Occupation of Alcatraz helped Indians make gains
sfgate.com | Jun 11th 2011
The Indian occupation of Alcatraz - one of the most unusual events in San
Francisco history - ended on a June afternoon just 40 years ago today when
U.S. marshals swooped down on the prison island, hauled off 15 somewhat
bedraggled Indians and told them never to return.
It appeared to be an enormous defeat for American Indian activists who had
seized Alcatraz and occupied it for 19 months, hoping to turn it into an
Indian university or cultural center. None of that happened.
"At the time it ended, the occupation seemed to be a failure," said Craig
Glasner, a park ranger stationed on Alcatraz. But now, even the government
admits the occupation was a landmark event.
For one thing, the government had to recognize a new Indian militancy. For
another, plans to sell the island to private developers were dropped and
Alcatraz is now part of a national park and draws 1.4 million visitors a
year.
"The occupation of Alcatraz exceeded our wildest dreams," said Adam
Fortunate Eagle Nordwall, one of the original leaders of the occupation. "It
caused major changes in government policies toward Indians. So we won."
Federal raid
It certainly did not appear that way on June 11, 1971, when a raiding party
of 20 armed federal marshals stepped off three Coast Guard cutters and
evicted six men, four women and five children - the last remnants of
hundreds of Indians and their supporters who had held the island for close
to two years.
The government called them "illegal inhabitants." Though none of them was
arrested, marshals removed them from Alcatraz, put up chain-link fences and
stationed federal officers on the island. "We only want to get on with the
business of developing the island," said U.S. Attorney James Browning.
Alcatraz had been abandoned as a prison in 1963 and declared surplus by the
government. At one time it was offered for sale for $2 million. A more
serious proposal was floated later - the island would be sold to a developer
and turned into high-end residences and a grand casino, a sort of Monte
Carlo in the bay.
Claiming the island
All that talk ended in November 1969, when Richard Oakes, a member of the
Mohawk tribe who lived in San Francisco, led a group of 14 Indians to the
island in a chartered boat to claim it for a group they called Indians of
All Tribes.
They only stayed overnight, but three weeks later, a group of 80 Indians
came back. "This time we have come to stay," Oakes said.
They claimed the island "by right of discovery" and issued a proclamation
offering to pay $24 for it - the price Dutch colonists paid for Manhattan.
The Indians painted signs all over the island - "You are on Indian land" and
"Red Power."
Dead serious
At first it all seemed to be a lark. The news media loved it - colorful
Indians camping on America's most famous island prison - but the Indians
were dead serious.
The government at first backed off, and then began formal, and sometimes
secret, talks with the Indians. The Indians wanted a cultural center,
perhaps an Indian university.
"We need this place," said Tom Joseph, a Shoshone-Paiute, who was a student
at UCLA.
"Alcatraz," said Nordwall, "has become a symbol."
It was also a bargaining chip. As long as the Indians mounted a nonviolent,
high-profile occupation, the government had to talk. Apparently, even
Leonard Garment, a powerful adviser to President Richard Nixon, was
involved.
At one point, Nordwall and several others say, the government offered to
trade Fort Mason on the San Francisco waterfront for the island. "I took the
swap offer to Oakes," Nordwall said this week, "but he turned it down colder
than hell."
Events take a turn
But events took a turn for the worse in January 1970, when Oakes'
12-year-old stepdaughter, Yvonne, died after a fall on the island. It broke
Oakes' heart and he left the island.
Soon afterward, the Indian leadership fractured as different groups fought
for control. Years later, Nordwall, now 81, said he was not surprised that
the movement fractured. "That goes with any revolution," he said. "When you
have an uprising, you have different factions duking it out. Just look at
the Middle East now."
In May of 1970, the government removed a water barge that pumped fresh water
into a tank on the island. Then they cut off the electricity. On June 1 a
fire broke out and destroyed several structures, including the warden's
residence. The government and the Indians blamed each other.
By summer, there were only 60 to 75 Indians still on Alcatraz, down from 800
at the height of the occupation. "We're Indians, all of us, and we belong on
Alcatraz," La Nada Means, a 23-year-old Shoshone Bannock, told Herb Caen
when the famed columnist visited the island. "Indians never had prisons -
yet here, in this white man's prison, we have found freedom for the first
time."
But the government played a waiting game. The long winter of 1970-71 took
its toll. There was trouble on the island, vandalism, fights. The public
gradually turned against the Indians.
Attitudes change
But when it was over, views shifted. The government attitude toward Indians
changed; other, more militant Indians occupied other sites. In 1975,
Congress passed the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act.
The old plans to terminate Indian reservations and tear up treaties were
scrapped. "We got recognition," said Eloy Martinez, who was one of the
original occupiers.
Martinez goes out every year on Columbus Day - he calls it Indigenous Day -
and on Thanksgiving for a fire ceremony. "The occupation? I think it was
pretty successful," he said.
Original Page:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/06/11/MNMH1JRSS1.DTL
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