To the Great White Father and his People, 1969
Fellow citizens, we are asking you to join with us in our attempt to better the lives of all Indian people.
We are on Alcatraz Island to make known to the world that we have a right to use our land for our own benefit.
In a proclamation of November 20, 1969, we told the government of the United States that we are here "to create a meaningful use for our Great Spirit’s Land."
We, the native Americans, reclaim the land known as Alcatraz Island in the name of all American Indians by right of discovery.
We wish to be fair and honorable in our dealings with the Caucasian inhabitants of this land, and hereby offer the following treaty:
We will purchase said Alcatraz Island for twenty-four dollars in glass beads and red cloth, a precedent set by the white man’s purchase of a similar island 300 years ago. We know that $24 in trade goods for these 16 acres is more than what was paid when Manhattan Island was sold, but we know that land values have risen over the years. Our offer of $1.24 per acre is greater than the $0.47 per acre the white men are now paying the California Indians for their lands.
We will give to the inhabitants of this island a portion of the land of their own to be held in trust . . . by the Bureau of Caucasian Affairs . . . in perpetuity—for as long as the sun shall rise and the rivers go down in the sea. We will further guide the inhabitants in the proper way of living. We will offer them our religion, our education, our way of life—ways in order to help them achieve our level of civilization and thus raise them and all their white brothers up from their savage and unhappy state. We offer this treaty in good faith and wish to be fair and honorable in our dealings with all white men.
We feel that this so-called Alcatraz Island is more than suitable for 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. It has inadequate sanitation facilities.
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 nonproductive, and the land does not support game.
8. There are no educational facilities.
9. The population has always exceeded the land base.
10. 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.
What use will we make of this land?
Since the San Francisco Indian Center burned down, there is no place for Indians to assemble and carry on tribal life here in the white man’s city. Therefore, we plan to develop on this island several Indian institutions:
1. A Center for Native American Studies will be developed which will educate them to the skills and knowledge relevant to improve their lives and spirits of all Indian peoples. Attached to this center will be traveling universities, managed by Indians, which will go to the Indian Reservations, learning this necessary and relevant materials now about
2. An American Indian Spiritual Center, which will practice our ancient tribal religious and sacred healing ceremonies. Our cultural arts will be featured and our young people trained in music, dance, and healing rituals.
3. An Indian Center of Ecology, which will train and support our young people in scientific research and practice to restore our lands and waters to their pure and natural state. We will work to de-pollute the air and waters of the Bay Area. We will seek to restore fish and animal life to the area and to revitalize sea-life which has been threatened by the white man’s way. We will set up facilities to desalt seawater for human benefit.
4. A Great Indian Training School will be developed to teach our people how to make a living in the world, improve our standard of living, and to end hunger and unemployment among all our people. This training school will include a center for Indian arts and crafts, and an Indian restaurant serving native foods, which will restore Indian culinary arts. This center will display Indian arts and offer Indian foods to the public, so that all may know of the beauty and spirit of the traditional Indian ways.
5. Some of the present buildings will be taken over to develop an American Indian museum which will depict our native food and other cultural contributions we have given to the world. Another part of the museum will present some of the things the white man has given to the Indians in return for the land and life he took: disease, alcohol, poverty and cultural decimation (as symbolized by old tin cans, barbed wire, rubber tires, plastic containers, etc.). Part of the museum will remain a dungeon to symbolize both those Indian captives who were incarcerated for challenging white authority and those who were imprisoned on reservations. The museum will show the noble and tragic events of Indian history, including the broken treaties, the documentary of the Trail of Tears, the Massacre of Wounded Knee, as well as the victory over Yellow-Hair Custer and his army.
In the name of all Indians, therefore, we reclaim this island for our Indian nations, for all these reasons. We feel this claim is just and proper, and that this land should rightfully be granted to us as long as the rivers run and the sun shall shine.
We hold the rock!
Community Hero:
Chief Wilma Mankiller
By Susannah Abbey50
Wilma Mankiller, former Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, lives on the land which was allotted to her paternal grandfather, John Mankiller, just after Oklahoma became a state in 1907. Surrounded by the Cherokee Hills and the Cookson Hills, she lives in a historically rich area where a person's worth is not determined by the size of their bank account or portfolio. Her family name "Mankiller" as far as they can determine, is an old military title that was given to the person in charge of protecting the village. As the leader of the Cherokee people she represented the second largest tribe in the United States, the largest being the Dine (Navajo) Tribe. Mankiller was the first female in modern history to lead a major Native American tribe. With an enrolled population of over 140,000, and an annual budget of more than $75 million, and more than 1,200 employees spread over 7,000 square miles, her task may have been equaled to that of a chief executive officer of a major corporation.
Wilma Mankiller came from a large family that spent many years on the family farm in Oklahoma. They were, of course, poor, but not desperately so. "As far back as I can remember there were always books around our house," she recalls in her autobiography, Mankiller: A Chief and Her People. "This love of reading came from the traditional Cherokee passion for telling and listening to stories. But it also came from my parents, particularly my father....A love for books and reading was one of the best gifts he ever gave his children."
Unfortunately, a poor local economy made the Mankiller family an easy target for the Bureau of Indian Affairs relocation program of the 1950s. Government agents were entrusted with the job of moving rural Cherokees to cities, effectively dispersing them and allowing others to buy their traditional, oil-rich lands. In 1959 the family moved to San Francisco, where Wilma's father could get a job and where Wilma began her junior high school years. This was not a happy time for her. She missed the farm and she hated the school where white kids teased her about being Native American and about her name.
Mankiller decided to leave her parents and go to live with her maternal grandmother, Pearl Sitton, on a family ranch inland from San Francisco. The year she spent there restored her confidence and after returning to the Bay Area, she got increasingly involved with the world of the San Francisco Indian Center.
"There was something at the Center for everyone. It was a safe place to go, even if we only wanted to hang out." The Center provided entertainment, social and cultural activities for youth, as well as a place for adults to hold powwows and discuss matters of importance with other BIA relocatees. Here, Mankiller became politicized at the same time reinforcing her identity as a Cherokee and her attachments to the Cherokee people, their history and traditions.
When a group of Native Americans occupied Alcatraz Island in November 1969, in protest of U.S. Government policies, which had, for hundreds of years, deprived them of their lands, Mankiller participated in her first major political action.
"It changed me forever," she wrote. "It was on Alcatraz...where at long last some Native Americans, including me, truly began to regain our balance."
In the years that followed the "occupation," Mankiller became more active in developing the cultural resources of the Native American community. She helped build a school and an Indian Adult Education Center. She directed the Native American Youth Center in East Oakland, coordinating field trips to tribal functions, hosting music concerts, and giving kids a place to do their homework or just connect with each other. The youth center also gave her the opportunity to pull together Native American adults from around Oakland as volunteers, thus strengthening their ties. Mankiller says she learned on the job, joking "my enthusiasm seemed to make up for my lack of skills." But she was, in truth, a natural leader.
She returned to Oklahoma in the 1970s where she worked at the Urban Indian Resource Center and volunteered in the community. Then in 1980 she was diagnosed with myasthenia gravis, a chronic neuromuscular disease that causes varying degrees of weakness in the voluntary muscles of the body. She maintains that it was the realization of how precious life is that spurred her to begin projects for her people, such as the Bell project.
Wilma Mankiller
In 1981 she founded and then became director of the Cherokee Community Development Department, where she orchestrated a community-based renovation of the water system and was instrumental in lifting an entire town, Bell, Oklahoma, out of squalor and despair. It was the success of the Bell project that thrust Mankiller into national recognition as an expert in community development.
In 1983, she ran for Deputy Chief of the Cherokee Nation. The campaign was not an easy one. There had never been a woman leader of a Native American tribe. She had many ideas to present and debate, but encountered discouraging opposition from men who refused to talk about anything but the fact that she was a woman. Her campaign days were troubled by death threats, and her tires were slashed. She sought the advice of friends for ways to approach the constant insults, finally settling on a philosophy summed up by the epithet, "Don't ever argue with a fool, because someone walking by and observing you can't tell which one is the fool." In the end, Mankiller had her day: she was elected as first woman Deputy Chief, and over time her wise, strong leadership vindicated her supporters and proved her detractors wrong.
In 1985, Chief Ross Swimmer resigned and left to become the head of the Bureau of Indian Affairs in Washington, D.C. With his resignation Mankiller was obligated to step into his position, becoming the first woman to serve as Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation.
In the historic tribal elections of 1987, Mankiller won the post out-right and brought unprecedented attention to the tribe as a result. "We are a revitalized tribe," said Mankiller, "After every major upheaval, we have been able to gather together as a people and rebuild a community and a government. Individually and collectively, Cherokee people possess an extraordinary ability to face down adversity and continue moving forward. We are able to do that because our culture, though certainly diminished, has sustained us since time immemorial. This Cherokee culture is a well-kept secret."
In 1986, Wilma married long time friend and former director of tribal development, Charlie Soap. Mankiller's love of family and community became a source of strength when again a life threatening illness struck. Recurring kidney problems forced Mankiller to have a kidney transplant, her brother Don Mankiller served as the donor. During her convalescence, she had many long talks with her family, and it was decided that she would run again for Chief in order to complete the many community projects she had begun.
Although poor health forced her to retire from that position in 1995, Wilma Mankiller continues to be a political, cultural, and spiritual leader in her community and throughout the United States. In 1990 Oklahoma State University honored her with the Henry G. Bennett Distinguished Service Award, and in 1998, President Clinton awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor.
She has shown in her typically exuberant way that not only can Native Americans learn a lot from the whites, but that whites can learn from native people. Understanding the interconnectedness of all things, many whites are beginning to understand the value of native wisdom, culture and spirituality. Spirituality is then key to the public and private life of Wilma Mankiller who has indeed become known not only for her community leadership but also for her spiritual presence. A woman rabbi who is the head of a large synagogue in New York commented that Mankiller was a significant spiritual force in the nation.
