Extremely Eloquent, Therefore Extremely Dangerous
John Trudell: In His Own Words
“We want to return Indian education to Indian people. We do not want the usual government solutions of threats to close down the school. We want improvement within the school, or the building of Indian-controlled schools in the Indian communities. We will not be stayed by intimidation. We are tired of waiting and we will wait no more.” ~
SOURCE: Akwesasne Notes. p. 16.
“Police, armed with shotguns, guarded the back door of the BIA office, while some men were placed on the roof of the building. Sheriff’s deputies were marshalled at the courthouse. But police withdrew at the request of George Scott, a member of the task force and deputy director of the BIA’s office of education in Washington. There was no need to call the police. Between our group and George Scott’s group, the situation was completely under control. We were in our building, doing Indian work.” ~
SOURCE: Akwesasne Notes. P.9
“We are going to keep plugging away until we have freedom and control of our lives. We are looking for an honorable government. We would be happy if all of a sudden the American way would turn into a way of honor.”
“The Great White Father? That Dude’s dead.” ~
SOURCE: Akwesasne Notes, p. 6
“When the Europeans came to this country, they claimed it and ripped off the natural resources. Why is it alright when they do it and a crime when we do it?”
“Take the newsmen to all the poverty pockets throughout the country. Conditions are the same in poor areas and ghettos.”
“Alcatraz was 19 months of temporariness. Indians are used to temporariness. We are always permanently nowhere and temporarily somewhere.”
“The Indians do not want money but the right to determine the destiny of their community. It doesn’t matter what the sum of money is because these programs don’t aid the Indians. Half the money gets lost in red tape anyway.”
“This area suited our purpose. It’s a good land base and it’s been totally abandoned. We don’t want to kick anyone out of their house just like we don’t like to be kicked out of ours. The houses look pretty sound. It’s some of the best housing we have ever had. Also, it’s not any more of a hardship to haul food and water up here than it was on Alcatraz.” ~
SOURCE: The Martlet, vol. 11, no. 01
“We’re not going to quit. We’ve been moved twice and we’re tired, but we are going to keep on plugging because we want someone to listen to us.”
“We’re talking about our right to live, our right to be people and this is how they respond. It shows that their attitude toward us has not changed.”
“They’ve responded with shows of force. They’re trying to intimidate us, but we’re not going to be intimidated. They’ve always dealt with us with a show of force. We don’t want to get hurt but we’re not afraid of that. We’ll be back. America hasn’t heard the last of its Indians and that’s definite until some active, positive steps have been taken to relieve the conditions we’re talking about.”
“We need the copper to support ourselves. We claimed the island as our own, just as they claimed this country and we had a right to the resources.” – On copper being removed from Alcatraz and three individuals being charged with stealing.
SOURCE: New York Times
“This is some day when they arrest Indians for trespassing,” ~
SOURCE: San Bernardino Sun. p. 5
“The harder they are on us, the more determined we will become. We will stay forever, or until somebody throws us off.” ~
“The first guarantee they made when the negotiations started was that nobody on the island would be arrested or taken off the island.”
“Browning wanted to settle the issue some way. He told us they wanted to give us the island and still look good. But word one was that no one – no one – would be arrested or taken off the island while the negotiations were underway.” ~
SOURCE: Akwesasne Notes, Vol. 3 No. 5. P.4
“We’re not the stoic red man any more who can be counted on to sit and turn the other cheek.” ~
“This is good land. This would be a nice place to put a little cultural center and a free Indian University.”
“This is totally senseless. They have good housing here, good land. Yet there are Indians in this country who have no place to live.”
“I don’t see us peacefully walking away from here. We’re not afraid. When you get down to it, what can they do to us that they haven’t already done in the past.” ~
“We haven’t got the other piece of land now, and we needed a place to live, a place to go.” ~
SOURCE: San Bernardino Sun p. 4
“This is good land. This would be a nice place to put a little cultural center and a free Indian university.” – re: East Bay Missile Base occupation
“This is totally senseless. They have good housing here. Good land. Yet there are Indians in this country who have no place to live.” re: East Bay Missile Base occupation
“They broke their agreement with us. We decided that if the government did take back Alcatraz from us we weren’t going to go quietly. We’re not quitters.”
“I don’t see us peacefully walking away from here. We’re not afraid. When you get down to it, what can they do to us that they haven’t already done in the past?” ~
SOURCE: The Press Democrat.
“A dozen parks won’t solve the basic issue of why we took Alcatraz in the first place.”~
SOURCE: The Times Standard (Eureka, CA)
“But we’re not going to quit. We’ve been moved twice and we’re tired, but we are going to keep on plugging because we want someone to listen to us.”
“We’re talking about our right to live, our right to be people and this is how they respond. It shows that their attitude toward us has not changed.”
“We’re not statistics and not that passive Indian who keeps turning the other cheek. We’re not going to be the forgotten Americans any longer, either. We’re going to be Indian-Americans and we’re going to let the whole world know that we’re going to be people.”
“They’ve responded with shows of force. They’re trying to intimidate us, but we’re not going to be intimidated. They’ve always dealt with us with a show of force. We don’t want to get hurt but we’re not afraid of that. We’ll be back. America hasn’t heard the last of its Indians and that’s definite until some active, positive steps have been taken to relieve the conditions we’re talking about.”
“We claimed the island as our own, just as they claimed this country.” ~
SOURCE: Akwesasne Notes, Vol. 3 No. 5. P.7
“It has become home. We have lived there and survived, nobody can deny that. If they want to give us the deed fine, but now we will take the initiative to perhaps challenge the legal system or the lack of education that faces the American Indian. You can be certain we will not leave Alcatraz. We have come too far and through too much to start giving land back to the white man.”
“Alcatraz, the idea, is deeply set. And I have found that the idea is not here alone, not on the island, but wherever there is any Indian in this country.”
“We will not leave.” ~
SOURCE: Akwesasne Notes, p10
“It’s not too hard. If you have lived on a reservation you have experienced these same hardships.” – John Trudell’s response regarding harsh living conditions on Alcatraz Island. ~
SOURCE: Akwesasne Notes, Vol. 3 No. 1, p. 16
“A national park is another part of the American fantasy. America doesn’t need another Disneyland. While tourists are looking at Indian statues, our people will still be living on reservations with inadequate food and clothing, poor educations and in poor health.” – The Department of the Interior’s park plan for the island.
“We’re just as determined as we were in the beginning, only we’re wiser now. We’ve got experience.” ~
SOURCE: The Central New Jersey Home News
“Alcatraz is to the Indians what the Montgomery bus boycott was to the blacks in their struggle for liberation.” ~
SOURCE: Santa Cruz Sentinel. Vol. 115, No. 230.
“For us on the island, and for Indians everywhere, it is a symbol of the rekindled hope that some day the just claims and rightful dignity of the American Indians will be recognized by our fellow citizens.”
“It was in peaceful search of this recognition that we came to the island last November. As long as the light glows, the search will go on.” ~
SOURCE: Raudebaugh, Charles. Akwesasne Notes Vol. 2 No. 5., P. 23.
“And now we require only the return of our water. We will make do without electricity, but we must have water.” – On the US Government cutting of electricity to the island and removal of water barge for “repairs.”
“If something happens and we need water, we’re literally dead.” ~
SOURCE: https://www.nytimes.com/1970/08/16/archives/alcatraz-indians-short-of-water-declare-the-island-off-limits-to.html
“We asked the ferry people to stop this, we asked the Coast Guard to take action, and finally we said we wanted it stopped, and yet it continued. With one 42-cent arrow, we stopped it.” – Trudell on the firing of an arrow at a ferry boat.
“We will not bow down or cater.”
“We don’t want another Wounded Knee, My Lai or Kent State here, but we will not back down when we’re right. We’ve had to take our lumps before” ~
SOURCE: Press Telegram
“We will no longer be museum pieces, tourist attractions and politicians’ playthings. There will be no park on this island because it changes the whole meaning of what we are here for. Our answer at this time, and at any other time, is an emphatic no.”
“Government officials were doing what they have done in the past, which is to do our thinking for us and run things their way.”
“Our dead never die.”
“We feel it is our obligation as Indians of All Tribes, Inc., and to the Indian people to ask the government to submit a counterproposal to the proposal we gave them. We will give them until May 11th to do this. We will negotiate on money and the time and the day that they will turn over the deed to this island. That is all that is negotiable.” ~
SOURCE: Desert Sun, p. 3. Volume 43, Number 210
“We on Alcatraz are asking for possession of that island and we’re not going to settle for less, because we’re right. Indians are not buying the talk that America has an Indian problem. The problem is a white-oriented society geared to meet white needs.” ~
SOURCE: Daily Independent Journal (San Rafael, California)
“It is the government’s aim to break down our families and break down our resistance. A lot of reservation Indian children spend their young lives separated from their parents in boarding schools. They separate children from parents with schools that do not teach. We have seen them trying to turn us into white people called Indians, stereotype us, suppress the history of our heritage and culture in the books. All this has produced a militancy. A non-violent militancy. But we’re not going to be put down by the Bureau of Indian Affairs anymore.” – John Trudell
SOURCE: Akwesasne Notes, May 1970.
“A center for Native American studies aimed at imparting skills and knowledge to improve the lives and spirits of all Indians. A spiritual center, which would practice ancient tribal religious and healing ceremonies. A center of ecology, to train young people to restore lands and waters to their natural state. A training school. A museum that would depict Indian food and cultural contributions and 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.” – John Trudell on the complex proposed by the Indians. ~
SOURCE: https://www.nytimes.com/1970/04/09/archives/alcatraz-indians-reject-park-plan-insist-government-consider-their.html
“We want the Island for Indian purposes. We haven’t got a single thing left in this country that the white society hasn’t trampled somehow. They’ve taken our land, our fishing rights, they’ve polluted our air, our water, they’ve swept us under their dirty little rugs. But we’ve got Alcatraz, and they’re not getting it back.”
“We’re gaining some, but [Secretary of the Interior Walter J.] Hickle still says he won’t negotiate with us until we leave the island, and that’s absurd. Because if we leave the island, we lose all our bargaining power.”
Continue reading ““Valley College Speaker Seeks Aid for Indians” [excerpts]| January 8, 1970″