indigenous

Would it surprise you that I had more to say? Due to the character limit, this wonderful and relevant story had to be broken into 2; this one I called the 1973 part, well almost. The day I released the first part was not on the massacre date, but instead the day they assassinated Tatanka Iyotake, Bull Who Sits on Hind-legs or Sitting Bull. This name is given to him by a Canadian Mountie officer ignoring the commands of his higher officers, to offer refuge to the radical band of Tatanka Iyotake who were waiting to rendezvous with Tasunka Witiko, Crazy Horse. This rendezvous never happens as they are able to trick him, arrest him, and then kill him on his way into the jail. If you believe our Medicine Men, he saw this, and on Bear Butte he did only 3 days of a traditionally 4 day vision quest called hembleycha, in hopes he would be spared to finish the ceremonies. Where we last left off was the aftermath of this assassination, where their brother-in-arms Unphan Gleske, Spotted Elk (or “Bigfoot”) then fled to seek refuge with Mahipya Luta, Red Cloud, at Pine Ridge agency. This brings us to the infamous massacre of 1890, but the blowback of this act wouldn’t be faced for another 80 years.

Between then and 1973, we have several land grabs, the kidnapping of children into boarding schools, border towns rising off the exploitation of us and our lands, planned genocide through make-work programs of the New Deal like the Pick-Sloan plan, and so much more happen, that it makes sense why Cap. R. H. Pratt and the common sense of the time acknowledged the “students” openly as hostages.

According to Ezra Hayt, the Commissioner of Indian Affairs from 1843–1893, “the children would be hostages for the good behavior of their people.” (To read more here is my former employer’s award winning article on the subject of bodies in boarding schools, years prior to the mainstream news of the fact at High Country News and for the full context to the quote)

Even after the boarding school practices mostly ended (I say mostly as the recent federal report shows 90 of those schools still operate), this program of holding children hostage manifested itself in the selling of our children into what amounts to slavery. It cost only $10 to buy an Indian child as recently as 1952, and many who were bought were used as cleaning servants. Instead of this practice ending, it developed into the modern foster care and adoption system we know today. Even my brother has been enslaved in this system. On top of this, you have a continued mass incarceration and atrocious education statistics that all stem from their attempts to “save the man.” The tipping point came in the Termination era and essentially provided a liberally condonable means of genocide, via pen and paper. If it wasn’t bad enough to force different cultures and peoples into conglomerate nations for your convenience in managing our concentration camps, they began to declare nations non-existent or even completely eradicated with the case of the Ohlone and many California groups. The most famous case however is the Pacific Northwest's termination of fishing rights and Wisconsin's attempt to do something similar with the Menominee people, and an added land grab.

In 1954 the Menominee Termination Act would be passed under Public Law 280, which would remove nations' rights to determine their affairs, let alone their futures. In 1963, three Menominee would be charged in violation of Wisconsin state laws, while hunting on land distinguished as Menominee land. They were found not guilty, only to have the case brought to the state’s supreme court, where they ruled that they no longer had hunting rights. The historiography available places the onus of the overturning of this decision in 1968, thanks to the efforts of Ada Deer, who should not go unmentioned. But reformism is hardly why I write and the hunting and fishing rights were not the end-all issue of the Termination of the Menominee (but we will continue in a minute). In the PNW as I mentioned, the hunting and fishing rights issue was rearing its head in the famous fish-in struggles led by Billy Frank Jr who was arrested over 400 times for fishing on the dock his family has lived on since time immemorial along the Nisqually River.

“As long as the rivers run, as long as the tide flows, and as long as the sun shines, you will have land, fish, and game for your frying pans, and timber for your lodges.” -Washington Territorial Governor Isaac Stevens 1855

He wasn’t the only person the promise made was broken, and so it became a form of civil disobedience to fish, and fish they did. They were beaten, threatened, and even people like Leonard Peltier would be radicalized at these ‘fish-ins’. Peltier wasn’t the only one finding inspiration there either; in fact some Oceti Sakowin students attending Berkley at the time were so inspired that they staged an action on Alcatraz, symbolically reclaiming it under the 1868 Fort Laramie treaty. This was in 1965, and most people forget this initial inspiration for the later 1969 occupation on the island. The 1969 occupation utilized the same method of claim, only this time they refused to allow the coast guards removal to be the end. At first, organizers were only going to sail a boat near the Island and then give a press statement on land. But when the boat came close enough, a young Mohawk organizer named Richard Oaks leapt over the edge and swam to the prison. Generally speaking, most people swimming around Alcatraz were swimming away from the island towards their freedom; but to him and everyone who followed, freedom was the prison, so they swam. The coast guard quickly removed them and on land, Oakes read what is called The Proclamation to the Great White Father. I recommend everyone read it for yourself as there is a lot of clever phrasing. Or you can wait until the audio documentary we are making on this era fully releases. The part I’d like to highlight is why they saw this prison as freedom:

We feel that this so-called Alcatraz Island is more than suitable as an Indian Reservation, as determined by the white man's own standards. By this, we mean that this place resembles most Indian reservations, in that:

1. It is isolated from modern facilities, and without adequate means of transportation.
2. It has no fresh running water.
3. The sanitation facilities are inadequate.
4. There are no oil or mineral rights.
5. There is no industry and so unemployment is very great.
6. There are no health care facilities.
7. The soil is rocky and non-productive and the land does not support game.
8. There are no educational facilities.
9. The population has always been held as prisoners and kept dependent upon others.

Further, it would be fitting and symbolic that ships from all over the world, entering the Golden Gate, would first see Indian land, and thus be reminded of the true history of this nation. This tiny island would be a symbol of the great lands once ruled by free and noble Indians.

This place has become a practical Mecca for us and it is no wonder, when we place this occupation in its full historical context, why 71 occupations happened between 1965 and 1973 (and many more after). However this isn’t a story about these 71 occupations; it’s about Wounded Knee specifically (for the 71 story, join the patreon) and the overarching blowback that will be covered in more depth in our upcoming series; yes this is an ad, a 20k word ad. What we want to focus on however is the American Indian Movement. Jumping back to 1968 and over to Minneapolis, a meeting was held after several prison organizers were released from Stillwater prison. Each of them started in boarding school, and ended in prison, before being thrown to the wolves in the Twin Cities. At that time it was routine for the police to systematically arrest Indian bar patrons under drunk and disorderly charges; every Friday at 9pm- you could count on it. They would utilize kettling tactics, driving them from the front out the back, where the van was waiting for a mass booking. Over the weekend, they would be used as slave labor then, released on Monday without seeing the courtroom. This became routine, and must have been informed by some sick joke that we liked keeping the Earth clean. Editorializing aside, this was a systemic issue, and that's how AIM was formed. The night the meeting was held, Dennis Banks was speaking to a coalition of groups in the cities, when a familiar voice spoke up asking, ‘what do you plan to do about those cops?’ That night they formed the red car patrols, and began filming the cops actions, and before long they were at Alcatraz to make connections. Upon doing so, consecutive actions took place. A group known as United Native Americans, led by Lehman Birghtman, would stage a takeover of “Mt. Rushmore'' renaming it Crazy Horse Mountain; the sentiment was okay, but really this site is known to my people as the Six Grandfathers. This term refers to the four directions, the sky, and wakan tanka (the great mystery, our closest approximation to a “god” which really collapses the expanse of the idea).

In Minneapolis, you had the takeover of Ft. Snelling. In California, you have a take over of an electric company and enforcement of national sovereignty through the enforcement of tolls on the Pit River nations land. In Milwaukee however is where one of the more important (and ignored) events happen. Herb Powell was a visionary, who after Alcatraz seized an abandoned lighthouse in Milwaukee, which resulted not in eviction, but land back for the very first time in 1970. There they built the first ever Indigenous spirituality based alcohol treatment, that has since spread across the continent, and is the most successful form of rehab for Indian people. They did a breakfast program similar to the Black Panthers, which they learned in Oakland during solidarity trips from Alcatraz, and this is directly where the survival school concept was born. Herb’s wife claims prior to the Nixon admin ending the termination era Then when the occupants were finally removed from the island, a takeover of the Nike missile site was staged due to its closeness to Alcatraz. From 1969 to 1971, Alcatraz was ours. They kept this occupation alive through mailed envelopes of money, solidarity festivals hosted, barges donated by Creedence Clearwater Revival (the barge was then named The Clearwater), and from families who dedicated their time to caretaking the warriors on the island.

The era of Red Power had officially begun, and that’s exactly why, despite in 1971 COINTELPRO and CHAOS were declared over, and the show commission of Church occurred, the program lived on and sought to focus on the growing Red Power movement. Black Power had been so thoroughly entrenched in combating the original forms, it was easily subsumed by the Black elites and whatever homunculus replaced the CIA, FBI, and NSA’s counterintelligence programs. We know for fact these programs merged thanks to the history of AIM. All these fires were being lit across Turtle Island, a national Indian organization, and it was quickly realized that now was the time for unified action, not just the basic call to consciousness (read more in Akwesasne Notes book Basic Call to Consciousness). The International Indian Brotherhood (led by George Manuel), National Congress of American Indians (led by Vine Deloria Jr and Hank Adams), and many other Indigenous led groups that were very wary of AIM joining.

Despite being wary, they were allowed to join and it was common practice for them to send groups ahead to secure housing, food, etc for the children and elders who often came in the caravans with their younger family members engaged in direct action, as they offered support in a variety of ways including moral and inspiration to action. Despite these efforts the Nixon admin pressured the churches and people who agreed to deny us access, and forced elders and children into a dingy basement filled with rats (to read more see Behind the Trail of Broken Treaties by Vine Deloria Jr. Eventually they went to the BIA headquarters in DC, and just never left. It wasn’t supposed to be an occupation, it was supposed to be an airing of grievances that, due to the stonewalling and neglect of the US government, forced these families to occupy. This is obviously not about this story, but it should be noted the Black Panthers and AIM became even closer with offers of dynamite, infiltration of police lines by BPP, and as an alternative to the dynamite strategic pouring of gasoline around building while literal tons of documents about the stealing of land and resources were loaded into a Uhaul to Pine Ridge and sent with various groups they were relevant to. The government claims 700k in damages were done, mind you many of this is “theft” of things they stole from us originally, but with a suitcase full of cash- Nixon sent the Indians home.

For us Lakota, and frankly any Indigenous people, home meant coming back to the same problems the US government just denied to help with (it took the a day to respond to the 20 points of the Trail of Broken Treaties which were all very milquetoast liberal demands, that any communist today should use as a bear minimum for what we should uphold). These problems are still relevant today if you read Red Nation Rising: Bordertown Violence in America by Mealnie Yazzie and co. but beyond the explicit state violence, the overall superstructure is built on a phenomenon known as settler-vigilantism where settlers act on behalf of the state, to quell Indigenous resistance. At the center of the bordertown is this phenomenon, and the result is the bordertown becoming more than a place, but an idea. This idea being one that the bordertown arises anywhere settler order is confronted by Indigenous order to paraphrase a line from RNR:BVA. It's the violence the bordertown brings with things like starlight tours (where police in Canada bring Indigenous people who might be intoxicated into the wood to walk miles home during winter, usually dying to exposure) or Indianrolling. Indian is a legal term defining us based on a level of blood quantum, we use this word still as those laws still exist, Indianrolling is when settler vigilantes take it upon themselves to ruthlessly assault or kill Indigenous people in bordertowns or even on our reservations.

The most famous cases relevant to this discussions would be Raymond Yellow Thunder (murdered 1971 prior to the Trail of Broken Treaties, chronology doesn't matter in oral histories, this is written to be an oral history) and Wesley Bad Heart Bull (murdered 1972 prior to the Wounded Knee Occupation).

To go into these important events at the end of this effortpost would cause a disservice and dishonoring of these martyrs. In a time when Palestine is being butchered, I see constantly what happened in the 70s, and settlers here try to downplay the social murder, explicit genocide, and vigilantism (see the West Bank for Palestinian examples where settlers deny ongoing genocide). There is a book called The Death of Raymond Yellow Thunder which is named that because the conclusion is; it wasn’t murder. However, having read the book, his manuscripts, and listened to his cassette interviews which we plan to digitize and release with the help of my nation's college, I do not agree. We will address this in the actual 1973 part, as this is unfortunately the end of our story for now. However please go research this stuff yourself, there are so many sources like Blood of the Land by Rex Weyler, the various biographies of AIM leaders and activists, and so many other resources everyone who organizes in North America should be familiar with- and I would die on that hill gladly. You can find these resources and more in our developing public access library on our linktree, where I will also make the audio files and archive footage I’ve gathered over my 3 year, cross country, investigation of this exact story. A lot of the people we will discuss are family, there is a yearning for truth I have to demystify what is or isn't real, and so I pride myself with being able to openly criticize AIM in a principled way (I have yet to hear someone in the pod sphere actually offer worthwhile criticism beyond the errors of leaders, ya know, like strategy) because I have taken extreme care to meet the people. To hear their story for myself, to gather as much as I possibly can to help the movement advance. I want to see us overcome the great hurdle of American chauvinism, and see the end of settler-colonialism and the global project of Imperialism it helped birth.

The real reason for this post besides more suspense towards the Wounded Knee documentary and actual post, is to talk about our winter fundraiser which the immediate needs have been handled! We were able to get our organizers who deliver and cut the wood a new vehicle after theirs broke down (and 1200 in repairs already this year we fundraised), secure a Uhaul to deliver a ton of wood, pallets, clothes, water barrels, cases of water bottles (water there will give you cancer in 10 years due to Uranium mines runoff, so its only good for washing stuff really. We got it shut down in 2018 but there's been no clean up besides us growing Hemp and Sunflowers) blankets, and whatever else we could gather that could be useful there. We were also able to pay for the cameraman to tag along and document the whole trip, so look forward to that content as it releases overtime. The best way to see these updates first would be our patreon but they take a big cut! So if you dont mind waiting for a public release, liberapay is a much better way to support our efforts directly. Our plan with the money is to enable several organizers to work consistently on our fundraising through other means, and organizing the soft infrastructure to enable a mass org, functional steering cadre, and help grassroots organizers do their thing. We only need 1800/month in order to accomplish this and some peoples allyship is based on whether or not we don’t criticize their favorites; but here at Hexbear and Lemmygrad we seem to have found actual class traitors who see the principled nature of the stances we take. I am sure there is something I forgot to mention but you will hear from us more 2024 and beyond, especially once the 5 year plan is ready for publication.