500 Years of Indigenous Resistance, 2nd Edition

GO rD hIll 500 Years of Indigenous resistance

ties fighting theft of land, poverty, pollution, etc. In 1970, for example, 200
Metis and Indians occupied the Alberta New Start Centre at Lac La Biche,
protesting against the federal government’s cancellation of the program.
That same year, AIM participated in the occupation of Plymouth
Rock and the Mayflower ship replica on “Thanksgiving Day”, as well as
organizing protests and actions against the BIA (Bureau of Indian Af-
fairs). In South Dakota, a protest at the Custer Courthouse was attacked
by police, leading to a riot in which the court and several buildings were
burned down. In 1972, AIM organized the “Trail of Broken Treaties
Caravan”, and prepared a 20 point position paper concerning the general
conditions of Native peoples in the U.S. The Trail ended in Washington,
DC, where demonstrators occupied and destroyed the offices of the BIA.
The following year, traditionalists in the Pine Ridge reservation in South
Dakota requested AIM support after a campaign of terror led by Tribal
President Dick Wilson and BIA thugs. On February 27, a caravan of people
went to Wounded Knee for a council—the site of the 1890 massacre. The
area was almost immediately surrounded by police, and a one day meeting
turned into a 71 day armed occupation in which 300 people resisted a large
military and paramilitary force consisting of FBI agents, BIA police, local
and state police, and military personnel. Two Natives were shot dead, two
wounded, and one Federal Agent wounded. Three weeks into the liberation
of Wounded Knee, the Independent Oglala Nation was established.

The Independent Oglala Nation was more than just a brave

gesture by a band of besieged Indians. It represented the gravest

threat in more than a century to the plans of the U.S. government

to subdue the Native people of the U.S. and to deprive them of

their lands for the exploitation and profit of white interests.^56

As supplies dwindled and the military prepared for a final assault, the
defenders decided to withdraw. On May 7, about half the people filtered
through the enemy lines, and the following day about 150 who remained
laid down their arms. In the period following, the FBI, BIA, and Wilson’s
regime conducted a campaign of terror; by 1976 as many as 250 people
in and around Pine Ridge were dead, including 50 members of AIM.
Shootings, firebombings, assaults, and assassinations were carried out by
Wilson’s goons and in conjunction with the FBI’s Counter-Intelligence
Program (COINTELPRO). On June 26, 1975, an FBI raid on an AIM en-

56. “On the Road to Wounded Knee”, Indian Nation Vol. 3, No. 1, April 1976, pg. 15.