Trail of Broken Treaties and Wounded Knee II
The two events featured in this section were part of a much larger and longer era, popularly known as “Red Power,” which roughly ran from the Alcatraz takeover in 1969 to the Longest Walk, which culminated in Washington, DC, in 1978. Vine Deloria Jr., while still the executive director of the National Congress of American Indians, is said to have coined the term in a 1966 speech at the organization’s annual meeting.
Deloria, Adams, and many others were part of a new group of young Native activists committed to improving the lot of indigenous peoples on every level and to transforming indigenous/white relations in a manner that reflected the vitality of Native sovereignty, the importance of treaty rights, and the need for more honest and realistic intergovernmental relations.
The selected documents that follow reflect the depth of Adams’s knowledge about Native peoples, social movement dynamics, and democratic theory. His policy ideas and skilled analysis of the benefits, personalities, and cause and effects of these two intense and dramatic events in contemporary Native and American history provide a personal, detailed, unabridged, yet panoramic view of these singular moments in indigenous/white affairs.
Press Release
Ad Hoc Committee for New Indian Politics
Hank Adams, Chairman
PRESS STATEMENT: December 2–5, 1971
A national “ad hoc Committee for New Indian Politics” was established during the week of November 14–20 in Reno, Nevada, to conduct the campaign outlined in the attached release of Survival of American Indians Association, issued Nov. 12–14. The participating active membership of the ad hoc Committee shall remain unnamed or unpublicized until after mid-January 1972.
Political Purpose: The basic purpose of this effort shall be to remove the human needs and aspirations of Indian tribes and Indian people from the workings of the general American political system and structures and to reinstate a system of bilateral relationships between Indian tribes and the federal government—as well as to create a positive basis for bilateral dealings between tribes and state governments.
We seek simply to develop a state of independence for Indian people by July 4, 1976. There’s no need to declare independent states or nations to secure this. There is primary need to restore the fundamental relationship between the American government and Indian people as provided in formulation of the Constitution of the United States—a legal relationship which has steadily deteriorated into a condition of adverse dependency upon the government by Indians and a subjecting of Indian people to near-total non-Indian control. After two centuries of national independence, this Nation can now afford to allow Indian people to return to our own state of independence, and to be fully-equipped with the rights for community self-determination and creative community development. The most meritorious proposals for advancing Indian interests, rights, and welfare have been lost to the power processes of the American political systems. We face increasing demands to totally emerge ourselves—our 200,000 potential voters—into these political processes and systems merely to secure position to advocate that we be granted hearing for an advocacy of our desires—not to determine outcomes or ultimate results—while we have not yet been allowed to be involved with our own lives by the fundamental standards of consent and control, or consent to external control.
Platform Proposals: The following are among the interrelated proposals we shall seek support for among the various political presidential candidates and separate political parties and conventions:
1. A national commitment by constitutional amendment, statutory enactments, and executive or administrative implementation, to restore a permanent non-diminishing Native American land base of not less than 105 million acres by July 4, 1976, which lands shall be perpetually non-taxable and which may never again be alienated from Native American or Indian ownership;
2. A national referendum to be held among all tribally-related Indian in the nation, prior to July 1974, to render decision by majority vote whether or not the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) shall be abolished in apparatus and functions by July 4, 1976;
3. A statutory commitment and authorization for a continuing appropriation of not less than $1,000,000,000.00 annually for each of the next twenty-five years—not including service costs or claims settlements payments to Alaskan Natives or other Indian claims payments—for direct federal assistance to reservation Indian tribes, communities, organizations and individuals, including indigenous institutions and service facilities, if BIA is abolished;
4. A commitment that an additional continuing annual appropriation, not less than 15% the amount committed to reservation communities, shall be allocated for direct federal assistance to non-reservation and urban Indians or native people;
5. Establishment of a National Indian Housing & Construction Credit Authority with funding and authorizations to secure and guarantee long-term, low-interest loans and credits in an initial amount of One Billion Dollars, which may be satisfied in interest payments, repayments of principal, or any redemption of bonds issued, from other continuing Indian appropriations (item 3 above), with a directed obligation of providing for the construction of 50,000 new homes* on or adjacent to Indian reservations for Indian families, as well as providing for any necessary electrical utilities, water sources and systems, and sanitation and sewage facilities, as minimal objective within the first five years after establishment of the Authority;
6. Designate a priority and declare a policy of first consideration for funding such community-economic development projects which shall substantially contribute to an objective of creating an average of 15,000 new, permanent jobs or occupations for reservation Indian annually for the next ten years, including projects and economic enterprises which rely upon regional or inter-tribal consolidations of useable natural and economic resources, or community cooperative ventures, and management of harvestable, renewable natural resources;
7. Repeal of federal statutes and nullification of state enactments inconsistent with statehood enabling acts or constitutions of states which disclaim jurisdiction and taxing authority over Indian lands and people in order that civil and criminal jurisdictions shall be restored to the autonomous tribes, together with total Indian immunity to state taxing authority;
8. A statutory enactment providing that complete taxing authority upon properties, use of properties and incomes derived therefrom, and business activities within the exterior boundaries of Indian reservations, as well as commerce between reservations, shall be vested with the Indian tribal governments or their appropriate subdivisions;
9. Granting consent from the United States to the several states to recognize Indian tribes as being governmental units and public bodies having positive power to govern their territory, rights agencies, institutions, and people and authorizing the States to grant positive standing within the structures of State governments, with additional authorization to exercise concurrent governing jurisdiction in any governmental measure consented to by the particular tribe or Indian people affected, whether by means of compact or contractual agreements and arrangements;
10. Recognize by statute that the internal sovereign authority of Indian tribes extends territorially beyond reservation boundaries to include any Indian rights, resources, or activities, and the management or control thereof, when such rights and resources and related activities have been secured to Indian tribes and Indian persons in particular or general off-reservation areas by treaty provisions;
11. By statute, enable individually-owned Indian lands to be placed in trust with the tribal governments particularly related to them, excepting non-reservation lands, if by majority consent a tribe approves a transfer of trust from the United States, and if a new tribal constitution is adopted by any such tribe to provide for management of such trust responsibilities over lands and resources—at any time after July 4, 1976;
12. Provide a federal interest-payment bonus to Indian tribes or federally chartered Indian corporations, who, have limiting investment opportunities within their own reservations or communities while having an availability of tribal or corporation investment funds, invest in economic or job development projects or new industries on other Indian reservations or in communities of other tribes, where investment capital is lacking or non-existent, but where business development and investment-return opportunities are viable and realistic—with such bonuses to be of sufficient amounts, either in relation to the principal investment or the duration of schedules of repayments or returns, to encourage such inter-tribal investments;
13. Provide for a schedule or scale of voluntarily-declared “excess income” for any publicly or privately employed Indian, or married Indian couple, who may divert such “excess income” for hiring or employment of other Indian persons working under tribal or community sponsored, controlled or directed projects or labor, in return for an appropriate schedule of federal income tax credits and exemptions. (Example: A single Indian who might declare income more than $8,000.00 as being “excess,” might receive a total tax exemption if his “excess income” diverted toward the employment of other Indians exceeded 25% of his income ceiling.);
14. The federal district courts, upon petition of an Indian tribe making claim of substantial injury to, or interference in the equitable exercise of, any rights, governing authority, or its utilization or preservation of resources, secured by treaty, should be directed by federal statute to grant immediate enjoinder or injunctive relief to the complaining tribe or tribal government against any non-Indian party, including state governments, agencies, or political subdivisions, alleged to be engaged in such injurious or interfering actions, until such time as the district court may be satisfied that a treaty violation is not being committed, or otherwise satisfied that the Indians’ interests and rights, in equity and in law, are preserved and protected and secure from jeopardy;
15. Authorize selected Indian communities to develop demonstration, experimental, or alternative institutions in the fields of education and community health services—such as an 10-year accelerated elementary and secondary school system with accreditation for college entry or alternate occupational or job training—where assumption of control of existing facilities may be feasible, for developing qualified institutional models in such fields by July 4, 1976.
An Overview: The foregoing is not our complete political platform proposal, but reflects current areas of general agreement and advocacy among the ad hoc Committee. Clearly, we seek amnesty from the prisons of despair and release from the bars against a promising and productive future—a prison constructed by unresponsive politics and indifferent politicians of power. Our campaign is predicated upon a belief that a majority of conscientious Americans are appalled by the effects of the politically powerful constantly preying upon a politically powerless people—the first people of this country—and may now support our bid for freedom. If true, a first generation of Indian people may experience security in their lives—for the first time in the life of this Nation.
Press Release
1972
Survival of American Indians Association
Trail of Broken Treaties
Today a number of Indian people embark upon a journey across the American nation to its capitol in Washington, DC. Three separate caravans of Indian people, small in numbers, begin our journey today from Seattle, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. Possibly, a fourth caravan shall originate from Portland, Oregon. Officially, our route shall follow and be known as “The Trail of Broken Treaties.” An itinerary map denoting our pace of travel is provided herewith.
As many names could have been given to our present campaign as there are reasons for our going. Yet the reasons are too numerous to recite. To seek common understanding may seem trite—but to establish a meaning for the unbroken chronicle of broken treaties, and unbreached infamy visited upon Indian people by unquestioning majorities of White America, taxes all abilities for rational understanding, even a capacity for imagination, beyond any realm of possible belief. Therefore, we begin our respective journeys with a question, posed by us, of, “Why, America?” and propose to return with answers of what must be done by ourselves and all others, and how the basic question might be resolved, firmly and finally, in order that our children might be ensured their future by our peoples’ being, for the first time in 200 years, made secure.
Our numbers shall increase as we cross the country, and be multiplied as we carry the message of our accomplishment—or unjustified failure—upon our retraced route of return. We rely immediately upon the news and information media of this nation to announce our plans and progress as we proceed across our native soil. We acknowledge a paradox wherein we have already secured the support of the leadership in Christian churches at a national level and in statewide church organizations, while not knowing the level of support among local communities and the respective denominational laities—the paradox lying with the comparative situation wherein the officialdom of various Indian Tribes are being encouraged to denounce us and reject our undertaking by influential non-Indians, despite the evidence and expressed support of numerous Indian community members, not having personal positions or ambitions to sustain with requisite non-Indian approval or acceptance, reflective of the sole standards of accountability—or no accountability—imposed upon tribal officials and Indian governing structures.
Final positions on issues to be presented in Washington, DC, and the strategy of specific plans there, shall be decided during a five-day meeting in St. Paul, Minnesota, where the multiple caravans will converge on October 22, 1972; subject to revision among the total group of Indian people arriving in the National Capitol on November 1st. We are requesting Indian people to arrange to join us on either of those two dates, if for overriding reasons they are otherwise unable to travel with us now. Whatever the final number of Indian persons arriving and participating there, we fully expect that it shall be the largest number of Indian people ever participating in an endeavor of this kind and magnitude.
We are determined that our current effort shall be as disciplined as it is demanding, while being neither oppressively marshaled nor obtrusively militant. It shall be carefully controlled, while remaining subject to the best influences of creativity in action and thought generated among the Indian participants and our non-Indian support. We believe there can be a New Majority—a majority that is not content merely to confirm itself by superiority in numbers, but which by conscience is committed toward prevailing by ceasing wrongs and doing right. The Constitution of the United States and 371 treaties with Indian tribes would seem to command this of all—not just majorities—a simple commitment, not to changeable constitutions and ignorable treaties, but to universal and eternal human values. So we deport, and ask, “Why America?”
Memorandum
April 19, 1973
Survival of American Indians Association
To the US House of Representatives Subcommittee on Indian Affairs: The Honorable Lloyd Meeds, Chairman
Re: Summary of causes for events at Wounded Knee and on the Trail of Broken Treaties Caravan; Suggested actions and attitudes for preventing recurrence of incidents.
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee:
I appreciate the opportunity to clarify my viewpoints regarding the events at Wounded Knee and at the BIA Building last November, and to offer suggestions relating to alternative courses for securing change. Wounded Knee is related to and partly result of the federal failure and refusal to understand and appreciate the purposes and intents of the Trail of Broken Treaties caravan last fall. Before destruction and damage to the BIA Building, hundreds of Indian people rebuked by Administration actions which fully demonstrated that the caring and conscience of the American Nation has difficulty in rising above the level of an adversary relationship to Indian people—notwithstanding the constitutional and moral standards which would appear to dictate a better form of relationship. The mental mood and state of mind which prevails at Wounded Knee is one which seeks to restore legitimacy to relationships between the Indian and American nations—and, if it is to be strictly adversary, to reduce (or elevate) that relationship to its most “perfect” form; namely, a state, or acts, of war. If there shall be killing by Indians at Wounded Knee, the act or acts shall, within the peoples’ minds, be in the nature of war. It would be a clear, if final, expression of “sovereignty” by a people who have been subjugated and injured by “beneficial” and unenforced laws -- a people denied their natural sovereignty and control at all levels of individual, community, and national life.
My relationship to the Trail of Broken Treaties Caravan, and more recently to Wounded Knee, has not been as a “leader,” or organizer, or decision maker, but peripherally and on invitation as a resource or researcher, and as a concerned Indian person—interested in helping to achieve the central objectives sought through these activities, or shared is the attitudes and aims of Indian people generally across this nation.
To state that I am not, nor have never been, a member of the American Indian Movement (AIM) is not a statement—so some reporters have apparently construed—that AIM may not, or fails to, be a vital and valued force among Indian people in communities around the country today. It is not an attribution of blame to AIM for destruction of the BIA Building.
The documents I submitted for hearing record and transcript clearly indicate that Messrs. Harrison Loesch, former Assistant Interior Secretary for Public Land Management, and John O. Crowe, former deputy Commissioner of Indian Affairs, were principally responsible for the decisions which resulted in the damage to the BIA Building—not so much by chance or misjudgment, but by an intended self-rewarding design. The information that I prevented Indian security forces from interfering with Park Police Sgt. Ralph Smith in informing his superiors by radio that a decision had been “made to take over the BIA building”—more than an hour before Indians left St. Stephens Church to go to the BIA the morning of November 2—again was not a casting of blame upon AIM, but a further indication that Interior officials refused to respond appropriately to the situation. The Indian security men had simply responded to my instruction that “we came to Washington to get officials to assume their responsibilities and duties, so we should not interfere with the performance of this.”
Most Indian persons within the BIA Building did not participate in any deliberate acts of destruction—although the first damage occurred in efforts to construct an effective defense against threatened police actions or attacks. The major levels of deliberate destruction came as if incidental to an unstated decision that, if the BIA Building should be valued by the government more than Indian people were valued, then the United States should not secure any victory or value by attempting another defeat of Indian people through violent and forcible eviction. The initial removal of artwork and handcrafts from the BIA Building were undertaken for the protection of these items from damage or destruction.
Most Indian people within the building did not approve, favor or participate in deliberate destruction of the facility—and are no more responsible for the damages done there than are members of this congressional committee—but were not possessed of the power or disposition to prevent it. A number of older women favored burning the building in order that the public not see the extensive damage “and think this is how we keep house.”
(In personal involvement, I informed the White House and other officials that damages to the building were occurring only with each repeated threat of police action. I suggested the framework for a negotiated settlement. The government waited, however, until after the massive destruction of November 6, to respond affirmatively to suggestions for protecting the people and preserving the building. By that time, I could cease to care for the building and only continue to care for the Indian people within it. Then, I did stand ready to fight beside the others in any defense made. When a decision was announced for burning of the building at midnight, I urged that instead the action be initiated immediately (between 6 and 7 p.m.) Or delayed to the following (election) morning—in order that heavy motor vehicle traffic could be utilized to delay police and firefighting actions long enough to allow all people in the building to totally abandon it and move away to avoid direct confrontations or violent fights with police forces. Leading members of the AIM argued against the immediate action and forced the delay. The agreement of the White House to meet with TBT representatives to negotiate an evacuation altered the situation later the same evening, and I was requested to become principle negotiator for the Trail of Broken Treaties Caravan with the White House.
The White House negotiations did not follow a form of presenting non-negotiable demands, but rather one of attempting to establish processes by which legitimate issues could be dealt with and whereby there could be effectual compliance with the Order of the Circuit Court of Appeals which had prevented a police attack on November 6. Since the Circuit Court had directed the federal government to assume a financial obligation for resolving the situation, TBT argued that the obligation might take the form of transportation assistance for returning to the respective home communities. The Circuit Court introduced a grant of amnesty to Indian persons leaving the BIA Building by November 8th, so TBT argued that the White House could reasonably maintain a posture against prosecutions.
The Journey to Wounded Knee:
The hostile reaction to the Trail of Broken Treaties following the departure from Washington, DC, directed the eventual routing toward Wounded Knee. TBT participants dispersed toward their homes, while an opposition to them coalesced behind a demand for their punishment in any form possible. Canned editorials swept across the country to denounce “the harm done to the Indian cause” in newspapers which had never found the space to mention an “Indian cause” or note an Indian need upon their pages before; failing even then to devote the matter an original thought.
Under the direction of former Congressman Wayne Aspinall, this Committee demanded that any public official who had acted decently or with humane feeling during the first eight days of November come before it to apologize for their decency and considerate actions. On appearance, the highest officials explained that apologies were not required—since, in fact, they had not been decent at all, but rather deceitful and dishonest once again with the easily-duped American Indian people. The promises and commitments which had been made with the rebellious group, without hesitation they ensured, would be transformed into effective forms of future denial and punishment. Even the scheduled “responses” to the issues raised and proposals presented by the TBT would assuredly not be appreciated by the “rebels.”
(The following week, Rep. Aspinall would meet with the sophisticated, 27-year-old Central Arizona Project Association in Phoenix, Arizona, to urge that Indian rights and demands for CAP water usage priorities be resisted aggressively. News reports of Interior Secretary Rogers C.B. Morton’s appearance in Phoenix the next day carried the information and quotes: “We hope to give Arizona this project as a present for Christmas”; ‘The Fort McDowell Indian reservation, northeast of Scottsdale is in a special situation which must be rewarded, because it would be inundated by the Ores Dam water at the confluence of the Salt and Verde rivers. The CAP aqueduct also crosses near there’; Secretary Morton noted that this would constitute a ‘major problem,’ with a remedy, “Obviously, a new reservation must be found for them,” he said.)
The punitive design of departmental officials developed into an Administration-wide attack against the Indian destructionists, but struck out haphazardly to victimize Indian people, tribes and organizations, who had never destroyed anything. “AIMs” and “urbans” simply replaced the words ‘Indian people’ or Indians in many bureaucrats’ vocabularies and in such newsprint, both in a deliberate attempt to polarize the Indian community and to degrade against anything disagreeable or any dissent within it.
Federal funds were withdrawn from AIM-related activities—and from activities and Indian people mistakenly believed to be related to or controlled by AIM-related persons. Indian persons, such as Clyde Bellecourt, who had worked as hard as anyone to negotiate TBT’s departure from the BIA building in November, and who had scrupulously informed audiences in advance and in addresses about his fourteen and one-half years in penal institutions in public forums for several years, had “their criminal backgrounds” ‘revealed’ in copyrighted news stories and media which suggested an impossibility of social and personal rehabilitation for any Indians, if not suggesting extreme punishment merely for having such a record—or alien deportation with dispatch. The financing and funding sources of the American Indian Movement (AIM) and other Indian organizations were repeatedly distorted by columnists or erroneously commingled in widely-distributed news reports to mislead the public and to establish a force to deny positive governmental actions.
Local police agencies and private citizens in numerous parts of the country joined in the attack with the encouragement of public officials and an assumption that Indian people and Indian rights had again become vulnerable, unprotected targets. In the Washington State Legislature, for example, persons associated with group vigilante actions against treaty Indian fishermen spoke openly of filling the rivers with Indian blood, if the State should act responsibly to recognize tribal fishing rights and to join in programs for rational management of shared fishery resources. US Army personnel from Fort Lewis joined the Washington Department of Game’s “Indian Riot Squad,” which has no functions or purpose for existence other than to act with its unpaid volunteers against Indian people as a race possessed of “intolerable” special rights. Additionally, the 540th Aviation Unit of the Washington National Guard anticipated the future, according to Captain Chris Lane, with mock combat training and war games against a Nisqually Indian community—under the direction of a Commanding Officer named Sullivan, who demanded “realism” to the point of providing details of the geographic landscape and of designating the names of Indians (actually living there) who should be “killed” in the mock exercise.
In California, the slayer of Mohawk Indian philosopher and fighter Richard Oakes, who had provided leadership and courage in the initial day of the Alcatraz occupation and in more difficult, yet more compellingly legitimate, pursuits of claims for California Indians, went to trial. The principal witness for the defense testified that the defendant had bragged about the murder with the statement that “It’s open season on coons and Indians”; the jury was persuaded by the sentiment, and the murderer was quickly acquitted.
In Nebraska at Scottsbluff, as in numerous other small towns of the West and mid-West, police officers became abusive of Indians resident to and passing through the area, acting without any lodged complaints or any apparent reasons to evict Indians and Chicanos from their lodgings and to order their movement out-of-town. National news media ignored that confrontation and the consequent judicial prosecution of the Indians’ and Chicanos’ complaint, which resulted in the issuance of one of the most broad and significant retraining orders for protection of civil rights ever issued by a federal court outside of the South. The validity of the Native American grievances were given credence by the court order—and admitted by the State, county and city officials and police agencies, which had been restrained from violating civil rights in a variety of respects, and who concluded the action by entering a conciliation agreement promising corrective action and conscientious application of the communities’ laws in the future. Remaining unchanged in Nebraska, however, was the “Indian bounty law” for Thurston County, which converts the arrest and jailing of Indians into a lucrative business for county jail administration, when budgets or costs advance beyond a certain level and a special state subsidy automatically becomes available on a per Indian head basis.
The national news media rejoined the “Indian struggle” at Custer, South Dakota, where the legal process surrounding the killing and killer of Wesley Bad Heart Bull had scarcely received press notice, but where the threatened armed confrontation between Indians and non-Indians, the burning of public and private buildings, and arrest actions or resistance carried Indian people back into a national media spotlight. Coverage was still available for concurrent or continuing confrontation politics in Rapid City, highlighted by the “liberation” of several downtown bars or taverns where local white citizens gather to reinforce their longstanding hatreds and racial prejudices against Indians.
Meanwhile, the nation remained oblivious to threatened armed resistance by Indian encampments in Western Washington to mercenary police oppression and attacks against Indian fishermen. (Arms were set aside and the encampments dissolved after Governor Daniel J. Evans established a moratorium against arrests and threatened killing of Indians by the Washington Game Department. This came after numerous appeals from many sources to his office; and after a declaration by the largest tribes and inter-tribal organizations in the State that state agencies could no longer attack the fishermen of any particular river without having Indians from all the Tribes joining in whatever necessary defense.) Also ignored, without special concern to the federal government, a local federal judge retaliated against Indian actions by declaring that the Puyallup Indian Reservation and that tribe’s rights cease to exist; and state revenue and police agents increased activities of seizing and confiscating hundreds of thousands of dollars in Indian properties of Indian businesses at approximately a dozen different reservations.
Of special concern and a cause for increasing anger among Indian people in a number of States were the incidents in which Indians died or were killed by non-Indians—while local authorities were generally inclined to treat the matters as minor offenses; while inquest juries were reluctant to view acts against Indians as being crimes at all. At the same time, bails set for Indians charged with offenses reflected a first form of punishment by prosecutors and courts, being set at inordinately high levels no matter what the crime or circumstances related to alleged commission, and demonstrating great disparity in attitude and treatment accorded other citizens. In Billings, Montana, two dead Indian victims were tested for alcoholic levels in their blood streams, while the non-Indians responsible for their deaths were given no such tests—although they admitted in the two separate cases taken to inquests, where they were cleared from charges, that they had been drinking prior to their actions which resulted in Indian deaths. On two successive days in February, young Indian men were shot by Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) policemen on the Fort Hall Indian Reservation—where incidents of suicides among adolescents and young adults has been epidemic in the past decade, while the tribal government has only shown superficial concern. The BIA police killed the first Indian; but failed to kill the second, probably only because the young man’s father come out of his house with a rifle and ordered the police to stop shooting after they had pumped six shots into his son. The Indian father was arrested for armed assault for his interference—and the BIA Agency and Tribal Council entered a resolution of request for higher-powered weapons so they would not need to use so many shots “to bring these Indians down,” or to kill them.
The Indian people arrived at Wounded Knee with an attitude and determination that, if America would continue to allow its local non-Indian communities to kill Indians without anyone noticing or with impunity, then America could no longer hide its lack of human regard for Indian people, but would have to kill its next Indians before the eyes, and with the attention, of the entire world.
The Police State at Pine Ridge
One fact which has received virtually no attention is that the United States had already dispatched 100 US Marshals to the small town of Pine Ridge on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation for around-the-clock duty a full two weeks before numbers of the Oglala Sioux Tribe invited AIM and other Indian people to, and joined in the occupation of, Wounded Knee. The federal marshals had already occupied Pine Ridge—taking over the Indian Agency building, school cafeteria facilities, and some local school dormitory space.
Wide-spread complaints of civil rights violations and abuses of police and governing authority on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation had been voiced and were mounting steadily among the Oglala Sioux membership across the reservations since, at least, the previous fall. The BIA had allocated special new funding for hiring of a couple score of special police deputies to work under the auspices of the Agency Superintendent and the tribal president Richard Wilson in early November, additional to local Indian who had volunteered “services” to Wilson, and had maintained the heavy police presence in the subsequent months. Even before the Wounded Knee occupation was declared in the course of a meeting there, federal roadblocks had been set up on the roads leading away from the village, Persons leaving the meeting early found that the small town was already besieged by police forces. When others returned to Wounded Knee with information about the roadblocks, the full occupation was declared, and the trading post and other properties were immediately invaded for securing arms and supplies for defense and for maintaining the occupation and Indian people surrounded there.
Two days before the Wounded Knee occupation began, Russell Means was attacked and beaten, along with a man acting as his legal counsel, by five volunteer “security men” acting under the direction of tribal president Wilson. The assault occurred at a store in Pine Ridge. On November 10, 1972, the tribal president dictated, and the tribal court decreed, both that members of AIM should not be permitted on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation and that Russell Means and other Oglala Sioux Indians would be prohibited from meeting with one another or joining in any assembly or speaking activities on the reservation. These actions were taken prior to Russell Means return to the reservation and his family’s home at Porcupine after the dispersal and departure from Washington, DC, of the Trail of broken Treaties Caravan.
Members of this congressional committee have expressed their support and sympathy for Richard Wilson and his actions, indicating a view that the activities he controls are right, reasonable, rational and responsible. The calling of some Indian people, “gutter rats,” does not suggest the need for the imprisonment stated as much as it appears to call for extermination or execution. When political leaders, public officials, and police powers almost uniformly declare and determine that Russell Means and other Indians have no rights nor place within either the American System or their own Indian society, the “Second Battle of Wounded Knee” evolves as a tragic answer to the question, “Where can they go?”
In fact, the support for Dick Wilson’s ‘natural human reaction’ or ‘reasonable and responsible’ actions become an advocacy for an increase in and compounding of wrongs, violence, and injury to humans and to law, rather than support of their elimination or reduction by responsible actions in government and among the citizenry. The abuses of tribal governing authority and powers at Pine Ridge have not been directed solely at Russell Means and Indian members of AIM, but more generally and harmfully against other members of the Oglala Sioux Tribe—including other tribally elected Indian officials.
Dave Long, the longtime popularly-elected vice president of the Oglala Sioux Tribal Council and Executive Committee, was arbitrarily and, without doubt, unlawfully suspended from his offices by the tribal president in latter November—simply for communicating by letter and in person with other members of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, who did happen to be members of AIM, as well as being residents of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. Mr. Long repeatedly stated publicly that he did not support the AIM, but did support the Twenty-Point Proposal advanced by the TBT Caravan in Washington, DC, and that he would not be denied his rights of discussing or working for implementation of some of its ideas with other members of his community and tribe. (Most tribal councils and inter-tribal organizations in the United State have taken a similar position. The most recent position paper of the National Tribal Chairmans Association, presented to this Committee, drew upon the content of the TBT proposals in formulation of some of the present NTCA positions.) When Dave Long went with Russell Means to the United States Attorney in Rapid City for securing assistance in the protection of his civil liberties and political rights, he was turned away—while the US Government acted to increase the police powers and capabilities upon the reservation for enforcing the deprivation and denials of his rights.
Only if one chooses to completely ignore Dave Long and other elected officials, including reservation District Councilmen, can the actions at Wounded Knee be constructed to be an “illegitimate” or “extortive” challenge against “duly-constituted government and governing authority.” When the representatives of tribal chairman Wilson complain to this committee that the Justice Department has suspended tribal authority “for dealing with the problem at Wounded Knee,” they fail to provide the information that the tribal governing bodies have lacked the official quorum support and requirements for effecting any legal Council or Executive action since mid-February. The actions of the tribal court and judges—jumping into the vacuum of authority to provide interim “government by order and decrees”—does not introduce an element of legality to the activities presently being attributed to “duly-constituted government,” notwithstanding the willingness and enthusiasm of BIA police agents and local volunteers to enforce the interim “authority” and lawless order.
There is broad support among the Oglala Sioux throughout the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation for the Indian people now in Wounded Knee (as well as a strong concurrent support and desire for a peaceful settlement of the present confrontation). That support does not represent a division between opposing majority and minority political groups, but is derived from growing resentment against the transformation of tribal government from an instrument of popular will or of the people into private seats of personal power for few individuals—fully supported by the United States with finance and with the exercise of police power. Each protest prior to Wounded Knee, instead of bringing about improvement or corrective action to command legitimate exercise of governing authority, brought forth more repressive acts and increased the measures of tribal-federal police oppression.
Last summer, for example, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) investigated a civil rights complaint relating to the arrest and jailing of an Indian school teacher, Dorene Bad Heart Bull, by BIA police officers on the Pine Ridge Reservation. They had broken her leg, or bones in one foot, and been brutal in other manners, then placed her in jail without treatment. The FBI concluded that a civil rights violation had probably occurred and could be successfully prosecuted. With as much significance, their report constituted a general indictment against the tribal court system, including practices of police and judges—noting that one judge arbitrarily dismissed all cases against persons arrested by particular police officers; that both judges and police officers demonstrated discriminatory partiality and bias against some Indians and in favor of others in decisions of whether or not to arrest or to prosecute in the matter of various offenses; among other abuses of authority or discretion. Nonetheless, Interior and Justice officials decided not to prosecute in the investigated case for the reason that a prosecution might aggravate the instability and inequities evidenced in the functioning of tribal government and its court and police agencies.
More recently, on April 4th and 5th, a BIA policeman arrested two of four young Indian men who, while untruthfully claiming to be members of AIM, fired into a car being driven or occupied by two non-Indian schoolteachers, from Scenic, South Dakota, and subsequently at a US mail delivery man, with a shotgun and .22 rifles. The two men were taken to the BIA-tribal jail at Pine Ridge. Within hours after their arrest, the two were dismissed from jail and charges by tribal judge Dorothy Richards—sister of one of two men arrested. This contrasted sharply with the handling of other cases in the same time period, when other Indian residents of the reservation were being held without charges, or in some cases being jailed for as long as a week without hearing by the tribal court. The BIA police officer involved in this particular case was angered by its handling, but, because Agency Superintendent Stanley Lyman and BIA Area Director Wyman Babby have consistently condoned such practices, he was left without recourse for processing a complaint. (He has stated his willingness to testify on the matter at an appropriate form of hearing.)
It is not uncommon to hear Oglala Sioux people of all ages beyond childhood speak of the reign of terror which exists, and has existed, on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. The entry of US Marshals into Pine Ridge in mid-February was not viewed as a form of protection, but intensified the fears and feelings of threat. Respected local leaders frequently profess that now they “feel safe only in Wounded Knee” and complain that they can not enter.
Failures to End Confrontation at Wounded Knee:
A number of the Indian people in Wounded Knee, as across the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, were not born as citizens of the United States—and did not become citizens until they received a land allotment under the control of the US Secretary of the Interior, or until a statutory grant of citizenship was extended to all Indians generally in 1924. A good number of others persons in Wounded Knee are American Indians who are but second-generation citizens of the United States. This is an important consideration in understanding the claims and statements being made in Wounded Knee, and among Indian people in others parts of the nation.
The 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie continues to hold as much promises for the lives of Sioux Indian people or more than has been offered by or materialized from an approximate half-century of citizenship in this nation. What has developed into violent confrontation and the potential for greater violence at Wounded Knee evolves largely from the violence directed against the lives of Indian people through failures to enforce or apply existing laws. In much the same manner as the violence of unenforced regulatory, civil, and criminal laws has constructed slums and ghettoes around this country, the persistent and patterned failure to apply or enforce laws for the benefit of Indian people as Indians, or Indian people as citizens, has created and sustained a tormented and tortured existence for Indian communities across this land.
I do not believe that every individual has a right to interpret every law to his own favor, or to be governed only by those laws of one’s liking or choosing. When Russell Means appeared before this Committee, he was not in violation of the 1868 Sioux and United States treaty as some members of the Committee suggested. He had delivered himself up to the authorities of the United States on their charges of “wrong-doing,” although maintaining his innocence against those charges. He was here after being freed on bond.
If the Wounded Knee confrontation concludes peacefully, the Indian people in Wounded Knee have constantly stated their acceptance and expectation of liability for their actions. They have made no demands for “amnesty” (some say because a request for amnesty is an admission of jurisdiction which might legitimately be denied). Rather, they have simply demanded an application and enforcement of the existing law—including any valid treaty law. They have asked that neither the United States nor persons in tribal government be permitted to continue operating, acting, or exercising authority outside the law, or in violation of it. That has been the substance of their demands, and it constituted the particulars of the March 19th and April 1st proposals, which led to the negotiated agreement of April 5th.
There have been protested, however, demands imposed upon Indian people with respect to national treaty law which do not apply as demands upon non-Indian citizens with respect to other laws. Rather than reading the treaties and following its law or provisions, the United States, its agencies and non-Indian citizens, insist that treaty law first be litigated, or otherwise have the life drained from it, before it shall be applied upon the actions of non-Indians or in favor of Indian people. Neither the national nor state governments in their practices regard treaties as existing affirmative law—and Indians are constrained from following these laws as written, most frequently by the exercise of police power against even the most explicit treaty-sanctioned rights. National treaties which apply to all people of this country are reduced, therefore, from supreme law which Indian people might follow, as with other federal or lesser laws, to having the near-singular dimensions of being an uncertain defense which might be invoked after the treaty law has been attacked or denied by the police powers of other people.
“Indian sovereignty” at present is an anomaly or abominable distortion of an existing, legally-accepted fact. The present claims for restoration of Indian sovereignty is simply a call to rid the existing and recognized rights of the abnormalities and deviations which have developed and effectually denied Indian people the autonomous self-government that is integral to the Indian relationship with and to the federal government of the United States. This renewal or respect of Indian sovereignty is necessary, not to roll back the pages of history, but for allowing Indian people again to gain a foothold for having access to a promising future.
In the minds of Wounded Knee, that future is at stake. It can be forfeited at a personal level, if it might be secured for other Indian people, particularly for new and coming generations They have been prepared to die—and to kill defensively—because they desperately want that other Indian people and their own children may live in “more perfect” Indian nations than have previously been possible or permitted by the United States.
It is recognized that a peaceful settlement there can operate toward the same purposes, and contribute more substantially to them—but only if some change, positive in nature and revolutionary in scope, has occurred or become possible outside of Wounded Knee. There will be no peaceful settlement if the people there are convinced that prevailing attitudes deny that possibility or have only become more adverse and hostile.
A peaceful settlement was initially beyond reach because the federal departments refused to admit the existence of the larger problems, injustices and inequalities, prevailing upon the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation and operative beyond the constraints of law in the exercise of tribal governing authority; together with their refusal to treat the Wounded Knee situation as anything other than a police matter and action to be taken against criminals. When the Administration’s attitude altered and began to address the concerns of the Indian people, the initiation of a settlement—immediate, for ending the armed confrontation; long-range, for dealing effectively with the discernible problems and expressed concerns—because possible and desired, and was provided for in the April 5th Agreement.
Inasmuch as ultimately it did not constitute a settlement, it perhaps does not matter much who broke or abandoned the April 5th Agreement. For the sake of future events which I will address, I should briefly discuss my own understanding of it. The substance of the agreement was formulated in verbal discussions in the DMZ teepee on March 31st, with federal representatives inviting a written proposal of provisions, which was prepared and presented on April 1st. Agreement was reached on most of the ten points on that date, and general agreement followed on remaining points the following day. On April 3rd, only specifics relating to a series of White House-level meetings with traditional Sioux headmen and chiefs regarding the operation of treaty commission—besides the precise language of a final agreement—remained unsettled. On that date, an immediate White House meeting was proposed for either Wounded Knee or Washington, DC, preliminary to one already agreed to for the third weak in May, and intended as a federal act of “good faith” for activating a final dispossession of arms and weaponry.
The senior federal negotiator resisted any agreement which required any pre-conditions for the dispossession of arms, or which constituted anything less than a simultaneous implementation of the agreement. The timing of a proposed phone call from a White House meeting was discussed, with the Wounded Knee side making reference to a previous federal proposal which called for a phone call immediately preceding commencement of a “high-level” meeting in Sioux Falls, and arguing that the same thing was being proposed except at a White House level. The federal negotiator objected to any trip to Washington until after a dispossession of arms had been affected. We argued that a simultaneous disbarment would begin preparing the actual plans for the final dispossession of arms immediately after signing, and that the actual final disbarment would be occurring as soon as an agreement was signed—that both sides would begin preparing the actual plans for the final dispossession of arms immediately after signing, and that the actual final disarmament would occur at the time of the arrival at the White House meeting and the receipt of a call at Wounded Knee that the meeting was ready to commence.
Although I did not attend the final two sessions of negotiations on April 4th and 5th, I was assured that the federal government had accepted those terms, except for proposing that the meeting be held at Rapid City; these assurances being provided me by federal representatives and Wounded Knee attorneys. Instead of the Rapid City site, Wounded Knee countered with a proposal that the meeting be held in Syracuse, New York, among the territory of the Six Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy. Finally, I was advised that Washington, DC, had been accepted as the site, but not at the White House, and rather at the offices of the National Center for Dispute Settlement. There had been no indication of any changes in the basic terms of the agreement for the meeting and the immediately preceding call for activating the dispossession of arms—although I was aware of a federal insistence that it would accept no other terms.
Honestly, I do not believe there was a federal violation of the April 5th Agreement in Washington, DC. If any violation on the part of federal authorities occurred, it could only have happened in the course of federal arrest and judicial proceedings in Rapid City on the evening of April 5th—and there are certain reasons for believing that the spirit of the Agreement was violated there, but within the domain of local judicial authorities and beyond the direct control of federal officials directly involved in the negotiations or the implementation of the agreed upon terms. The Federal District Judge did reject the arrangements which had been made by the Justice Department for processing Russell Means through his bonding and release hearing in Rapid City, although that Judge did not preside over the hearing and was without any apparent reason for interfering in the arranged procedures—other than his previously demonstrated anger over the incidents in Wounded Knee.
I know as well that Wounded Knee attorneys and related persons had debated proposed language for the agreement at length, but I do not believe the Agreement, nor its essential terms, were betrayed by the language or words used within it, nor greatly affected by the words or language. The basic intents and commitments were clear and carried beyond the content of the Agreement.
The Forces Against a Settlement at Wounded Knee:
A number of Indian people—families and individuals—who I respect highly for their commitments to and work in behalf of the future of Indian people throughout the United States have been involved at times in Wounded Knee since the end of February. I have no doubt but that there are substantially more—in fact, countless—people outside Wounded Knee who do not want to see a peaceful conclusion and settlement to end the armed confrontation, than there are persons of similar mind, if any, in the village. There are some factors which encourage its continuation—and other crucial ones which make resolution difficult; including dishonesty and distrust.
Finally, the matter is not resolved merely by passing a simple judgement that the people in Wounded Knee are “wrong”—unless that were to be used as the basis for demanding they quit the village or otherwise be routed out or killed by heavy police action. Most of the people in Wounded Knee previously have never deliberately violated any laws in their lives. Yet they have experienced a world of wrongs committed against themselves or other Indian people, while not having any methods or means to cause the wrongs to cease or be corrected, or to cause right to be done.
There are wrongs occurring inside and outside of Wounded Knee—and all those who see wrongs on but one side, or fail to make conscientious and discriminating judgements on what constitutes real wrongs, make resolution more difficult. Those who have viewed the problem as being an internal Indian dispute on the reservation—and have chosen sides—make a settlement more difficult, if encouraging wrongs by the side of their choosing.
There is virtually no evidence that the actions at Wounded Knee has had any beneficial impact whatever upon the Department of the Interior and its Bureau of Indian Affairs. Their general attitudes toward most Indian people continue to grow worse and more punitive in nature. While being centrally responsible, in concord with Oglala Sioux tribal officials, for the development of the armed police confrontation, Interior and BIA officials have encouraged the wrongful and unlawful activities of Indian and non-Indian on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation outside of Wounded Knee—which previously makes an appropriate and immediate settlement of the confrontation next to impossible.
At a time when I was possessed of the best capacity of personal influence for helping to effect an agreement for settlement within Wounded Knee, as well as being available to discuss with tribal president Richard Wilson and Special Assistant to the Secretary of the Interior Marvin Franklin their concerns and interests, BIA and Interior officials met with Wilson and informed him that I carried an outline for an agreement with some chance of bringing about a settlement. When I arrived on the Reservation, tribal authorities and BIA Police, in the company of Agency Superintendent Stanley Lyman, were waiting for me—refusing to meet with me and acting to make certain that I did not make entry into Wounded Knee. They missed my arrival, however, but, when finding out I was there, came into the BIA Agency Building, where I had commenced a meeting with two Assistant Attorney Generals of the United States and abducted me—across state lines and more than fifteen miles beyond the reservation boundaries into Nebraska.
Not giving up, a couple of days later I was able to reach by phone a former Executive Director of the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI), who works as an executive assistant to chairman Wilson, and who I thought might be able to favorably influence a decision allowing my re-entry to the Pine Ridge reservation. This took place on the day after a tribal councilman, Leo Wilcox, had been found dead in his burned-out car as a result of a freak accident occurring while he was drinking. (AIM was immediately being blamed for his “murder.”) I mention this because the executive assistant is the same person who told this committee that “all our traditional chiefs are dead; they died in the last century.” On that day, he informed me: “There can be no negotiations. They killed one of our chiefs. Now tradition takes over. Because they’ve killed one of ours, we’re going to have to get together with his people and go on down into there and get a blood settlement. It’ll probably be a bloodbath. I’m sorry its got to happen, Hank, goddam, but that’s the way it has to be….”
Prominent national Indian organizations have also failed to aid in or utilize their influence for bringing about a peaceful settlement or an end to violent confrontations. The relationship of the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) and the American Indian Press Association (AIPA) to the serious and dangerous situations on the Pine Ridge Reservation both followed an undisciplined form of a family affair. The sister of the NCAI Executive Director Charles Trimble works for tribal president Richard Wilson; Trimble succeeded Leo Vocu in NCAI, leaving the top executive post in AIPA. While NCAI went to Pine Ridge to assist Wilson in publicity and public relations efforts, AIPA staff writers remained in Washington, DC, to engage in an activity of calling a major newspaper office to personally berate and critically reprimand the reporters for writing of the issues on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in manners reflecting adversely upon the Wilson administration.
Issues relating to the preservation of tribal sovereignty can legitimately be raised before this Committee, by NCAI or others, but the conflict of relationships, if not of interest, represented by the NCAI role at Pine Ridge is important for understanding the total complex of issues involved. Both NCAI and the National Tribal Chairman’s Association (NTCA) have taken positions in opposition to the application or implementation of the 1968 “Indian Bill of Rights”—which had purpose in enactment of protecting the interests and rights of Indian individuals from abuses of tribal governments and exercises of tribal governing authorities. Legal services organizations which specialize in Indian legal matter have adopted general policies against invoking the “Bill of Rights” authorities for protecting individual Indians from unlawful acts by tribal officials. Individual rights, more appropriate termed, “sovereignty of the individual,” is not a concept alien to tribal sovereignty or balanced Indian societies, nor is it a contradiction or challenge to Indian self-government—indeed, being a precious part of it. But where, outside of Wounded Knee, does it have advocacy in the conduct of public policy; where, when demonstrably needed, does it have application as a matter of existing law?
Indian people can be encouraged that the general membership of this committee has shown strong interest in making conscientious examination of problems and issues, rather than attempting to pre-judge their merits and impose pre-exiting notions upon the lives of Indian people. However, the members of Congress can aggravate problems such as that at Wounded Knee by making blanket, non-discriminating judgements or condemnations of situations which are not wholly wrong or right; nor exclusively good or bad. Necessary change, and alternative means of securing it, will not occur or evolve, if congressional committees operate more as forces for controlling Indian thought than as responsive units of government, which are themselves affected or influenced by positive Indian thought and meritorious judgements that should be considered—not simply ratified or rejected in being.
Many publicly-reported statements of Indian officials regarding the occupation of both the BIA building and Wounded Knee have been made for the primary purpose of securing or maintaining approval or “good standing” with non-Indians, including members of Congress and Administration officials. White approval of behavior, actions, opinions and decisions has become an almost-frightening conditioning process for most Indian persons who become public figures or enter public life at whatever level. In the course of the December and April hearings, this Committee in general has probably given effectual approval and gracious ratification to as many wrongs, in government and among Indian people, as it chose verbally to condemn or criticize. After drawing first distinction or division among personalities, good and bad, wise and derelict, the wrongful actions of the “good” and the “wise,” on the whole, have escaped scrutiny or critical judgement.
I have great discomfort in a national situation where so many Indian officials are able to maintain “impeccably good relations” with non-Indian public and political officials, while their relations with their own communities and Indian constituencies have deteriorated to such a state that incidents such as Wounded Knee occur—and threaten to become a common occurrence across the country. Indian sovereignty is seriously threatened when tribal governments need only satisfy the requirements of securing non-Indian approval—and secure it, while ceasing to be accountable continuously to the governed Indian population.”
The choosing of sides on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation by most people, who have cause to consider, or to become involved with, it, has created a void of people with sufficient moral influence to effect a decent settlement of the Wounded Knee occupation and to restore peace and order and an atmosphere of justice on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. For every Congressman who believes that the tribal president has acted reasonably and responsibly, there are a thousand white citizens who are willing to furnish guns and ammunition to Indians who they believe to be “right” in Wounded Knee. If the weaponry does not reach there, it will remain available for use—and likely be used—elsewhere, if Wounded Knee ends “wrongly” with Indians dying. There seems a general failure to realize just how serious the threat of violent confrontation and death is at Wounded Knee—and an equally serious failure to realize that Wounded Knee is not confined to Wounded Knee.
If one knows what the situation is on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation and reads of the majority support or sympathy of the American public for “Indians at Wounded Knee,” as reflected in the recent Harris Poll, one imagines that the public does not understand or know what it is among Indian people and Indian aims that they “support.” Doubtless, as with the overwhelming support demonstrated for Indian positions at each the Republican and Democrat National Conventions last summer, it is an abstract support for abstract Indians which does not translate or transform effectively into concrete and constructive change in governmental policies and actions toward Indian people in conformance with general and specific community desires. A reading of such “public support” by involved Indians, nonetheless, becomes an encouragement to indefinite continuation of the confrontation at Wounded Knee, even if leading to a bloody conclusion by continuation, partly to demonstrate that the government does not respond to either the public or Indians—and partly to prove to both the American public and government that it is dealing with, not abstract storybook or history book “Indians,” but real Indians—not of 1890, but of today.
I sincerely believe that various high-level officials in the US Justice Department have began to understand the situation they are faced with and the general reasons for its occurrence. Their dilemma is presently less one of not being able to control what happens in Wounded Knee than being one of not being able to control what happens outside of Wounded Knee, as well as being unable to make the decisions which should be made by the Department of the Interior and BIA. (It is almost repetitive of the grotesque application of responsibility which become apparent during the early stages of the BIA Building occupation. Then several government officials, possessed of the decision-making capacity to direct a police attack against the several hundred Indian people and perhaps kill all if necessary, claimed they did not have the authority to allow re-arrangement of tables in a CSA Building for Indian and federal authority to sit closer to one another for talks directed toward ending the occupation and preventing property destruction.)
The Justice Department now could most easily end the armed confrontation simply by withdrawing US Marshals and FBI Agents from the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation—if it could trust that no armed people in Wounded Knee would not move to another site or town for renewed confrontation; and if it did not know and expect that Indian and non-Indian people outside of Wounded Knee would likely attempt an armed and violent attack upon the people inside of Wounded Knee.
The encouragement that has been given to vigilante-type activities outside of the occupied village, or the condonation of criminal actions by Indians and non-Indians opposing the people in Wounded Knee, has left the Justice Department in the middle of a difficult situation which now has no easy remedy or appropriate response for ending it peacefully. In its basic character, the takeover of Wounded Knee did not constitute any threat to Indian residents there or to any people outside of that town—unless it were to become a staging area for increased involvement for armed confrontation elsewhere. There are but few indications, if any, that there ever existed any intentions of that nature.
The more threatening attitude which prevails on Pine Ridge is that supported by Interior and BIA officials in the actions of BIA and tribal police authorities and “citizen volunteers” that “badges are law; guns are justice.”
Personally, I became greatly distressed that some lawyers and attorneys involved with the Wounded Knee matter seemed to be more staunchly opposed to any peaceful settlement than any Indian people involved—and appeared to actively pursue continuation of the occupation despite the possibilities of tragic consequences. When the April 5th Agreement had all but become the basis and form for a final agreement, a couple attorneys argued strenuously for its rejection on grounds that Wounded Knee was “surrendering” too easily and for too little. Another attorney argued that any agreement should be worded in order that it would constitute “90% of a settlement” and keep the government interested, but still leave between one and ten percent “in dispute” for continued discussions and negotiations with federal authorities. One lawyer took great pains to convince the “recognized leaders” at Wounded Knee of the propriety of virtually all their decisions (except moves toward settlement), yet privately engaged Indian security forces in divisive discussions attacking principal leaders as being totally disinterested in the people and interested only in appearances before the news media, then carried the same charges among different leaders and into private meetings outside of Wounded Knee.
On the whole—with major exceptions—Wounded Knee attorneys seemed to stand without backbone in their “ethical standards” and in their advices regarding the existing law and the actions of Wounded Knee defenders. In several instances, lawyers concerned with the developing dangers in the continued confrontation did ask myself privately to express their disagreement with certain positions and interpretations of law (including the 1868 United States and Sioux Nation Treaty), but remained reluctant or refused to address Wounded Knee Indian people regarding crucial differences of opinion or understanding—which might have had favorable affect in moving the stalemated confrontation toward a peaceful settlement and resolution. As well, although there exist critical issues of law and human rights to be resolved on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, the legal efforts of involved lawyers have yet to touch upon those issues and intolerable situations which preceded and arguably precipitated the occupation of Wounded Knee. Generally, the Department of the Interior and BIA also have refused to correct or change those situations, or require an equitable application of existing law at Pine Ridge. Fortunately, the Justice Department has given these matters some thought and has began to initiate some improvements through investigative and legal process. A lack of Interior Department cooperation and recognitions of major problems, however, shall probably continue to render federal actions inadequate to the real needs—or to aggravate the severity of problems.
A major segment of the non-Indian support that is evidenced through supportive activities for Wounded Knee is based upon a favoring of continued confrontation whatever the consequences, rather than peaceful settlement. A number of non-Indians, who have been retarded in their attempts, or who have failed, to “get it on” and become credibly joined in a “Third World” or “American revolution,” have formed a front line of support for any Indians who will operate as their surrogate “revolutionaries.” Attendance at their support-related meeting finds that no discussion is made nor thought given toward peaceful settlement and ensuring that Wounded Knee becomes a compelling impetus to proper or appropriate public policy and practices toward Indian people, nor transferring the effects of broad public support for Indian into an effective force for serving Indian purposes, aims and desires. Securing more guns and increasing firepower enters discussion as being virtually the primary, singular, and almost only discernible Indian goal.
The role of the news media in bringing about a termination or prolongation of such actions as the Wounded Knee occupation—or the BIA Building occupation—should become a matter of conscientious consideration and examination by members of its professions. It would be dishonest to state or suggest that the influence of the news media on these two activities has not been considerable and decisive in determining their conduct and durations. The “power of the press” has figured substantially in determination of what has been done. Nevertheless, while there is recognition that their great “power” must come into play in behalf of the interests of Indian people for brining about concrete and constructive change—in some sense, the BIA Building and Wounded Knee occupations are an expression of the highest contempt for the American mass communications media and its professional standards or disciplines. The actions are contemptuous, not solely because news coverage is sought or may be a motivational and a principal goal, but because they are a demonstrative counterpoint to what is sought to be revealed; they are an expression that the communications media have failed to serve the necessary betterment and required advancement for the lives of Indian people in their everyday conditions around this country—but cause the news media to become operative with some certainty or consistency to give coverage to incongruously dramatic or desperate events, which—perhaps even requiring to have an entertainment value—may be called “news.” (On the other hand, once moved by whatever standards to Wounded Knee, it becomes an indictment against an “American free press” that its coverage should be limited to news handouts and press briefings by federal and tribal authorities—or vigilante groups—once blockades are set up against the press and its reporters instructed that coverage must be limited to those sources or otherwise not be given.)
Respectfully submitted,
Hank Adams, SAIA
Letter
May 7, 1973
Survival of American Indians Association
US Senator Henry M. Jackson, Chairman,
US Senate Committee on Interior & Insular Affairs,
Washington, DC 20510
Dear Senator Jackson:
I regret I must write you a letter of this nature. However, I believe the matter which is discussed to be of extreme importance to the relationship between the United States congress and the American Indian people—and what we may expect to be achieved by the present Congress.
Today I called Mr. Gerald R. Gereau of your staff respecting my current trip to Wounded Knee, South Dakota. In response to a previous offer of assistance from Mr. Gereau, I requested that he exercise his previously-claimed influence to alleviate any opposition or obstacles to my travel plans which might materialize on the part of Mr. Richard Wilson, Oglala Sioux tribal president. Specifically, his earlier offer had been to provide assistance in that particular way.
Previously, I had indicated that, unless Mr. Wilson should learn of my entry upon the reservation by other means, I would prefer to just go there without press, public, or tribal official knowledge, as the easiest method of avoiding any unnecessary or injurious disputes which might impose upon a crucial time factor related to negotiations for a settlement. Although Mr. Gereau also had expressed an adverse attitude toward its occurrence and asked questions to which he already knew the answers—which I reaffirmed.
Surprisingly, he asked who had initiated the request for me to go to Wounded Knee. I informed him again that Indian people in Wounded Knee had requested my assistance and advice for finalizing negotiations, and that Kent Frizzily, Interior Solicitor, had transmitted the request along with his personal suggestion that it might be helpful and productive for me to come. Remarkably—as indicated by clarification through a subsequent conversations with Senator Abourezk’s office—Mr. Gereau appears to have contacted the Abourezk office to claim that I told him that Senator Abourezk had initiated my present activity, or been instrumental in having myself return to Wounded Knee. Rather than being a misrepresentation of fact; this would have been an outright lie by Mr. Gereau—perhaps compounded by others.
Of more critical concern, I would emphasize, are previous statements made to me by Mr. Gereau regarding his own status and the status of your Committee of Senator Abourezk. In the course of first meeting Mr. Gereau, during the recent hearings of Congressman Meeds relating to Wounded Knee, he advised me of his plans to go to South Dakota in preparation for possible Senate field hearings. He pointedly stressed that: “These will be Senator Jackson’s hearings. They’re hearings by the full Interior Committee; Senator Abourezk can be involved if he wants—but they’re Senator Jackson’s hearings.”
•••
In the course of the conversation of May 3rd, instant, in which Mr. Gereau offered to intercede with Dick Wilson, Toby Eagle Bull, Leo Vocu, and BIA Agency Superintendent Stanley Lyman to eliminate obstacles to my travel on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, he additionally offered the ‘helpful’ information that, quote: “I have more influence than Abourezk.” Responding to my interjection, Mr. Gereau qualified his claim to say, “That is with the Committee and as far as Senator Jackson is concerned.” Oddly, he had initiated the conversation by entering a claim that Senator Abourezk personally had just finished informing him about my proposed travel to Wounded Knee—but, on close questioning, Mr. Gereau reluctantly admitted that he only had talked with a member of Sen. Abourezk’s staff. He offered the gratuitous observation that there was no difference: “It’s all the same.”
There is no need here to repeat or question Mr. Gereau’s other extravagant claims of accomplishments on his recent South Dakota trip. Since Wounded Knee has continued, one can assume that his energies are frequently misdirected. Since an Indian, who he traveled with on his return toward Washington, was not arrested after Mr. Gereau reported him to the FBI, one can guess that he is as frequently wrong.
At the moment, I am acting as a courier between the White House and Wounded Knee, carrying a sealed letter from Leonard Garment, Special Consultant to the President of the United States, to Indian people in Wounded Knee; and, incidentally, carrying another sealed letter addressed to Kent Frizell.
I understand that the first letter provides the basis for final settlement of that dispute. The purpose for my involvement derives from the other Indian people’s request for my presence; my participation and work (at Wounded Knee request) in formulating and securing the April 5th Agreement; my background in working in behalf of many Indian Tribes, their governments and people, over the years; my continued interest in working for a just, equitable and peaceful settlement; and a determination that the central concerns of Indian people in Wounded Knee shall not be disregarded or overlooked, and the common objectives and goals shared generally in the attitudes, aims and desires of Indian people throughout this country are secured with whatever immediacy warranted or necessary to Indian community life and advancement.
It is consistent with these purposes that I address you regarding Mr. Gereau. While he may find it satisfactory to state today that it would be “improper” to respond to the requests that he previously invited, I find his attitudes in his staff position and his undercutting of a United States Senator, who is Chairman of the Subcommittee on Indian Affairs, as being entirely improper; as inappropriate as it has been dishonest; and totally inimical and adverse to the genuine interest of American Indian people. Senator Jackson, I can not believe that you would knowledgeably approve or condone the actions and remarks of Mr. Gereau, while he has allegedly been acting in your behalf.
Many Indian people and organizations have become greatly impressed with Senator Abourezk’s personal commitment and determination to be an effective and conscientious servant to his duties as Chairman of the Indian Affairs Subcommittee in attempting to attack and eradicate major problems confronting Indian people, in acting upon the most necessary legislative needs, and in carrying out the requirements of the constitutionally-mandated relationships between Indian people and the Congress of the United States. Indian communities have not had cause to place such high trust and hopes for accomplishment with the Indian Affairs’ Chairman since the time that post was previously occupied by US Senators Frank Church and Lee Metcalf, successively, nearly a decade ago—aside from the full Committee’s commendable work on the Alaska Natives Claims Settlement, under your own chairmanship.
My statements and information are not expressive of a lack of confidence in Senator Abourezk’s ability to act effectively, even if he, and Indian persons having business to conduct with your Committee and Subcommittees, have to contend with the undermining nuisance factor of Mr. Gereau. Nonetheless, the double-dealing tactics of Mr. Gereau—in large part being the stuff of which the causes for “Wounded Knees” are made—can only make the tasks of meeting national Indian needs more difficult, and do betray the standards of conduct and performance which American Indian people, or any people, are entitled to expect from the Congress and the national government.
Respectfully yours,
Hank Adams, SAIA
Memorandum
May 16, 1973
To: Vine Deloria, Jr., President
Institute for Development of Indian Law (IDIL)
From: Hank Adams, National Director
Survival of American Indians Association (SAIA)
Re: Participation in Negotiations for the Wounded Knee Settlement
The following is a summary of my relationships to the occupation of Wounded Knee (WK), South Dakota, on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, from late February through early May, regarding involvement in negotiating processes, including the extraneous information you requested: (A complete file of my “Wounded Knee Papers” is provided herewith.)
On the first day of the WK occupation, I was at Franks Landing, Washington, where some ten days earlier we had secured a private agreement with Governor Daniel J. Evans for a moratorium upon arrests of Indian fishermen by the Washington Game Department, in consequence whereof we were able to effect disbandment of an armed encampment and a series of armed guard stations involving scores of Indian people along the Nisqually River.
In the first couple days of WK it was difficult to get any information from the federal departmental officials in Washington, DC, and the FBI and Federal Marshals Service (which had already had 100 marshals stationed at Pine Ridge for two weeks preceding the occupation) were refusing to provide information through their command post. As soon as information leaked out relating to the initial WK “demands,” I began calling the offices of US Senators Edward Kennedy (Tom Susman) and James Abourezk (Mary Bergren) to urge that they or appropriate representatives travel to Wounded Knee. At the same time I attempted to communicate a message into Wounded Knee through broadcast media in South Dakota to urge that anyone who might have been held against their will or free choice be released immediately (using some phone numbers of news outlets in South Dakota provided me by Senator Abourezk). Before leaving for Washington, DC, I held a press conference in Seattle to provide information on the precipitating problems and issues represented by the occupation of Wounded Knee, including the matters which I had addressed to Administration officials about an ominous situation developing since last November.
Also in the first two days of the occupation, I recommended to the Office of the Secretary of the Interior that it could seize the initiative in the matter by immediately suspending BIA Area Director Wyman Babby and BIA Agency Superintendent Stanley Lyman (and possibly Tribal Chairman Richard Wilson, but not absolutely necessary) and placing the Aberdeen Area Office and the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation under the management of a Special Supervisor of Administrator. Other than the requested Senatorial presence, Wounded Knee “demands” had not yet been fully formulated or communicated. I argued that the Department should act on the central issues and in the manner recommended before such actions should be called for either as “unnegotiable demands” on the one side or as “demands which cannot be met under threat of guns and tactics of extortion” as a plausible method for bringing about an early or immediate settlement.
Returning to Washington, DC, I continued talks with Senate offices and with Senate Foreign Relations Committee staff members. In early March, I discussed the issues of Wounded Knee hearings of the Senate Judiciary Committee, when opposing Mr. L. Patrick Gray’s nomination to become FBI Director, by detailing the everyday relationships of the FBI to Indian people and reservations (including Pine Ridge) in law enforcement activities—ranging from lack of enforcement and disregard of laws to selective interferences with or protections of tribal governments by purely discretionary investigations and audits of the uses of tribes and federal funds—or refusal to answer criminal complaints in that area of concern.
In the same time period, I wrote a three-page letter to the President urging White House involvement at Wounded Knee, offering limited background on the 1868 Sioux Treaty, suggesting several recommendations for resolving the armed confrontation, and offering any assistance I might provide for helping to bring a settlement.
On March 16th, I received a call from Russell Means and Sid Mills from inside Wounded Knee asking that I take the next plane to Rapid City, where a chartered plane would be waiting to fly me to Pine Ridge, from where the National Council of Churches (NCC) John Adams would transport me into the village to assist with negotiations and the drafting of position papers. The Justice Department, represented by Assistant to the Attorney General Harlington Wood, had made a “final” five-page, twenty-point proposal for a “resolution” of the confrontation, which was characterized as “the best that can be secured” from the US Government. On March 18th, a negotiating session was held in Wounded Knee for the purpose of reviewing the proposal paragraph by paragraph, without material progress. After the session, AIM attorneys Ramon Roubideaux and Beverly Axelrod, plus myself, went to Harlington Wood’s office to meet with him and his assistant Dick Hallstern for purpose of scheduling and structuring the next day’s negotiating structure. Roubideaux and the federal negotiators expressed satisfaction with the earlier session and optimism for the next. In exception, I informed them that the proposal would be rejected because it failed to give any account to the Sioux Treaty and Agreements and because it insisted upon treating the situation solely as a matter of criminal activity which must be ended by oppressive and coercive police action, although not by outright police attack. On request to propose an alternative, I drafted a suggested seven-point procedure for the dispossession of weaponry and process for dealing with substantive issues throughout the Reservation. (We emphasized that we had no negotiation authority, but were suggesting that the 7-points might become their proposal.)
Inside Wounded Knee, members of the leadership councils and organizations had reviewed my letter to the President and extracted its several recommendations as the basis for a counter-proposal to the “best” offered by the Government. (Over the course of the weekend I had drafted several information sheets, position papers, public statements, and proposals, and typed them on stencils for mimeographing.) Although the seven-point proposal had not been drafted for Wounded Knee, members of the Oglala Sioux Council got a copy and discussed it while I was asleep, accepted it as “An Offer They Can’t Refuse; A Proposal That Will Defuse,” and typed it up as a Wounded Knee proposal. On March 19th, the combined “counter-proposal” was circulated to the news media and transmitted to Harlington Wood at Pine Ridge. The proposals were dismissed out-of-hand with virtually no reading or review. On that rejection, negotiations were terminated by Wounded Knee—with Russell Means characterizing the alternatives, as well as expressing the key, for a resolution in his statement: “We will deal with the President now as the Treaty prescribes, or we shall defend ourselves against his outlaw nation!”
I was requested to return to Washington, DC, to help secure a White House response and involvement with the March 19th positions and proposal. Two key provisions called for dispatch of a Sioux Indian to Wounded Knee as an “emissary” of the President (referencing treaty articles), and the appointment of a “special supervisor” to assume administration of the BIA Aberdeen Area Office and its agencies. (The demand for outright or planned removal of Richard Wilson as tribal chairman was dropped from the March 19th positions. Immediately on return, I prepared a complete statement of the final 10-point proposal from Wounded Knee. Second, I received legislative drafts of two proposed congressional Joint Resolutions which would provide for authorization and funding for (1) the presidential emissary and (2) a national commission on Indian Treaty Rights, which had been prepared for me by Georgetown University law professor William H. Rogers, Jr., which I modified slightly and duplicated for submittal to Members of Congress for consideration of sponsorship.
On Friday March 23rd, I met with Leonard Garment, Special Consultant to the President, at his offices for lunch and discussions of Wounded Knee, remaining in his offices for approximately five hours. After thorough consideration of my views, followed by extensive consultations by phone with other officials (discernibly with both Departments of Interior and Justice, as well as other persons in the White House), an arrangement was suggested whereby (being asked if I would or could return to Wounded Knee) all White House involvement would remain confidential and without public mention (for practical purposes of reaching a peaceful settlement without allowing internal disputes within the Departments to develop as an obstacle to it, and for minimizing other oppositions which might otherwise develop); I would abbreviate the 10-point proposal as a new position; it would be submitted after I returned to Wounded Knee; the Departments would accept it in principle and withdraw all their previous proposals; and the body of a final agreement and settlement would be reconstructed in negotiating sessions, having some general conformity to the March 19th proposal. Brad Patterson, assistant to Mr. Garment, made plane reservations to Rapid City for me; however, I informed them that I did not want financial assistance when asked if I needed money for the trip.
Essentially, this arrangement was to allow complete conformance with the existing demands and proposals from Wounded Knee, particularly with respect to the WK insistence that the 1868 Sioux Treaty and 1876 Agreements called for a presidential assignment of Sioux persons in matters requiring a restoration of “peace and order” on Sioux reservation. Mr. Garment emphasized that the situation was primarily the responsibility of the two departments and that the White House would make no unwarranted interventions in the matter, although it was at that moment willing to help construct the mechanics for negotiating a settlement. In Mr. Garment’s outer office, I had reduced the March 19th proposal to a short nineteen lines (about one-tenth the original text) and typed it there. Mr. Garment pointedly stressed that he could make no promises respecting its development into a final agreement by negotiations with the Departments and the measures or provisions they would ultimately accept. There appeared some allowance, however, that in areas of disagreement between the Departments, or in relation to matters which would normally, legitimately and properly be submitted to White House for decisions or review, I could submit Wounded Knee viewpoints there also for consideration by the Departments. (At one point subsequently, Mr. Garment in telephone conversation to me in South Dakota remarked, “You have to realize we aren’t just ventriloquists here; the Departments do have their responsibilities as well, and must make their own decisions accordingly.”)
The White House had transmitted the text of the abbreviated proposal to Pine Ridge by the time I arrived there on the evening of March 24th, and where I was prepared to meet with tribal chairman Richard Wilson and Assistant to the Secretary of the Interior Marvin Franklin at that time, as well as Justice Department officials involved in negotiations, all for the purposes of discussing the parameters of a settlement and the possibilities of facilitating its being reached immediately. On objection from Mr. Wilson, Marvin Franklin disappeared and refused to meet with me, as did Mr. Wilson, who had been advised of the purposes of my coming by Hans Walker, Director of the Office of Indian Water Rights. Tribal officials and BIA agency and police personnel became extremely angered upon learning that I had walked past them to begin a meeting with Harlington Wood, Dick Hallstern and another Assistant Attorney General of the United States Kent Frizell on an upper floor of the BIA Agency Building. (At this first moment of meeting Mr. Frizell, he asked me if I was the “emissary from the President; I told him I was not.) The meeting did not really get underway before Mr. Wood left the room for discussions with local BIA officials and officers. They returned into the office to explain that they had decided not to arrest me. BIA Superintendent Stanley Lyman introduced himself to me, then introduced Delmar Eastman, Chief of BIA Agency Police, who issued myself and my assistant Mike Hunt court orders of eviction. We were then transported beyond reservation and State lines, ten miles into Nebraska before the two of us were abandoned by the BIA Special Officers. (Later that evening, a telephone conversation with Leonard Garment indicated that he had been informed that I had met with Marvin Franklin and Richard Wilson before being forced into Nebraska. I had to advise him three times that this was not true, before he accepted the fact that he had been misinformed by his governmental sources.)
From Chadron, Nebraska, I maintained contact with Dick Hallstern, Leonard Garment, and by set-time schedulings, Wounded Knee. Russell Means had announced a “major announcement” for Monday morning (the 26th). Federal officials on the scene could still not secure entry into Wounded Knee for me. Leonard Garment asked, when I indicated that I was useless in Nebraska and should therefore return to DC, that I try to stick around a couple days to see if things might loosen up. On Sunday afternoon, Dick Hallstern and Kent Frizell came to Chadron to discuss the possible forms a settlement might take, understanding that I could not negotiate any agreements in behalf of Wounded Knee without being inside the village and in participation with Indian people there. (I became an early casualty in the meeting, when Hallstern popped open a catsup bottle and splashed big blotches of catchup on my leg, side and arm, as well as my coat and the wall four feet behind me. I told him, “Damn, it’s no wonder they won’t negotiate with you; you’re dangerous. I hope you aren’t commanding the police forces out there.”) In the course of the meeting, I discussed the March 19th positions and the ten points as a probable basis for a settlement, which I would try to sell to the people once I returned into Wounded Knee. Frizell ended the session with the judgement that “They would never buy this back in Washington.” Hallstern remained behind momentarily to remark, outside Frizell’s hearing, that “I think they will; let’s work on it.”
There were calls to me on Sunday from Wounded Knee. I asked Russell Means, if he did have a “major announcement” to make, or was he expecting me to provide the basis for it from the results of my trip to Washington. He answered that he thought I would have it. I advised both he and Carter Camp about my White House meeting and arrangements, cautioning them that in no instance should there be public mention of the White House or involvement by its officials. I indicated that I would continue trying to get in, but that I would not stay around indefinitely if the Government did not take me in by their means.
No progress was made Monday respecting my WK entry. However, Dick Hallstern did complete a preliminary draft of a proposed settlement agreement, conforming in large part to the March 19th proposals from Wounded Knee, which he brought to me in Chadron in the early evening of the 26th. We reviewed them briefly together. I stressed the urgency of being able to develop a final agreement proposal with Wounded Knee people, rather than independently and with greater prospects of rejection, but indicated I would make any alterations or modifications I thought necessary in his draft and get it back to him as soon as possible—for possible transmittal into Wounded Knee. Additionally, rumors had begun to circulate about all “negotiations and decisions being taken over by the Oglala Sioux and its Civil Rights Group” and being thereafter conducted in Rapid City. I indicated to Hallstern that I believed this was incorrect, that I had as much authority as anyone outside Wounded Knee for negotiations, and that I could not negotiate outside there. Additionally, I showed him a list of more than twenty new demands, which I had just received, which purportedly were to be the basis for negotiations in Rapid City. He agreed that there were very few items on that list which could be accepted, if ever effected by the US Government. After he left, I began making slight language modifications and adding a few minor provisions, or deleting some, on his proposal draft with the assistance of four other Indians who had just come out of Wounded Knee. Later that evening, Dick Hallstern called to inform me about the shooting of a US Marshal, who had been transported to a hospital in Denver in critical condition. I asked why they continued to delay in getting me inside; couldn’t they take me in by helicopter? Hallstern responded, “We’ll get you in there right away somehow, even if I have to do cartwheels all the way back to Washington to do it!”
On Tuesday the 27th, a dramatic shift in governmental attitudes occurred. Interest in my participation subsided almost completely with the news that Russell Means and Dennis Banks had left, or been thrown out of, Wounded Knee. The federal negotiation hopes were transferred to Rapid City, where Aaron DeSersa had declared that he and others would negotiate an end to the Wounded Knee occupation—and that had been the “major announcement” that Russell Means had been referring to. On both Monday and Tuesday, I had declined requests to travel, or to be picked up to go, to Rapid City by Ramon Roubideaux and his representatives, in order that I would be available to enter Wounded Knee at the first opportunity. On Tuesday, I advised the White House and Justice Department negotiators (Kent Frizell by then had replaced Harlington Wood as the senior Justice representative on the scene) as well as Senator Abourezk’s office that I believed that the Rapid City sessions were not authorized and would be repudiated by Wounded Knee—and would primarily be a waste of crucial time. Senator Abourezk and Interior’s Marvin Franklin both flew to South Dakota for the sessions, preceded by their public statements expressing optimism that a settlement was, if not imminent, near. (Senator Abourezk had other business there, however, relating to flood relief activities and efficiency or adequacy.) Since WK entry seemed wholly unlikely at that point, I proceeded to Rapid City for the meetings scheduled there on Wednesday. (Traveling there with three other Indians and two horses was another experience in itself. A half dozen cowboys or white red necks pulled pistols on us at a truck stop, until we were taken into custody by the local sheriff and state patrolmen; in several ensuing incidents and stops, two of the others received citations, obligating us each time to return to the jail to post bonds (total $135.00 cash); the sheriff then tailgated us for twenty miles toward Rapid City, stopping us intermittently to make checks on our travel plans and time schedule, our trailer license, our horses’ brands, our brand registration, and our brand clearance for inter-state travel.)
The Wednesday meeting at the Mother Butler Center in Rapid City was well-attended—but nonetheless a fiasco. The federal representatives were immediately informed that the meeting had not been sanctioned by Wounded Knee and that no negotiations could be held, although discussions could be relating to general problems on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. The news media was invited in briefly to view, along with Administration officials and Senator Abourezk, a videotaped statement of Dennis Banks and Pedro Bissonette denouncing the Rapid City meetings. Picturing Russell Means and other central leaders inside Wounded Knee, the videotaped segment related the fact that both Dennis and Russell had left to go to Rosebud, but had already returned to the occupied village. Their declaration was clear that no negotiations could take place outside of Wounded Knee.
Senator Abourezk, Marvin Franklin and Kent Frizell held several private meetings to discuss the situation. Finally, I and Sid Mills broke into one of their meetings to make some suggestions, being joined shortly thereafter by Ted Means, Ramon Roubideaux, and a couple score of different Oglala Sioux coming in and out to meet with officials. Almost immediately, Ramon Roubideaux received a note from Dennis Banks in Wounded Knee, instructing Ramon to leave the meeting. Ted and Sid offered various specific advices on what the government could do to bring about a settlement—finally mentioning that the papers I had could provide the form for an agreement—if negotiated with the right Oglala Sioux Indian inside Wounded Knee (including some who had not been part of the occupation, but remained outside). I offered the revised draft that we had worked on the two previous nights, and requested that a copy be transmitted inside Wounded Knee as well as being returned to Kent Hallstern. Kent Frizell, showing extreme anger, rejected the document, saying that “the Government can’t accept this!” I asked, “Why not? The Government drafted it! We’ve only made the slightest changes from Hallstern’s draft.” Frizell exploded, “Dick Hallstern does not speak for the United States Government. He’s only my assistant!” “Well, who does speak for the government,” we asked. “I do!” Frizell exclaimed.
As soon as I returned to my apartment, I called, first, Dick Hallstern and then Leonard Garment. I advised them of the non-results of the meeting, the effect of the videotaped instructions carried from Wounded Knee, and of the final exchange between ourselves and Kent Frizell. I stressed that I had not come to South Dakota to waste either my time or anyone else’s—and that if my working with Dick Hallstern had just been someone’s idea of a game, I was going to attempt to catch the first plane scheduled back to Washington, DC. I was advised that there would be an attempt to straighten this matter out, and asked to stay around for at least a little while longer to see if something new might develop.
Later that evening, Leonard Garment called to say that he had talked with Kent Frizell; that he thought things might go a little better now; and that Frizell was going to attempt to transport me inside Wounded Knee—with the permission of the tribal chairman if possible, but otherwise if not.
About fifteen minutes afterwards, Kent Frizell called. He apologized for his anger earlier that day, the stormy session, and his statements. He expressed hope that we might be able to work together and manage to get me into Wounded Knee to have negotiations begin again.
On Thursday, Frizell and Hallstern indicated that the tribal chairman had consented to Ramon Roubideaux and my entry into Wounded Knee. Ramon had other court business so did not go; but on Friday the 30th, Wayne Colburn, Chief of US Marshals, transported me in his car from the command post in Pine Ridge past the vigilante and federal roadblocks to Wounded Knee. Mark Lane, Beverly Axelrod, and Fran Olson, non-Indian attorneys followed us in route—with considerable difficulty, searches and delay. (Federal agents carefully refrained from using my name on radioed transmissions.) I explained the content and nature of my talks at the White House and discussed subsequent events. In particular, I stressed my belief that the Government was willing to drop its previous proposals and ultimatums, and proceed with a different attitude in negotiations, with greater willingness to face up to and dealings with the issues precipitating and represented by the Wounded Knee occupation. I made available the papers we had worked on and indicated that they could probably be accepted by the government as a working proposal that could be transformed into an agreement—unless Wounded Knee felt that their basic content and development had become too remote from the Indian people there and too independent of their involvement in construction. In that case, I informed them that the government would still be willing to drop all its previous positions, and negotiations could start from scratch in the scheduled negotiations the next day. The latter course, seemed everyone’s preference. I did mention that there should be no discussion or public mention (the news media had been barred from the village after the Monday night firefight) of White House involvement, but that I did retain direct telephone access to Leonard Garment and would be able to carry certain arguments to him, if first argued with the departmental negotiators and unreasonable rejected by them.
Before returning to Rapid City, I talked to various members of the Oglala Sioux Council and the central AIM leadership regarding my views on the advisability of an early settlement and what might be gained from it.
On Saturday March 31st, permission had been withdrawn for my entry upon the Pine Ridge Reservation. Federal authorities consequently arranged for Ramon Roubideaux and myself to make surreptitious entry into Wounded Knee by means of chartered helicopter. We flew to Roadblock #1, manned by FBI agents, having begun our flight five miles out on a deserted, almost impassable dried-mud road in Nebraska. On our arrival at the roadblock, we were immediately confronted by an outraged Kent Frizell. Angered because the negotiations were to begin immediately at a teepee in the DMZ (Demilitarized Zone)—and the teepee had not even then been put up—Frizell declared that Ramon and I could go down into Wounded Knee and inform the people there that he would be ready to negotiate the following day, whenever they were ready—without alternative of leaving! Frizell momentarily restored his calm and restrained his temper, then advised us that they were going back to their offices, but would be available for negotiations as soon as the teepee could be put up and a half hour notice be given that the Wounded Knee Indians were ready to meet.
A brief discussion with Dick Hallstern demonstrated the efficiency and frequent accuracy of federal informants inside Wounded Knee. He advised me that they understood that a pre-condition or unnegotiable demand was going to be offered at the outset of negotiations relating to federal action to secure court approval of free passage of food, medical services and attorneys, before any other matter could be approached or discusses. Apart from this information, an agenda which had been generally agreed upon was set for the meeting. He advised me that, if the information was true, it would be an insurmountable obstacle to any movement by the government in accommodating the people of Wounded Knee in reaching agreements on the larger permanent problems and issues involved and potentially soluble.
At our preliminary meeting in Wounded Knee, I discovered that Hallstern’s information had been precisely correct. A lawyer who had been staying in the village had drafted a statement of first demand insisting that the government petition the federal district court for relief that it had previously denied to Wounded Knee. A principal AIM leader instructed us that this demand should become the first order of business—and that no other matter should be discussed until the Government accepted it. If it were rejected, then we were instructed that negotiations were to be terminated. I objected and argued against the position with the AIM leader and the legal advisor. Nonetheless, the instruction remained. (In the subsequent negotiating session, Carter Camp and Russell Means immediately disregarded the prepared statement, the position and the instruction, thereby eliminating the impasses that otherwise might have developed.)
The March 31st negotiations got underway approximately four hours late. A general discussion of issues problems, complaints and grievances ensued, with Oglala Sioux persons dominating the session and matters raised. In an eloquent statement of the simple concerns and purposes of Wounded Knee, Russell Means served a number of issues from further need of negotiations and dismissed several previously-stated positions. Finally, the Government invited Wounded Knee to prepare a list of all positions and provisions that it wanted the government to accept or act upon. Another negotiating session was set for April 1st.
I stayed overnight in Wounded Knee to draft the April 1st proposals. I was given instructions by members of the AIM leadership and the Oglala Sioux Council to rely upon the March 31st discussions for the content of the proposals—and to “write them so the Government can accept them.” From memory I wrote down many of the points raised that day, then took additional notes from tape recordings of the major speeches given in the teepee. That night, there was an electrical power failure in the village and other reservation towns, which prevented my completion of the document that night. The next morning, I took the liberty of delaying the negotiating session from 10 a.m. to 1:30 by radio message to the federal command post. A copy of the proposal was forwarded to the federal representatives in Pine Ridge with the notation that most people in Wounded Knee had not yet had chance to review it. At 12:30 a “mass meeting” was held in the Trading Post, where the two-page ten-point proposal, plus half-page preface, was read to everyone and subsequently accepted. In an interesting, perhaps promising, substitution of terms, where I had written the words, “agreeable settlement,” or “settlement,” Russell Means substituted the term, “disarmament,” in presenting it to all the people and in tape recordings to be supplied to news media outside of Wounded Knee.
In the April 1st negotiation session, the government first objected to a provision which appeared to maintain an open agenda for every meeting in presenting new issues or demands. (The provision had been included at insistence of several attorneys, and with strong urging from Community Relations Services (CRS) personnel.) Wounded Knee agreed to drop it and deal only with remaining items. Several other items were consolidated, dropped from further consideration, or adopted as statements of mutual understanding. A final six points were left, with the Government accepting four of them—relating to investigations and endorsements of existing laws, plus an unformulated procedure for the “dispossession of arms” and “surrenders to arrest”—and advising that approval of the other two—relating to a presidential treaty commission, and to positive federal actions directed toward administrative and judicial application of the 1968 Indian Bill of Rights on the Pine Ridge Reservation—would have to await consultations with Washington DC officials.
In leaving with Mike Hunt by helicopter that day, I advised Kent Frizell and Dick Hallstern that I believed that Wounded Knee was seriously and sincerely seeking a settlement—but that the minimal requirements relating to White House-level meetings on a treaty commission was the one item above all others which must be met. I also informed them of my instruction to write the proposal “so the Government can accept.” After stopping in Pine Ridge to discuss several details, Ramon Roubideaux picked I and Mike up in Nebraska for return to Rapid City.
By the time I was able to contact the White House to urge their acceptance of the final points, I was advised that the two points remaining after that day’s negotiations had been accepted. Regarding the White House level meetings, I was informed that the Government had decided that it might be better to name a specific time frame for scheduling meetings—the third week in May. The basic language of an agreement provision for the meetings was read to me from Washington, DC. Subsequent conversations by phone with Kent Frizell and Dick Hallstern reconfirmed the decision, as well as providing me the information that the “Indian Bill of Rights” provision had been accepted and revised with language indicating a stronger federal commitment than we had previously proposed. Indicating that I would not be attending subsequent negotiating sessions for reasons relating to their movement toward a final conclusion, I gave permission for the federal representatives to state that I had reviewed the proposed Government language for the provisions and found nothing objectionable in them, if such a statement would be useful in the next sessions.
From the press briefings held in Pine Ridge by Kent Frizell and Ramon Roubideaux, news began appearing in the press and broadcast media that a settlement was near. The prospects of a settlement were plainly disturbing and upsetting to several of the white attorneys related to Wounded Knee and working out of Rapid City, Mark Lane being the person most adverse to peaceful settlement along the lines already proposed by Wounded Knee. On late April 1st and early April 2nd, I spent about three hours arguing with about ten members of the “Wounded Knee Legal Offense/Defense Committee” in support of an early settlement and against any efforts on their part of advising against the proposed settlement and an early end to the armed confrontation. There was a noticeable shift in favor of my position, which at one point led Mark Lane to “threaten” to sever himself from the Committee (“collective”), until Beverly Axelrod chided him, “That’s it; take your marbles and go home. “He quickly reinstated himself. The next morning, the three lawyers who had been most hostile to my position and philosophies—and to the proposed settlement—left early in the morning to go to wounded Knee, arriving there some four hours before the scheduled negotiations and several hours before Ramon Roubideaux could travel there. (In the negotiations that day, there were several heated exchanges between Mark Lane and Kent Frizell. Lane made several arguments against the proposed agreement and the Government’s motives. At one point, Frizell was moved to call Lane “a damned liar” without apparent objection from any quarter.)
In the same period, Marlon Brando called me from his Los Angeles home to propose an early meeting to discuss his support for Indian causes. He stated that he did not want to travel to South Dakota, because his presence might attract too much attention and divert public attention away from Wounded Knee. He suggested meeting in Salt Lake City or Las Vegas, but I indicated that Denver would be more suitable in case I had to become involved again in negotiations. On the afternoon of April 2nd, Brando left a message setting up a meeting at a Denver Hotel on the evening of April 3rd.
On the evening of April 2nd, I learned that there was to be another “counter-proposal” from Wounded Knee relating to the proposed treaty commission and meetings with the White House. The legal committee at that time became embroiled in the drafting of provisions in the near-final agreement relating to procedures for the dispossession of arms and the processing of arrests. I briefly argued against any overly-complicated formulations or schemes which would become a bar to a final agreement, telling the lawyer’s groups that “one of the reasons Wounded Knee has happened is that Indian people want to get away from all this bullshit; once the people are ready to come out of Wounded Knee, they will want the processes to be simple and quick as possible…” Ramon Roubideaux expressed optimism that a final agreement might be reached the next day, but did indicate some possibilities of problems and requested that I return with him to Wounded Knee the following day to help deal with any complications which might arise. He also noted some discernible hardening of Wounded Knee positions as probable result of some of the most recent non-Indian attorney advices to Indians in Wounded Knee.
Ramon, myself and Sid Mills got a very late start from Rapid City the following day. My plane scheduled to Denver was for around 5 p.m., to meet with Brando upon arrival there. We planned to leave Wounded Knee by 2:30, but did not arrive there until shortly after 1:30, again by helicopter directly into the village for continuing negotiations in a small church. We took in some cigarettes and about ten pounds of candy bars. At the start of the session, Wounded Knee presented its counter-proposal relating to the Treaty Commission, but called for an immediate White House level meeting either at the White House or in Wounded Knee, preceding any dispossession of arms and disarmament. The counter-proposal had been drafted by an attorney who had first proposed such an “immediate White House meeting as a first demonstration of good faith on the part of the federal government” in the course of the April 1 meeting. At the earlier time, Wounded Knee had been willing to accept the general commitment for a series of scheduled meetings; however, the lawyer had lobbied for the “tangible first step” in the face of other lobbying for rejection of the general package which had been developed.
The federal response to the counter-proposal was immediately unfavorable. We asked for a statement detailing what their objections were. Both sides asked for a brief recess to discuss the matter. I advised Wounded Knee that I believed the Government could accept some slightly-modified formulation of the same proposal, or that proposal with some explicit understandings relating to the dispossession of arms and its timing. Additionally, I related the substance of certain conversations I’d had with Justice and White House officials regarding possible endings to the confrontation—including prospects of covert or ‘informally-arranged’ abandonment of Wounded Knee in the dead of night, in event of any continuing failure to reach a negotiated settlement.
Kent Frizell declared that he could not personally accept any implementation of a final agreement prior to a dispossession of arms, or without the disarmament being a first item for implementation in an agreement—and that he did not believe that the White House could accept any meetings with Indians from Wounded Knee while the village remained an armed camp. We responded that an implementation of disarmament would begin through preparations by the respective security and police forces immediately, with the signing of an agreement. We argued that it would take a couple of days’ time to plan an evacuation and displacement in Wounded Knee, including an inventorying of weaponry or whatever.
We argued that the procedure proposed was precisely the same as a previous proposal of the Government—with actual and final disarmament being scheduled to coincide or commence with the receipt of a telephone call by Wounded Knee immediately preceding the initiation of a proposed meeting outside and away from the village. We sought to meet every objection expressed by Frizell, and specifically attempted to show how each objection was met or dispelled by the proposed procedure. After consultations with Dick Hallstern, Frizell noted the effectiveness of “divide and conquer” tactics, pointing out that Hallstern was in disagreement with himself and favored seeking approval or acceptance of the basic counter-proposal. He expressed explicit doubt, however, that the White House would go along with anything like it. Attempting deliberately not to invoke any White House discussions openly, I pointed out that Alvin Josephy had just spent and afternoon at the White House, and that I had reason to believe that their attitudes had undergone substantial enlightenment or transformation in the preceding month and might well be more responsive to the proposal than Frizell was suggesting. I urged that, since there was divided opinion among Frizell and Hallstern on the proposition, in fairness to the proposal that both of them should discuss the matter with the White House in seeking the final decision. Misconstruing use of the term, “both sides,” to characterize their divided opinion, Frizell instead agreed that both he and I should call the White House to argue the merits of the proposal. I clarified the point. (That was to be the only open suggestion relating to our direct contact with the White House and Leonard Garment in working toward a settlement.)
Needing to get back to Rapid City, I suggested the federal negotiators fly us back to Pine Ridge, consult with the White House, and if a proposal might be approved, that they might return to Wounded Knee that afternoon for finalizing and signing an agreement. Instead, it was determined that there remained certain technical matters relating to other portions of the proposed agreement. Consequently, it was decided that US Marshals would transport me beyond Pine Ridge and then the Community Relations Service (CRS) would attempt to get me to the airport in time to catch my flight to Denver. Sid Mills remained to accompany Ramon Roubideaux back to Rapid City (as well as to hold a brief meeting with Wounded Knee leadership, ostensibly in support of the proposed settlement). Traveling at excessive speeds to overcome a real late start, we approached the airport with some small possibility of catching my plane. Five minutes from the airport, however, the CRS vehicle ran out of gas. Brando called me later that evening from Denver to learn why I hadn’t arrived. We planned to meet the next morning, but surprisingly persons working all night at my motel unit took my wake-up call and failed to wake me up to catch the Denver flight. Brando had stayed overnight at the Airport Holiday Inn under my own name. When I did arrive there 24 hours late, he had already caught a flight back to Los Angeles. From Denver, however, I maintained telephone contact with Frizell and Hallstern, Roubideaux, and Garment regarding the final terms of an Agreement at Wounded Knee.
The White House was willing to undertake an immediate meeting, although reluctant to meet with leading members of the American Indian Movement (AIM). Wounded Knee had designated Russell Means, Tom Bad Cob, Leonard Crow Dog, Ramon Roubideaux, accompanied by myself, as their representatives to a White House meeting (all five of us being Sioux Indians). The Government countered with an offer to meet in Rapid City, or possibly on the Rosebud Reservation; at first ruling out a meeting in Washington, DC, or at the White House itself, if it were to be absolutely necessary to have Russell Means in participation. Wounded Knee rejected those sites, and suggested a meeting at Syracuse, New York, hosted by the Six Nations’ chiefs (Iroquois Confederacy).
I urged Justice Department to accept the Syracuse site, pointing out that the Six Nations’ chiefs could exert positive influence and discipline for maintaining conformance to an agreement and its appropriate and immediate implementation. Without citing reason to Leonard Garment, I recommended the New York meeting site to him. He indicated that such a site would seem to be carrying the matter too far afield; and in our next conversation, he informed me that Washington, DC, had been accepted as a site, but under the neutral auspices or on the neutral grounds of the National Center for Dispute Settlement.
On the afternoon of April 5th, a six-point Agreement drawn from the April 1 proposal was finalized and signed at a sacred pipe ceremony in Wounded Knee. Russell Means and Leonard Crow Dog were transported by helicopter directly to Rapid City for a bond hearing, having submitted to arrest after the ceremony. The Justice Department also flew a federal magistrate from Sioux Falls to preside over the bond hearing in place of the Rapid City magistrate (Wilson) who had been demonstrably unfavorable in previous hearings. US District Judge Andrew Bogue, however, overruled the arrangements made by Justice and directed that Magistrate Wilson should conduct any and all hearing relating to Wounded Knee, unless presided over by Judge Bogue himself. A $25,000 full cash or collateral security bond was required after several hours of delay for Russell Means’ hearing. (If there occurred any federal violation of the April 5 Agreement, it was at that point in time, not subsequently in Washington, DC; and by judicial actions beyond the direct control of Department of Justice and the White House. However, numerous external influences began to assert themselves on the thinking of Russell Means once he was out of Wounded Knee and exposed to them. Notably, members of the Wounded Knee Legal Offense/Defense Committee began to inform persons calling for information on the final form of the Agreement that “we have thrown in some language that can still be subject to additional interpretation and dispute.”)
On the morning of April 6th, I met with Russell Means, Ramon Roubideaux, Leonard Crow Dog, and Tom Bad Cob at the Denver Airport. I had planned to fly to Los Angeles to meet with Brando to secure his help in raising bail funds, but checking with his secretary I learned he was out camping with his jeep and probably would not be back before the weekend which was fully scheduled for him. Therefore, I tried to catch Means’ same plane to Washington, DC, but missed it. I caught the next plane.
Almost immediately after arriving in Washington, DC, I learned of Russell Means’ statements to news media indicating a revised sequence for the telephone call to Wounded Knee, to signal the beginning of a “dispossession of arms”—conditioning such a call upon the completion of a “satisfactory” White House meeting, rather than at its beginning.
Dick Hallstern had traveled to Washington, DC, to coordinate the White House meeting with Leonard Garment, while Kent Frizell had remained at Pine Ridge to oversee the disarmament and evacuation of Wounded Knee. Hallstern, Frizell, and Garment, in separate conversations, expressed their determinations to stand by the April 5th Agreement and to meet its terms—but also not to be manipulated into a situation of new terms, wherein the Agreement might be repudiated by Russell Means after a White House meeting with him and the other Sioux representatives. Through both Hallstern and myself, Garment offered to meet privately and informally, without public notice, with Russell Means to discuss the substance and probable results of the scheduled meeting in order that it could proceed—and in order that Russell could comfortably make the telephone call prior to its commencement as previously agreed to. Russell rejected the offers for a private, non-public preliminary meeting.
There seemed a general eagerness on the part of the press and others to blame the government for breaching the agreement, irrespective of the truth of the matter. In fact, the government was willing to bend in most areas—except for refusing to hold the White House–level meeting and hazarding the chance that Russell Means might never make the call to signal disarmament at its conclusion. At Pine Ridge, telephone communications were again opened up for Wounded Knee for outgoing and incoming calls, and for Russell to coordinate with others there the plans for procedures of disarmament and evacuation. Both Kent Frizell and Dick Hallstern were willing to accept the “truthfulness” of statements made to them by the respective Wounded Knee representatives, or to take the statements at “face value.” Trying to maintain checks upon the pulse of all areas of activity and to keep all lines of communication open, I found myself knowing more than I want to know and began to question my own usefulness in the given situation.
At Wounded Knee, Kent Frizell seemed confident that he was reaching a final agreement on procedures for the scheduled disarmament. He advised the news media that about ninety percent of the final agreement had been nailed down, and that progress was being made on the remainder. Privately, he pointed out that the people in Wounded Knee had declared that they would not permit anyone then outside of Wounded Knee to prevent a settlement and final disarmament. Yet, I was aware that Mark Lane had been given assignment of helping to put together a disarmament “package that is about ninety percent complete,” but which would leave “about ten percent open to further discussion”—and controlled delay.
In Washington, DC, US Representative Lloyd Meeds called me at home to privately discuss the advisability of, and my recommendations regarding, retaining Russell Means on the witness list for hearing of the House Indian Affairs Subcommittee on the Trail of Broken Treaties and Wounded Knee, in view of the breakdown of the April 5th agreement. I assured Congressman Meeds of my belief that Russell would not use the hearing as a forum for lodging new demands as condition for ending Wounded Knee confrontations, and recommended that they proceed as scheduled. Also, I advised him that I thought ultimately it might require a public isolation of those persons opposing a settlement at Wounded Knee to bring it to a conclusion, and toward those ends it was important that governmental units maintain all their commitments—indicating to him my own judgement that the Administration to that point had done this. (Russell had begun by that time to advise other Indian people that I was not in agreement with what was happening in relation to the continuation of the Wounded Knee confrontation. After listening to a portion of my own congressional testimony, he became somewhat angry at myself—but agreed with most points of rationale in discussion of matters of objection. On his final evening in Washington, DC, however, he did make a strong verbal attack against myself, although much stronger against others.)
Toward the end of their stay here, both Russell and Ramon Roubideaux began blaming Dick Hallstern for the breakdown of the April 5th Agreement. In a surprising press conference statement, Russell declared that they would have no more consecrations with Hallstern or other functionaries, but that I was being assigned to open direct talked with Leonard Garment at the White House to arrange a meeting as provided in the April 5th Agreement as interpreted by the Wounded Knee representatives.
Since Russell was fully aware that I had continuous direct contact with Garment relating to Wounded Knee, I was uncertain how best to react to Russell’s statement. Finally I determined that, rather than take advantage of the arrangement which had been operative and instrumental in brining both sides to the threshold of a meaningful settlement, I should terminate further direct communications with Leonard Garment. Consequently, I advised the White House that Russell’s statement created a new situation which precluded continuation of our previous arrangement and lines of communication. Therefore, I agreed that future discussions should be channeled through Garment’s assistant, Brad Patterson, if there should be any. I indicated my feeling that my usefulness had greatly diminished, but advised that I would be available to both the Government and Wounded Knee, if either one or both sides might think I could be helpful in any way. (At time of my first meeting with Garment on March 23rd, I had insisted on direct lines of communication to him, rather than Mr. Patterson, noting some difficulties in communicating with any efficiency past Brad. This had been accepted, perhaps with greater efficiency than Leonard Garment had actually wanted. The White House switchboard faultlessly traced Garment down for me on call, frequently at home and once at the Kennedy Center. At one point, Garment remarked (or complained), “That switchboard is getting so they’re putting you through without even announcing you or even saying who’s calling.”)
The May 5th Agreement
The failure to secure an end to the armed confrontation through the April 5th Agreement did not lead to its abandonment by the government. Kent Frizell declared the federal intention to stick by the agreement “until hell freezes over.” Frizell returned to Washington, DC, in the second week of April for his confirmation hearings on his appointment to become Solicitor for the Department of the Interior. He was replaced in the field by Assistant Attorney General Stan Pottinger. Dick Hallstern returned to Pine Ridge when the White House–level meeting failed to occur.
I did maintain periodic contact with the federal negotiators at Pine Ridge and with the lawyers’ offices and communication center for Wounded Knee in Rapid City. From Rapid City, I was requested to try to secure a replacement for Dick Hallstern as the ranking federal representative in negotiations after Pottinger returned to Washington. “Anyone but Hallstern,” was the demand. Kent Frizell moved into his new Interior office and in conversations asked me if I thought he could do any good by returning to Pine Ridge and Wounded Knee. I told him that I thought it didn’t matter who was out there, unless Wounded Knee wanted to end the confrontation, but also advised him of the general Rapid City and Wounded Knee sentiment of “anyone but Hallstern.” (From the time of the first teepee meetings, Kent Frizell seemed to begin enjoying the negotiating processes and the less dangerous aspects of the entire situation. I had previously described his demeanor to other Indians, and federal officials as that of a Nineteenth Century cavalry officer involved in treaty negotiations with the Indians as Robert Stack would play the role in a Twentieth Century movie script—while making others of us feel like we were all part of an unfilmed re-make of “The Rogue River Massacre” in the peace-making stages.)
Meanwhile, Brad Patterson continued to express interest in the meeting with the traditional headmen and chiefs of the Teton Sioux. He plainly remained committed to the third week of May schedule, provided that the confrontation at Wounded Knee had reached a conclusion at that time. Dick Hallstern advised me that he had recommended that the entire Pine Ridge Indian Reservation and the tribal government “be taken into trusteeship” (or receivership) by the Secretary of the Interior, and asked my opinion on the results. I encouraged him in the recommendation and expressed belief that it would contribute to an early settlement. Brad Patterson confirmed that the idea had reached the White House level, but that such an action would have to rely upon the acceptance and approval of the Department of the Interior. He expressed serious doubts that the Interior Secretary would take such an action, anticipating strong objections and reactions of fear among other tribal governments and officials throughout the country.
Federal representatives had repeatedly disclaimed intentions of making a police assault against Wounded Knee since mid-March, barring situations in which the suffering of casualties or fatalities among the police forces might compel an attempt to end the confrontation by force. After breakdown of the April 5th Agreement, that general policy was maintained. However, one federal official expressed the view that decisive action would have to be taken before the general period related to the end of school terms—absent a settlement. There was a pervasive fear that college and high school students might flock to Wounded Knee after school was out and create a more unmanageable and more explosive situation. Despite numerous rumors to the contrary, I felt that the government would not plan any police assault on Wounded Knee prior to the passing of the third week in May.
Dick Hallstern related to me some of the difficulties federal investigators were experiencing in following up on criminal complaints of violence to persons and of civil rights violations. The victims of several incidents, such as rape, which had been cited during the negotiating sessions, were denying that the incidents occurred or were refusing to discuss the matters with investigators. Nonetheless, in most areas of commitment under the April 5th Agreement, the government was attempting to conform to the requirements placed upon it. One official indicated that, were it to become necessary to end the confrontation by police assault, the Government wanted to have built a clear record of conformance with the Agreement, as well as having demonstrated its willingness to reach or carry out every reasonable accommodation with Wounded Knee.
Kent Frizell returned to Pine Ridge after only being in his Interior office one day. Although the New York Times had erroneously pictured him as the key person in negotiation the April 5th Agreement (Hallstern had been the person most instrumental in securing federal approval for the form and substance of the agreement—and in overriding Frizell’s personal objections or doubts) in one of its “Man in the News” features, Frizell definitely was the person chiefly responsible for securing the May 8th evaluation of Wounded Knee. Frizell had initially attempted to maintain “friendly and correct” relations with tribal chairman Richard Wilson, but was not constrained from arguing with him, demanding acceptance of certain governmental actions, or unleashing his temper against him. After Kent Frizell was subjected to tribal arrest (twice), and saved from being shot in the head at near-point-blank by an heroic maneuver on the part of US Chief Marshal Colburn (on the other hand, perhaps foolish had they both been shot; fortunately neither were), his relationship with the tribal chairman became less crucial to the decisions being made and less affecting upon his relationship with other Indian groups, both those in Wounded Knee and the traditional headmen and chiefs. While Hallstern appeared to become more determined to limit Wounded Knee’s options to the simple choice of staying in Wounded Knee or meeting solely for the purpose of prescribing the methods of coming out, Frizell showed a greater willingness to allow them some latitude for negotiating the method of coming out.
(The Legal Committee in Rapid City later informed me that the Government, prior to Frizell’s latter return, had been suspicious of even proposed sacred ceremonies for effecting disarmament. Personally, I would feel that there could be ceremonies that should be cause for fear, if not suspicion, on the part of the government—in context of making war or peace. Anyone believing in the powers at hand knows he should be certain how that power shall stand or how it should direct the people. After learning of the lawyers’ disappointment that some particular ceremony did not assume control over the situation, I began to suspect that the Government’s suspicions were probably not wholly without justification.)
The final groundwork for the May 8th evacuation of Wounded Knee began being set in place when Kent Frizell allowed access to Wounded Knee of the respected headmen and chiefs, led by Frank Fools Crow. Ironically, Frizell and the chiefs and principal leaders in Wounded Knee were earnestly approaching an agreement at the same time that rumors were being spread by a busy telephone network around the country that the federal police forces, assisted by a number of designated military unites, were prepared to make an assault against the village on May 4th, 5th or 6th. The rumors were given greater credence by the refusal of Dick Hallstern to make an outright denial that federal assault was imminent. In his least-frank conversation with myself, Hallstern would not convey any denial to myself either, but rather engaged in the language that he had used with the press: “We have always regarded a direct police action as a viable option which we had to consider and which we might well have to use.” He was, however, amused by the number and names of the different military and guard units which were then allegedly being mobilized, maneuvering, or headed toward, (on) the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. “I am prepared to state categorically and unequivocally,” he quipped, “that John Wayne is nowhere upon this Reservation, and we have no intention of calling him in…at this time.”
Around 11:30 p.m., Kent Frizell called me from Pine Ridge. He stated that he thought they had pretty much wrapped up an agreement, advising me that he had just left their talks at Wounded Knee. Briefly he outlined the proposed settlement: He was requesting a letter from Leonard Garment of the White House addressed to the Teton Sioux headmen and chiefs, verifying that a meeting of at least five presidential representatives would take place with them during the third week of May; the funeral of Lawrence (Buddy) LaMont would be held in Wounded Knee on Friday or Saturday, and the village would be opened up for Indian people to attend the funeral; the dispossession of arms would take place prior to the scheduled funeral, but there would be no federal entry into or searches of Wounded Knee for a period of seventy-two hours, although at the expiration of that time period there would occur a bi-laterally-supervised “disarmament” and “pull-back” by both sides. He stated that the reason he was calling me was that Leonard Crow Dog and others in Wounded Knee had asked that I be brought back into Wounded Knee, and that I receive the letter from the White House and deliver it to the headmen and chiefs in Wounded Knee. He expressed his hope that the outline would materialize into a final resolution. He asked if I would return to South Dakota as a courier with the White House letter and to be available for any counseling to other Sioux people which might be required or requested.
Kent Frizell further indicated that time was a crucial factor in finalizing an agreement and procedure for ending the armed confrontation. He informed me that all points had not yet then been cleared with the White House and that it would still be necessary to draft a letter that would be acceptable to Leonard Garment and other officials. Frizell asked if I could be ready to catch a plane to South Dakota as soon as a letter would be ready. (He did suggest that they would reimburse me for travel, inasmuch as the time requirements would pretty much obligate a personal delivery in any instance, and my expenses should be picked up as well as anyone else’s would be. I did not, nor have I, requested governmental reimbursement.) Finally, he advised me that he would be back in touch with me, and that I should maintain contact with Brad Patterson’s office for purposes of receiving the letter.
Shortly after talking with Frizell, Mary Bergren called to inform me that he had called Senator Abourezk and had assured the Senator that there were no plans whatever for a police assault on the village and that all rumors to the contrary should be discounted and ignored. On a confidential basis, but not totally restricted, I advised her of the substance of my just-concluded conversation with Kent Frizell. She seemed pleased by the news and expressed a view that the Indian Affairs Subcommittee should be advised privately of the new developments and their potential promise of an end to the confrontation. I did not interpose any objections, but did suggest that perverse sidelights to the entire Wounded Knee experience, I was called within an hour after completing my talk with Kent Frizell by Mr. Gerald R. Gereau, Professional Staff Member of the Senate Interior and Insular Affairs Committee, who, purporting to have talked immediate previously with Senator Abourezk about my planned trip, made certain offers of assistance relating to the alleviation of tribal oppositions to my travel. Attempting to learn precisely what Frizell might have told the Senator, I questioned Mr. Gereau about his sources of information—only to learn that he had not talked with Senator Abourezk at all. Mr. Gereau at that time gave me his unlisted home phone number; then later lied to an inquiry of Senator Henry M. Jackson (or Jerry T. Verkler, Staff Director) to claim that he had not talked with me at all until the afternoon of May 4th, a day-and-a-half after his post-midnight call to me. On my way to South Dakota, I wrote a letter to Senator Jackson protesting Mr. Gereau’s attitudes and actions of opposition and of interference with my invited or requested “mission.” The Senator had the opportunity to answer after the Wounded Knee confrontation has ended. Nonetheless, I understand that Mr. Gereau wrote a lengthy denial of my allegations, a denial of his own statements to and conversations with myself, indicating that most of the content of my own letter was “absolutely false,” and that his own concerns had been those of preventing myself from speaking in the name of the Senate Committee in my efforts to overthrow the Oglala Sioux tribal government, or words to that effect. It was a thoroughly weird episode!)
The following day, I checked several times with Brad Patterson and Kent Frizell regarding the proposed letter and my availability to make delivery. Surprisingly, the drafting of the letter was only nearing completion at the end of May 3rd—and Leonard Garment had not yet been fully advised in its premises or been available long enough to give approval to content. By Friday morning, it appeared that Kent Frizell felt he had better command of the situation at Wounded Knee and greater confidence than he had expressed Tuesday night. It became obvious that I personally had become less essential to the outcome, with Frizell advising me that the final decision on whether I should deliver the letter or someone else should be utilized would be made by Brad Patterson. I had made reservations on every Rapid City flight schedule since Thursday morning—but when advised by Mr. Patterson at mid-day Friday that the letter was ready along with an explanatory note to Kent Frizell, I was caught against a fully-booked flight. I left for Rapid City on Friday evening, carrying the two sealed letters provided to me at the White House. Also, I carried a copy of each of the two, hiding them upon myself as “security copies”—against any unexpected, yet possible, attempts which might be taken to prevent their delivery.
Having unscheduled delays in plane transfer in Minneapolis, I called Kent Frizell to advise of my anticipated arrival time and to learn of the general plan of action. He informed me that Dick Wilson had learned again of my travel plans and purposes and had declared that I would not be permitted under any circumstances to arrive in Wounded Knee. He said he would check with Fools Crow to find out what he wanted to do, whether wanting me to be brought to Wounded Knee, to his home, or perhaps meet at some place off the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. He suggested we get back in touch either later that night or after arriving in Rapid City or the following morning.
The following morning, Kent Frizell called me at the legal offices. He informed me that the headmen and chiefs had agreed to have the White House letter delivered to them at Scenic, off the reservation. We arranged to meet there at 10 a.m. I rode with Ramon Roubideaux to scenic, where a CRS agent informed us that the delivery site had been changed to the Reservation boundary. Approximately 100 Oglala Sioux, including a number of the headmen and chiefs and their interpreters were waiting at the boundary line. They had a proximate draft of the letter I carried. They asked to discuss certain questions they had about the letter—as well as certain doubts about its meaning and what they should do. Kent Frizell had not been advised of the change in plans, and so we watched his helicopter fly overhead toward Scenic. The Sioux chiefs did not want to break the seal on the letter until they could carry it into Wounded Knee. Therefore, I informed them of my extra “security copies” and gave them to the elderly men to read and discuss. They had several questions, which I answered, and which answers seemed to satisfy them that they should proceed with the agreement and end the armed confrontation at Wounded Knee. Primarily, I distinguished between the limitations in content and promise of the White House letter—and the matters which they could raise in the context of the scheduled and future White House–level meetings. (I also showed them the copy of the private note to Kent Frizell, which essentially clarified the federal position that the date deadlines in the White House letter should not be construed as ultimatums or threats. From the private note, the chiefs determined that they had an extra week to work if they wanted to take it, but indicated that they were then satisfied with the general time schedule already set forth and informed me that they would act to conclude a settlement at Wounded Knee as quickly as possible.)
When Frizell arrived back at the border from Scenic, Fools Crow and the other chiefs were ready to receive the letter. To illustrate the wrongness of the present situations on the Sioux lands, they asked that I hand them the sealed letter across a barbed-wire fence which kept away other Indians and even the “official White House courier”—as Kent Frizell called me. I made a brief statement to Fools Crow relating to the meaning of Wounded Knee and cautioning him about the representations of the Government, declaring my belief that Indian people must look to ourselves, our own labors, our own strengths, and our own spirits, not White House letters nor white man’s promises, to recreate a good Indian life upon Indian lands restored to our own control, and to save or to serve Indian people. (I expressed displeasure about a number of things, including the immediate plans to take the chiefs on pleasure rides in the government helicopter. Indian persons from Wounded Knee who had condemned the government’s taking advantage of the headmen and chiefs liked my statement to the chiefs—but told me that it had not been translated at all to convey what I had said to them.) There were no television cameras at the site, but as we finished transferring the White House letter, a camera crew arrived and requested a brief “re-enactment” for their newscasts. There was no repetition of statements, although some additional ones; otherwise we briefly complied with the request.
Late that night (May 5th), Frizell informed me that Ramon Roubideaux and Dick Hallstern had finalized a draft agreement and that it had been signed, although it might have additional signatures in Wounded Knee the following day. That evening I reported to the Wounded Knee Legal Office/Defense Committee my understanding of what was happening and what would take place over the next several days. Again it seemed obvious that various members of the legal group were greatly disappointed that a settlement was nearing. I told them: “I’ve never hid the fact that my central interest, apart from securing general and specific Indian objectives, had been oriented toward helping achieve a peaceful settlement.”
The funeral of Buddy LaMont proceeded as scheduled on Sunday, but with persons being allowed into Wounded Knee having been limited to a list of relatives and close friends of his Oglala Sioux Nations as provided by his mother.
On Sunday the 6th, I walked into the legal offices and the midst of a meeting. The conversations were directed toward the question of whether it was already too late to prevent acceptance of the settlement which had already been reached. Almost immediately, the subject of my presence at legal defense meetings was brought up, with one of their members declaring that I should be asked to leave and not permitted to attend the “Committee” meetings. They were, in the absence of any objections, in unanimous agreement. (Later one of their members called to “explain” and express apology, informing me that they “are a collective and operate as one person”—advising me that since I did not regularly stay and work in Rapid City, that some just did not know me and so I just did not fit it.)
Just before catching a plane back to Washington, DC, shortly after Monday noon, I was called over to the legal offices to talk to one of the central Indian figures in the Wounded Knee occupation. I had already been advised by federal negotiators that they believed the evacuation would take place much more rapidly than scheduled under the seventy-two hour delay. (“It looks like we’re going to get an empty bag. There’s been a heavy infiltration out and it looks like most weapons are being taken out. But that’s what we’ve more or less expected all along. We think Dennis Banks is leaving tonight, and Carter Camp seems ready to come out.”) The Indian leader criticized me sharply for delivering the letter to the chiefs, and counseling them to settle. He blamed me for the agreement, alleging that there wouldn’t have been a settlement if I hadn’t become involved again: “You know those old people trust you!!”
As I left, Mark Lane was recording a final message from the Indian leader to the people in Wounded Knee—a last desperate effort to stop the settlement. It would be taken into Wounded Knee the next day. Fortunately, it would be taken into an empty village.
Letter
June 13, 1973
Survival of American Indians Association
Mr. Elliot Richardson
Attorney General of the United States
ATTN: Mr. William Ruckelshaus, Acting Director
US Federal Bureau of Investigation
Department of Justice
Washington, DC
Mr. Attorney General:
On January 31, 1973, a number of FBI Agents arrested myself in front of the apartment building where I live, then without invitation or warrant entered my apartment at the above address. After securing a search warrant several hours later, they removed certain properties and papers from my apartment.
In mid-March, an IBM electric typewriter and some documents and papers were returned to me by Assistant US Attorney John Rudy. These documents were from among others which belonged to myself, but which were being carried or transported on the top of boxes of other papers and properties stolen from the Bureau of Indian Affairs building last November and being returned there for delivery to agents of FBI at the time of their being seized.
To date, none of the documents or papers taken from my apartment have been returned to me by the United States Government. Nor have the remainder of the other documents, included in the several boxes seized but which were not stolen from the Department of the Interior, been returned. Additionally, the federal agents have kept the set of apartment keys which they used to gain entry, and may continue to use in gaining entry, to my apartment. As well, a movie film, “As Long As the Rivers Run,” produced by myself, and a short film clip, relating to the failure of the federal government to protect treaty fishing rights of Indian people upon their reservation lands in Washington State, and depicting a large-scale, illegal and brutal police attack upon Indian men, women and children, was removed from my apartment by your Department’s undercover agent John Arellano and not subsequently returned to my possession. Inasmuch as Mr. Arellano was authorized by the Attorney General’s Office in late January to maintain electronic surveillance upon my conversations with recording, sound or transmitting devices, and was apparently acting under the direction and recommendations of Assistant Attorney General Henry Peterson, I regard it ludicrous that your department should disclaim all responsibility for the actions of Mr. Arellano and the taking of these films, as well as the set of apartment keys, as being matters which must be resolved by the Metropolitan Police Department of this city.
I would sincerely appreciate your office’s now undertaking to return the remainder of my properties, papers and documents to me as quickly as possible. None of these items constitute the proceeds or evidence of any crime committed by myself or persons with whom I’ve been associated. Nor have I destroyed or stolen any such evidences, or other properties of the United States.
The documents I seek return of do, indeed, relate to actions of the Department of the Interior, its Bureau of Indian Affairs, HEW’s Social Rehabilitation Services, the Office of Minority Business Enterprises (OMBE), and the Environmental Protection Agency or application of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) upon actions of the Interior Department—where most these documents did originate, but from where they were not unlawfully removed or taken. None were actual file copies, nor copies which were meant, in their particular, to be actually maintained in the possession of that Department, although identical copies certainly would be and undoubtedly are. It is my understanding that most of these copies were withdrawn from a general informational distribution made to scores of offices or employees of the Bureau of Indian Affairs for maintaining the general knowledge of Bureau activities, but otherwise having a normal wastebasket destination without requirement of destruction or limitations upon additional use or external distribution.
These documents are not unlike those which, according to recent published reports, are being provided to external distribution points, such as members of congress and news outlets, by officers of the Office of Economic Opportunity of that agency’s internal and public records for purposes of affecting future programming, authorizations and funding. More closely related, these documents and records are not unlike the record information and documentation which the Department of the Interior and Bureau of Indian Affairs offered to make available in quantity, without specific requests on particularized matter or documents, to a private Arizona citizen and constituent of US Representative Sam Steiger, upon the request of that Congressman, for use in writing a book. (This generous offer was made last autumn.)
On the other hand, I do believe that some of these documents clearly evidence wrongdoing and maladministration of trust responsibilities for Indian people by Department of the Interior officials. For instance, among the papers taken from me, one memorandum legal opinion and departmental briefing paper, which should have been controlling upon departmental and bureau decisions, spelled out the provisions of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) shortly after its enactment and left no question but that the Act applied in its requirements to various departmentally-approved actions of Interior in the leasing or developing of, or contracting upon, certain Indian tribal and trust lands. Notwithstanding the applicability of the effective law, an official in the Secretary’s Office nonetheless made a policy decision that NEPA would not apply to nor restrict tribal or departmental actions, in their government or administration, based upon a justifying rationale that “tribal leaders do not want it (applied)” and because “Indian lands are private property.”
That policy decision, nationally-applied to Indian Country, preceded the subsequent legal opinion contrived for its support. Disregarding their own legal opinion that Environmental Impact Statements were required before finalizing or approving certain tribal actions, hundreds of thousands of acres of Indian tribal and trust lands were, subsequently and in consequence, subjected to contracts, leases, or otherwise opened up to mineral and mining exploration and exploitation, or other forms of industrial or resources development and capitalization by non-Indian business interests, without either tribal leaders or memberships having the benefit of minimal, much less full, knowledge and understanding of possible adverse affects and ultimate impacts on these actions and undertakings.
One effect, evolving with greater frequency, is that Indian people in different parts of the country where these large-acreage leases and contract were effected, are being called upon to draw from their manager tribal and individual or collective resources to challenge the well-financed industrial lease-holders and contractors, as well as the United States, in attempting to nullify or overturn some unwisely wrought decisions affecting their resources and rights. A fundamental deficiency in the policy pursued, besides its disregard of the NEPA law, was its total disregard of the fact that each Indian tribal member possesses legal proprietary and equity interests in tribal actions and the management of tribal resources, which interests and rights are deserving of protection—and which are not wholly surrendered at the tribal ballot boxes or elections, but which may be invoked against demonstrably wrongful and adverse decisions of tribal leaders under existing law. (Your Assistant Attorney General Stan Pottinger would do well to understand this in formulating his declared plans or intent to more fully implement the “Indian Bill of Rights” measure of the 1968 Civil Rights Act upon Indian Reservations in the immediate future. Most Indian persons do not want to haul their tribal leaders into court in search of recourse to rights having been violated already or for remedy to legal interests being denied. Rather, most want their interests protected and their rights preserved for enjoyment by conscientious application of well-constructed governmental procedures or administrative decisional processes, structured with full cognizance of these individual and collective tribal rights and interests.)
I have digressed from the basic subject of this letter. However, it seems timely and not inappropriate to express these several viewpoints related to the content of the documents taken from me by your Department and not returned to my possession, despite my continuing needs for their various information.
Additionally, I would note my hope that, under your direction, the Department of Justice would take cognizance of a fact that the trust responsibility and relationship toward and with Indian people extends to the entirety of the federal or United States’ Government, particularly all of the Executive branch and its Departments, although certainly the Interior Secretary and Department is its principal agent and instrumentality as trustee, and that the Justice Department and its agencies would review its policies and practices relating to Indian people, tribes and individuals, in order that its future actions might conform more conscientiously and consistently with those trust responsibilities and relationships, as well as with existing laws placing specific obligations upon the Justice Department with respect to Indian people and our rights and reservations.
It is not simply self-serving to say that a good step to be taken would be for your Department to effect the immediate return of my house keys, papers, documents and other properties so disingenuously taken from me January 31, 1973, and previously thereto.
Respectfully yours,
Hank Adams,
National Director