The Occupation of Alcatraz: The Native American Rights Movement

'They made many promises, but kept only one. They promised to take our land, and they took it.' – attributed to Red Cloud, leader of the Oglala Lakota.

It is arguably common knowledge that English explorers colonised the 'New World', stealing the land from the Native Americans and marking it as their own. This is an accepted injustice for many people. It shouldn't have happened, but it did and there's nothing we can do about it now. Understandably, the Native communities, still very much alive and still very much oppressed, disagree.

To first recount some examples of the continued marginalisation and violence after the initial act of colonisation, what is known as the Trail of Tears, triggered by President Andrew Jackson in 1830, was a consequence of the 'Indian Removal Act', and forced Native communities west of the Mississippi. While presented as a peaceful relocation, it was coercive and forceful, destroying the Native culture, homes, and lives; and occurred conveniently shortly after the 1829 discovery of gold on Cherokee land. Despite the Cherokee communities making huge efforts to assimilate into Euro-American culture, including implementing market economics and a written constitution, the act was passed and resulted in the forced migration of around 100,000 Native Americans, during which it is estimated as many as 15,000 people died on the long journey they were forced to take by foot.

Such injustice continued later into the century with the implementation of the 1887 Dawes Act. This was aimed at breaking up tribal governments and communities by allotting and selling Native land, forcing residents to either leave or assimilate into the incoming white settler population. Further, a recent federal investigation found that at least 973 Native children were killed while in the care of Federal Indian boarding schools. These schools were part of a two-century long plan to assimilate Native communities through forced abduction and re-education, which included beating the children, shaving of their hair, giving them new names, preventing them from speaking their languages, and starving them.

However, indigenous communities have never gone down without a fight, and the 1969 occupation of Alcatraz is the perfect example of this indomitable spirit. Resistance movements rose around the same time in America as the Black Civil rights groups of the 1950s, reaching its peak in the 1960s. The mid-twentieth century disparity between Native and settler communities has already been aptly articulated by Richard De Luca:

"At 2:00 AM (PST) on the morning of Thursday, November 20, 1969, Apollo 12 astronauts Pete Conrad and Alan Bean were busy inside their craft Intrepid […] they had just completed man's second exploration of the lunar surface […]. At the same moment, on the waterfront in Sausalito, a group of about ninety American Indian, most of them students of California Colleges, readied themselves for a five-mile boat trip across San Francisco Bay to Alcatraz Island."

Figure 1. Richard Oakes. Dina Gilio-Whitaker, 'Richard Oakes led Native Americans to occupy Alcatraz in 1969 - his tragic story is finally being told', Los Angeles Times, 10 January 2019 <Richard Oakes led Native Americans to occupy Alcatraz in 1969 - his tragic story is finally being told-Los Angeles Times>[accessed 14/06/26].

The occupation's primary spokesperson, Richard Oakes (Figure 1) has been painted in modern literature as quite the charismatic leader. The protestors claimed the land was theirs by “right of discovery”, cleverly paralleling the colonisation of indigenous land and advocating for policy reform. 'The Rock', as Alcatraz Island was often referred to, had been previously abandoned in 1963 due to structural decay. The occupation took place between 1969 and 1971, and at the highest record number, around four hundred protestors lived on the island, aiming to turn the prison into a cultural centre. However, due to water scarcity, the cutting off of electricity and internal fracturing, the movement’s sustainability was considerably weakened. On the 11^th of June 1970, U.S Marshals arrived to remove remaining protestors. Despite this failure, the occupation of Alcatraz was particularly impressive as it included a rich diversity of Native communities: Cherokee, Ho-Chunk, Mohawk and Lakota, to just name a few. Furthermore, it demonstrated the compassion of the group, as ‘American Indian’ people on the mainland worked to collect food, supplies, clothing and money to send over and aid the cause. The occupation further sparked the creation of further movements, such as the re-establishment of the Reno-Sparks Indian Colony youth Club.

A few years after the occupation, Richard Oakes was assassinated, his killer found not guilty.

Some Native Americans view the event as more symbolic than active in creating change. Nevertheless, this does not necessarily undermine its value as a method of protest. Alcatraz was significant as it is a site of “isolation and incarceration”, reflecting the experience the Native Americans suffered. In Jack D. Forbes’ article 'Alcatraz: Symbol & Reality', he argued "many Indians made the pilgrimage to Alcatraz". I see the usage of the term ‘pilgrimage’ as particularly significant as it holds important cultural and religious connotations, thus reinforcing the symbolic aspect of the occupation by demonstrating the injustice and their continued existence.

The occupation of Alcatraz received huge media attention. Initial coverage was aimed at trivialising the Native's cause, with newspaper headlines such as 'Wacky Indian Raid, Alcatraz, Invaded'. Here, the activists are posed as a forceful aggressor, despite Alcatraz being both abandoned and the Native’s own land being taken by invasion. However, there were also whispers of change. In 1963, Robert Kennedy (Attorney General) stated it was a “tragic irony” that “the first Americans [had] so long been denied a full share of freedom: I believe there are signs of change… the fulfilment of its [America's] identity as the land of the free".

Figure 2. Richard DeLuca, '"We Hold the Rock!": The Indian Attempt to Reclaim Alcatraz Island', California History, 62.1 (1983), pp. 2-22, (p.15)<https://www.jstor.org/stable/25158134> [accessed 15 June 2025].

Today, Native American communities, as well as a litany of other indigenous groups worldwide are fighting for recognition and freedom. In 2013, the Havasupair tribe took a legal battle against the operations of a uranium mine on their land, and in 2018 petitions circled calling for the return of ancestral Ponca tribe land. The occupation of Alcatraz is a mere drop in the ocean of Native American activism and bravery, as they sacrifice their individual freedom and lives to acknowledge histories’ wrongs and the preservation of their human rights in the present, all for the hope of land reclamation in the future.

Bibliography

Primary sources:

DeLuca, Richard, '“We Hold the Rock!”: The Indian Attempt to Reclaim Alcatraz Island', California History, 62.1 (1983), pp.2-22 <https://www.jstor.org/stable/25158134> [accessed 15 June 2026].

Secondary sources:

Bauer JR, Willaim J., 'Reclaiming Alcatraz: The Legacies and Continuities of the American Indian Occupation of Alcatraz Island, 1971-2021', California History, 98.3 (2021) <https://www.jstor.org/stable/48750541> [accessed 19 June 2026].

Brown, Mathew, 'Investigation finds at least 973 Native school children died in US government boarding schools', AP U.S. News, 31 July 2024 <Investigation finds at least 973 Native American children died in US government boarding schools | AP News> [accessed 19 July 2026].

Connolla, ‘Early History of Native American Oppression’, Online Museum of Modern US History, 19 December 2019 <Early History of Native American Oppression (1877 – 1900) – Modern US History> [accessed 14 June 2026].

Cooper, Lauren, 'Native American Activism: 1960s to Present', Zinn Education Project, n.d. <Native American Activism: 1960s to Present - Zinn Education Project> [accessed 17 June 2026].

Forbes, Jack D., 'Alcatraz: Symbol & Reality', California History, 62.1 (1983), pp. 24-25, doi:10.2307/25158135.

Gilio-Whitaker, Dina, 'Richard Oakes led Native Americans to occupy Alcatraz in 1969 - his tragic story is finally being told', Los Angeles Times, 10 January 2019 <Richard Oakes led Native Americans to occupy Alcatraz in 1969 — his tragic story is finally being told - Los Angeles Times> [accessed 14 June 26].

Milner, David, ‘‘By Right of Discovery’: The Media and the Native American Occupation of Alcatraz 1969-1971’, Australasian Journal of American Studies, 33.1 (2014), pp.73-86.

Pauls, Elizabeth Prine, 'Trail of Tears', Britannica, 27 April 2026 <Trail of Tears | Facts, Map, & Significance | Britannica> [accessed 10 June 2026].

'The Occupation of Alcatraz by Native Activists', Native Americans: Biographies of important Native Americans, 6 July 2025 <The Occupation of Alcatraz by Native Activists> [accessed 10 June 26].