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Mar 31, 2024 · Alcatraz Island, in San Francisco Bay, California. In March 1964 a group of Native Americans claimed the island, citing an 1868 treaty with the Sioux allowing Indians from the reservation to claim any “unoccupied government land”; however, they occupied Alcatraz for only several hours.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Overview
- HISTORY Vault: Native American History
In 1969, a group of rebel activists took over America’s most notorious prison for more than 19 months.
Since the mid-1960s, American Indians had been on a mission to break into Alcatraz. After the famed prison shuttered its doors in 1963, Bay Area Native Americans began lobbying to have the island redeveloped as an Indian cultural center and school. Five Sioux even landed on Alcatraz in March 1964 and tried to seize it under an 1868 treaty that allowed Indians to appropriate surplus federal land.
These early efforts all failed, but reclaiming “the Rock” became a rallying cry for Indians, many of whom viewed the island as a symbol of government indifference toward the Indigenous population.
More to History: Native American Solidarity at Alcatraz
When an October 1969 fire destroyed San Francisco’s American Indian Center, an activist group known as “Indians of All Tribes” set their sights on the unused land at Alcatraz. A handful of protestors first journeyed to the island on November 9, 1969, under the leadership of Mohawk college student Richard Oakes. They only stayed for a night before the authorities removed them, but Oakes stressed that the landing had been a symbolic act. “If a one-day occupation by white men on Indian land years ago established squatter’s rights,” he told The San Francisco Chronicle, “then the one-day occupation of Alcatraz should establish Indian rights to the island.”
Indians of All Tribes made a final attempt to seize Alcatraz in the early morning hours of November 20, 1969—this time with an occupation force of 89 men, women and children. After sailing through San Francisco Bay under cover of darkness, the Indians landed at Alcatraz and claimed the island for all the tribes of North America.
From Comanche warriors to Navajo code talkers, learn more about Indigenous history.
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Early use of Alcatraz Island by the indigenous people is difficult to reconstruct, as most tribal and village history was recorded and passed down generation-to-generation as an oral history of the people.
Alcatraz Island was occupied by Native American activists for the first time on March 8, 1964. The protest, proposed by Lakota Sioux activist Belva Cottier and joined by about 35 others, was reported by, among others, the San Francisco Chronicle and the San Francisco Examiner .
- 22 acres (8.9 ha)
- San Francisco, California
- 1934; 89 years ago
Nov 19, 2020 · Column: Indigenous tribes took over Alcatraz 51 years ago. Read the ‘holy grail’ of the occupation. An image from Nov. 25, 1969 captures a moment in the 19-month Indigenous occupation of...
- carolina.miranda@latimes.com
- Columnist
Nov 20, 2019 · On Nov. 20, 1969, more than 70 Native Americans gathered before dawn on a dock in San Francisco Bay. They boarded three boats and sailed from the small, foggy harbor in Sausalito, Calif., to...
Jul 17, 2023 · In 1969, a group of Native American activists called the Indians of All Tribes arrived on Alcatraz. Red Power on Alcatraz: Perspectives 50 Years Later tells the story of their 19 month occupation of the island, a watershed moment in the movement for Native American civil rights.
