American Indian Movement(AIM)

Brief Overview

•Treaties

•Allotment

•Boarding Schools

•Termination and relocation

• Aim was founded in 1968 in minneapolis

•Edward Benton, Vernon and Clyde Bellecourt were among the founders

•Dedicated to protecting as well as imporoving life of native americans as well as keeping their culture alive

•First goal: Deal with police brutality

•1969 – Occupation of Alcatraz Island•1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie.

•19 month occupation

•More than 5,600 American Indians

•Wanted positive example: no violence

Occupation of Alcatraz

•Celebrity Support:

•Boxes of food and money from CCR, Grateful Dead, Jane Fonda, Marlon Brando and polititians.

•Life wasn’t perfect occupying the island:

•Many tribes

•Drugs/alcohol

•Death – 12 yr old Yvonne Oakes

Outcome of Alcatraz

•Some gov. officials wanted armed takeover – Nixon said ‘no’

•A fire burned 4 buildings which signaled the end of the occupation

•People began leaving on their own

Takeover of Winter Dam

•Dam – Built 1921 with damaging effects

•1971 – takeover began

•AIM assisted the LCO tribe

•Winter Dam 50 yr. License about to expire – tried to block renewal

•Divided the ojibwe community

•Success: Gov. replaced 25,000 acres, able to generate hydro-electric power.

•Issue of flooded graves: unresolved

“Basically, all we were doing was some real minor symbolic statement of just occupying the dam, but immediately we were aware that there were federal marshalls in the region…There were planes flying over and newsment started getting onto the story…people downstream believed that we had wired the dam to explode…there was quite a calamity.”

-Richard St. Germaine

Winter Dam, Continued

Children at a 1971 demonstration by the Lac Court Oreilles Ojibwe band and the American Indian Movement (AIM) against relicensing the Winter Dam.

-Chippewa Valley Museum

Takeover at Wounded Knee

Wounded Knee, Cont’d

1973 – Lakota contact AIM to help with corruption within the BIA and Tribal Council

Armed indians reclaimed wounded knee

Over 75 nations were represented

Many demands:

•Investigations into 371 Treaties

•Investigate misuse of tribal funds

•BIA investigation

Wounded Knee Cont’d

•Government cut of electricity and tried to keep food from going in.

•Heavy Gunfire daily

Buddy Lamond and Frank Clearwater were killed – 12 others disappeared.

After 71 days of being free peoples, the siege ended – Over 1200 were arrested

Wounded Knee Cont’d

Next 3 years “Reign of Terror”

•64 unsolved murder victims

•300 harassed and beaten

•562 arrests made – only 15 convicted of a crime

Milo Goings, a 27-year-old Oglala, gets a ride from a fellow tribe member after Goings was wounded in an exchange of gunfire between the occupiers of Wounded Knee and U.S. marshals on March 10, 1973.

AIM has been involved in many other things as well.

Link for overview of events:

http://www.aimovement.org/ggc/history.html

AIM todayAIM still patrols the streets of Minneapolis for their original purpose, police brutality.

Involved in protesting Indian mascots

Committed to keeping native culture alive

1993 - Split into two factions due to differences in opinion

Bibliography:

http://siouxme.com/lodge/alcatraz_np.html

http://siouxme.com/siege.html

http://www.aimovement.org/ggc/history.html

http://www.cvmuseum.com/Paths5.html

Bieder, Robert E, Native American Communities in Wisconsin 1600-1930

Lurie, Nancy Oestrich, Wisconsin Indians

Paths of the People, The Ojibwe in the Chippewa Valley

Prucha, Francis Paul, Documents of United States Indian Policy