accessed April 23, 2007. was an American athlete of mixed ancestry...

(Sac and Fox

Sac and Fox Nation

The Sac and Fox Nation is the largest of three federally recognized tribes of Sac and Meskwaki Native Americans. They are located in Oklahoma and are predominantly Sac....

), was one of the occupiers and helped convince celebrities like Jane Fonda

Jane Fonda

Jane Fonda is an American actress, writer, political activist, former fashion model, and fitness guru. She rose to fame in the 1960s with films such as Barbarella and Cat Ballou. She has won two Academy Awards and received several other movie awards and nominations during more than 50 years as an...

, Anthony Quinn

Anthony Quinn

Antonio Rodolfo Quinn-Oaxaca , more commonly known as Anthony Quinn, was a Mexican American actor, as well as a painter and writer...

, Marlon Brando

Marlon Brando

Marlon Brando, Jr. was an American movie star and political activist. "Unchallenged as the most important actor in modern American Cinema" according to the St...

, Jonathan Winters

Jonathan Winters

-Early life:Winters was born in Bellbrook, Ohio, the son of Alice Kilgore , a radio personality, and Jonathan Harshman Winters II, an investment broker. He is a descendant of Valentine Winters, founder of the Winters National Bank in Dayton, Ohio...

, Buffy Sainte-Marie

Buffy Sainte-Marie

Buffy Sainte-Marie, OC is a Canadian Cree singer-songwriter, musician, composer, visual artist, educator, pacifist, and social activist. Throughout her career in all of these areas, her work has focused on issues of Indigenous peoples of the Americas. Her singing and writing repertoire includes...

and Dick Gregory

Dick Gregory

Richard Claxton "Dick" Gregory is an American comedian, social activist, social critic, writer, and entrepreneur....

, to visit the island and show their support. Rock band Creedence Clearwater Revival

Creedence Clearwater Revival

Creedence Clearwater Revival was an American rock band that gained popularity in the late 1960s and early 1970s with a number of successful singles drawn from various albums....

supported the Occupation with a $15,000 donation that was used to buy a boat, named the Clearwater, for reliable transport to Alcatraz. As a child, the actor Benjamin Bratt

Benjamin Bratt

Benjamin Bratt is an American actor. He is most famous for his role as Rey Curtis on the TV series Law & Order; and his appearances in the movies Blood in Blood Out, Miss Congeniality, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, Traffic, and Piñero.-Early life:Bratt was born in San Francisco, California,...

was in the occupation with his mother and his siblings.

Collapse and removal

On January 3, 1970, Yvonne Oakes, 13-year old daughter of Annie and stepdaughter to Richard, fell to her death, prompting the Oakes family to leave the island, saying they just didn't have the heart for it anymore. Some of the original occupiers left to return to school, and some of the new occupiers had drug addictions. Some non-aboriginal members of San Francisco's drug and hippie scene also moved to the island, until non-Indians were prohibited from staying overnight.

By late May, the government had cut off all electrical power and all telephone service to the island. In June,
a fire of disputed origin destroyed numerous buildings on the island. Left without power, fresh water, and in the face of diminishing public support and sympathy, the number of occupiers began to dwindle. On June 11, 1971, a large force of government officers removed the remaining 15 people from the island.

Though fraught with controversy and forcibly ended, the Occupation is hailed by many as a success for having attained international attention for the situation of native peoples in the United States, and for sparking more than 200 instances of civil disobedience among Native Americans.

Impact

The Occupation of Alcatraz had a direct effect on federal Indian policy and, with its visible results, established a precedent for Indian activism.

Robert Robertson, director of the National Council on Indian Opportunity (NCIO), was sent to negotiate with the protesters. His offer to build a park on the island for Indian use was rejected, as the IAT were determined to possess the entire island, and hoped to build a cultural center there. While the Nixon administration did not accede to the demands of the protesters, it was aware of the delicate nature of the situation, and so could not forcibly remove them. Spurred in part by Spiro Agnew

Spiro Agnew

Spiro Theodore Agnew was the 39th Vice President of the United States , serving under President Richard Nixon, and the 55th Governor of Maryland...

’s support for Native American rights, federal policy began to progress away from termination and toward Indian autonomy. In Nixon’s July 8, 1970, Indian message, he decried termination, proclaiming, “self-determination among Indian people can and must be encouraged without the threat of eventual termination.” While this was a step toward substantial reform, the administration was hindered by its bureaucratic mentality, unable to change its methodical approach of dealing with Indian rights. Nixon’s attitude toward Indian affairs soured with the November 2, 1972, occupation of the Bureau of Indian Affairs

Bureau of Indian Affairs

The Bureau of Indian Affairs is an agency of the federal government of the United States within the US Department of the Interior. It is responsible for the administration and management of of land held in trust by the United States for Native Americans in the United States, Native American...

(BIA). Nixon reputedly felt betrayed, and claimed that “he was through doing things to help Indians.”

Much of the Indian rights activism of the period can be traced to the Occupation of Alcatraz. The Trail of Broken Treaties

Trail of Broken Treaties

The Trail of Broken Treaties was a cross-country protest in the United States by American Indian and First Nations organizations that took place in the autumn of 1972...

, the BIA occupation, the Wounded Knee incident

Wounded Knee Incident

The Wounded Knee incident began February 27, 1973 when about 200 Oglala Lakota and followers of the American Indian Movement seized and occupied the town of Wounded Knee, South Dakota on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation...

, and the Longest Walk all have their roots in the occupation. The American Indian Movement noted from their visit to the occupation that the demonstration garnered national attention, while those involved faced no punitive action. When AIM members seized the Mayflower II on Thanksgiving, 1970, the Occupation of Alcatraz was noted as “the symbol of a newly awakened desire among Indians for unity and authority in a white world.”

Legacies

Some 50 of the Alcatraz occupiers traveled to the East Bay and began an occupation of a Nike Missile installation located in the hills behind the community of Kensington

Kensington, California

Kensington is an unincorporated community and census-designated place located in the East Bay, part of the San Francisco Bay Area, in Contra Costa County, California, United States. The population was 5,077 at the 2010 census.- Law and government :Kensington is an unincorporated area of Contra...

in June 1971. This occupation was ended after three days by a combined force of Richmond

Richmond, California

Richmond is a city in western Contra Costa County, California, United States. The city was incorporated on August 7, 1905. It is located in the East Bay, part of the San Francisco Bay Area. It is a residential inner suburb of San Francisco, as well as the site of heavy industry, which has been...

Police and regular US Army troops from the Presidio of San Francisco

Presidio of San Francisco

The Presidio of San Francisco is a park on the northern tip of the San Francisco Peninsula in San Francisco, California, within the Golden Gate National Recreation Area...

. Moreover, the Alcatraz Occupation greatly influenced the American government's decision to end its policy of Termination and Relocation and to pass the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act of 1975

Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act of 1975

The Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act of 1975 authorized the Secretaries of the Department of Interior, Health, Education and Welfare and some other government agencies to enter into contracts with, and make grants directly to, federally recognized Indian tribes...

.

The Alcatraz Occupation led to an annual celebration of the rights of indigenous people, Unthanksgiving day

Unthanksgiving day

Unthanksgiving Day also known as The Indigenous Peoples Sunrise Ceremony, is an event held on the island of Alcatraz in San Francisco Bay, in the United States of America, to honor the indigenous peoples of the Americas and promote their rights. It coincides with a similar protest, the National...

, welcoming all visitors to a dawn ceremony under permits by the National Park Service.

External links

Doris Purdy film of the occupation
Alcatraz Is Not an Island at PBS
Public Broadcasting Service
The Public Broadcasting Service is an American non-profit public broadcasting television network with 354 member TV stations in the United States which hold collective ownership. Its headquarters is in Arlington, Virginia....
The Alcatraz Proclamation to the Great White Father and his People
Alcatraz National Park, We Hold the Rock - NPS (author:Troy Johnson)