Occupation of Alcatraz
The Occupation of Alcatraz was a 19-month long occupation of Alcatraz Island and its prison complex, then classified as abandoned surplus federal land, by 89 American Indians and their supporters. The occupation was led by Richard Oakes, LaNada Means, and others, while John Trudell served as spokesman. The group lived on the island together until the occupation was forcibly ended by the U.S. government.
The protest group chose the name Indians of All Tribes for themselves. IAT claimed that, under the Treaty of Fort Laramie between the U.S. and the Lakota tribe, all retired, abandoned, or out-of-use federal land was to be returned to the Indigenous peoples who once occupied it. As 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 that the island qualified for a reclamation by American Indians.
The Occupation of Alcatraz had a brief effect on federal Indian Termination policies and established a precedent for American Indian activism. Oakes was later shot to death in 1972. The American Indian Movement was targeted by the federal government and FBI in COINTELPRO and similar surveillance operations.
Background
In 1963, Belva Cottier, a social worker living in the San Francisco Bay Area, read an article that the Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary was to be closed and the property given to the City of San Francisco. Remembering the 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie, she and her cousin, Richard McKenzie, located a copy of the treaty and proposed that if the property was surplus land of the government, Sioux could claim it. She planned and organized an occupation and a court action to obtain title to the island. On March 8, 1964, a small group of Lakota demonstrated by occupying the island for four hours. The entire party consisted of about 40 people, including photographers, reporters and Elliot Leighton, the lawyer representing those claiming land stakes. According to Adam Fortunate Eagle, this demonstration was an extension of already prevalent Bay Area street theater used to raise awareness. The Lakota activists were led by Richard McKenzie, Martin Leo Martinez, Garfield Spotted Elk, Virgil Standing-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 $5.64 for the 12 usable acres. Cottier also stated that the federal government would be allowed to maintain use of the Coast Guard lighthouse located on the island. The protesters left under threat that they would be charged with felony. This incident resulted in increased media attention for Indigenous peoples' protests across the Bay Area.The United Council of the Bay Area Indian community initially considered writing a proposal and filing an application for the use of Alcatraz by the Lakota people under the conditions of their treaty. Plans were drawn up for using the buildings on Alcatraz as a cultural center. Conversations about handing Alcatraz over to developers for commercial development created concern about the future availability of the island. A desire for more immediate action to claim space for the local Indian community was finally spurred by the loss of the San Francisco Indian Center to fire on October 10, 1969. The loss of the San Francisco Indian Center spurred action among Indigenous peoples because of the importance it held within their community. The center provided Native Americans with jobs, health care, aid in legal affairs, and social opportunities. This detrimental loss, happening on top of the Indians' already growing tension with the U.S. government, prompted strategies for obtaining Alcatraz for use by the local Indian community shifted from formal applications to more immediate takeover.
In 1969, Adam Nordwall planned a symbolic boat ride for November 9, during the daylight hours, to ride around Alcatraz to gain the attention of local news outlets. University student leaders Richard Oakes and LaNada Means, head of the Native American Student Organization at the University of California–Berkeley, with a larger group of student activists joined Nordwall. A group of five boats was organized to take approximately 75 Indigenous peoples over to the island, but none of the boats showed up. Adam Fortunate Eagle convinced Ronald Craig, the owner of the Monte Cristo, a three-masted yacht, to pass by the island when their own boats did not arrive. Oakes, Jim Vaughn, Joe Bill, Ross Harden and Jerry Hatch jumped overboard, attempting to swim to shore, and claim the island by right of discovery.
The Coast Guard quickly rescued the men, ending their attempts. LaNada Means, dissatisfied with the outcome of the day, hired a fishing boat paid by Earl Livermore, making their way to the island again, and fourteen stayed overnight. The 14 occupiers, led by Means and Oakes, included Kay Many Horses, John Vigil, and John Whitefox, from the San Francisco Indian Center; Joe Bill, Ross Harden, Fred Shelton, and Ricky Evening, from San Francisco State University; and Linda Aranaydo, Burnell Blindman, David Leach, John Martell, and Jim Vaughn, from the University of California, Berkeley. The plan for that night's takeover was to split into groups; that way if the coast guard found one group there would still be others there to continue the righteous fight. The following day, November 10, Oakes surprised the student occupiers, by delivering a proclamation, written by Fortunate Eagle, to the General Services Administration which claimed the island by right of discovery, after which the groups were removed. The Native American Students felt betrayed by Oakes who gave them up to the Coast Guard. Having no knowledge of a proclamation that gave up the Native American student occupier groups in trade for a proclamation to no effect. There were more students on the mainland who were going to join the 14 occupiers and bring out food and supplies on the day of the 10th, that were questioning why the 14 occupiers were returning.
The students distanced themselves from Adam Nordwall, Lehman Brightman who wanted to manipulate the movement, as they distrusted their motives because of their social position in mainstream society. In the morning hours at pier 39 of Fisherman Wharf, November 10, 1969, LaNada Means decided upon the date of November 20 because Oakes had said that they would not go out to Alcatraz again giving them an element of surprise, and it would be a time when those elder men would be away at an educational conference.
This decision by LaNada Means to choose November 20, 1969, began the successful 19-month occupation of Alcatraz opening up hearts and minds to Native American issues and struggles throughout the country, a forerunner of the Red Power movement and the Self Determination Era. Though recently many people have claimed that the American Indian Movement 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 it was progressing.
Occupation
In the late evening hours of November 20, 1969, 89 American Indians, including more than 30 women, students, married couples and six children, set out from Palo Alto 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 island's lone guard, who had been warned of the impending occupation, sent out a message on his radio. "Mayday! Mayday!" he called. "The Indians have landed!"On December 10, 1969, on Alcatraz, protesters, including Stella Leach and Earl Livermore, had a conference with government officials, led by Kim Robertson, San Francisco's regional GSA representative, with members of the Labor Department.
On December 24, 1969, Richard Oakes, Earl Livermore, and Al Miller, held a press conference at Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary. The interview discussed the reasons for the occupation and as well described the structure of how the inhabitants lived in the island and their adaptions. Livermore as well discussed the Alcatraz Proclamation made and sent to the U.S. government which clarified their reasons to inhabit the island.
At the height of the occupation there were 400 people. Native women, like Aranaydo, Woesha Cloud North, and Vicky Santana ran the school with the help of Douglas Remington, and teacher's aids Justine Moppin and Rosalie Willie. There was also a daycare and Stella Leach set up the health clinic. Jennie R. Joe and Dorothy Lonewolf Miller, assisted Leach as nurses, and Robert Brennan, Richard Fine, and Leach's boss, David Tepper, volunteered as doctors. Native and non-native people brought food and other necessary items to the people on the island, but the coast guard's blockades made it increasingly difficult to supply the occupants with food. The suppliers, after stealthily journeying across the bay via canoe, dropped off the supplies which then had to be carried up steep ladders. Aranaydo and Luwana Quitiquit were responsible for running the kitchen and cooking for the occupants. The occupation lasted about 19 months but ended peacefully. An employee of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Doris Purdy, who was also an amateur photographer, accompanied a group who went on November 29, stayed the night and recorded video footage.
The protesters, predominantly students, drew inspiration and tactics from contemporary civil rights demonstrations, some of which they had themselves organized. 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, and the man who would soon become "the Voice of Alcatraz", John Trudell.
Although she would not receive the same recognition from mainstream media as Trudell and Oakes would, LaNada Means, who was one of the first to arrive and one of the last to leave, organized written statements and speeches that outlined the purpose of the occupation. Fellow activist Dean Chavers said Means was "the real leader of the occupation". To the media and to the federal government, Means made it clear that the occupiers wanted complete Indian control over the island, under the Treaty of Fort Laramie, for the purpose of building a cultural center that included Native American Studies, an American Indian spiritual center, an ecology center, and an American Indian Museum. According to Means' grant proposal, the center would include full-time Indian consultants, Indian teachers, Indian librarians, and an Indian staff leading people around the center in order to tell the story of Indians of All Tribes. The occupiers specifically cited their treatment under the Indian termination policy 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's Special Counsel Leonard Garment 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, John Trudell, began making daily radio broadcasts from the island, and in January 1970, occupiers began publishing a newsletter. Joseph Morris, a Blackfoot 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 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.
Thorpe, daughter of Jim Thorpe, was one of the occupiers and helped convince celebrities like Jane Fonda, Anthony Quinn, Marlon Brando, Jonathan Winters, Buffy Sainte-Marie and Dick Gregory, to visit the island and show their support. Not only did Thorpe bring both national and international attention to the occupation, she also provided supplies necessary to keep the occupation alive. Thorpe supplied a generator, water barge and an ambulance service to the island. Rock band Creedence Clearwater Revival 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, actor Benjamin Bratt was present at the occupation with his mother and his siblings.