By Indians of All Nations
(Including Richard Oakes, a Mohawk, and Grace Thorpe, a Sac and Fox, daughter of all-time Olympic hero Jim Thorpe.)
ALCATRAZ ISLAND, Nov. 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 it known to the world that we have a right to use land for our own benefit.
In a proclamation of Nov. 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, as 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 (24) in glass beads and red cloth, a precedent set by the white man's purchase of a similar island about 300 years ago. We know that $24 in trade goods for these 16 acres is more that 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 in greater than the 47 cents per acre the white men are now paying the California Indians for their lands.
We will give the inhabitants of this island a portion of the land for their own to beheld in trust...by the Bureau of Caucasian Affairs...in perpetuity – for as long as the sun shall rise and the rivers go down to the sea. We will further guide the inhabitants in the proper way of living. We will offer them our religion, our education, our life-ways in order for them to 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 soil 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 exceeded the land base.
10. The population has always been held as prisoners and kept dependent upon others.
Some of the present buildings will be taken to develop an American Indian museum...(which) 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 those Indian captives who were incarcerated for challenging the white authority and those who are imprisoned on reservations.
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 us for as long as the rivers run and the sun shall shine.
We hold the Rock!
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