The Alcatraz Proclemation

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 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.

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.

- Indians of All Nations, The Alcatraz Proclamation to the Great White Father and His People, 1969

(*picture*)The largest group of Indian prisoners to be confined on Alcatraz were nineteen Hopi "hostiles." Their crimes may have been the most unique in the 140-year history of incarceration on the Rock, they wouldn't farm as the government instructed them to, and they opposed forced education in government boarding schools. Both "offenses" were part of widespread resistance to U.S. policies designed to erase Hopi language and religion. Contact with the outside world was rare at first, and generally repugnant (theft, murder and enslavement were some results of contact with outsiders) before the uneasy establishment of the "Moqui Indian Agency" in 1870.