People's History of the United States_ 1492 to Present, A - Zinn, Howard [315]
It has inadequate sanitation facilities.
There are no oil or mineral rights.
There is no industry and so unemployment is very great.
There are no health care facilities.
The soil is rocky and non-productive; and the land does not support game.
There are no educational facilities.
The population has always exceeded the land base.
The population has always been held as prisoners and dependent upon others.
They announced they would make the island a center for Native American Studies for Ecology: “We will work to de-pollute the air and waters of the Bay Area . . . restore fish and animal life. . . .”
In the months that followed, the government cut off telephones, electricity, and water to Alcatraz Island. Many of the Indians had to leave, but others insisted on staying. A year later they were still there, and they sent out a message to “our brothers and sisters of all races and tongues upon our Earth Mother”:
We are still holding the Island of Alcatraz in the true names of Freedom, Justice and Equality, because you, our brothers and sisters of this earth, have lent support to our just cause. We reach out our hands and hearts and send spirit messages to each and every one of you—we hold the rock. . . .
We have learned that violence breeds only more violence and we therefore have carried on our occupation of Alcatraz in a peaceful manner, hoping that the government of these United States will also act accordingly. . . .
We are a proud people! We are Indians! We have observed and rejected much of what so-called civilization offers. We are Indians! We will preserve our traditions and ways of life by educating our own children. We are Indians! We will join hands in a unity never before put into practice. We are Indians! Our Earth Mother awaits our voices.
We are Indians Of All Tribes! We Hold The Rock!
Six months later, federal forces invaded the island and physically removed the Indians living there.
It had been thought that the Navajo Indians would not be heard from again. In the mid-1800s, United States troops under “Kit” Carson burned Navajo villages, destroyed their crops and orchards, forced them from their lands. But in the Black Mesa of New Mexico they never surrendered. In the late 1960s, the Peabody Coal Company began strip mining on their land—a ruthless excavation of the topsoil. The company pointed to a “contract” signed with some Navajos. It was reminiscent of the “treaties” signed with some Indians in the past that took away all Indian land.
One hundred and fifty Navajos met in the spring of 1969 to declare that the strip mining would pollute the water and the air, destroy the grazing land for livestock, use up their scarce water resources. A young woman pointed to a public relations pamphlet put out by the Peabody Coal Company, showing fishing lakes, grassland, trees, and said: “We’re not going to have anything like those you see in the pictures. . . . What is the future going to be like for our children, our children’s children?” An elderly Navajo woman, one of the organizers of the meeting, said, “Peabody’s monsters are digging up the heart of our mother earth, our sacred mountain, and we also feel the pains. . . . I have lived here for years and I’m not about to move.”
The Hopi Indians were also affected by the Peabody operations. They wrote to President Nixon in protest:
Today the sacred lands where the Hopi live are being desecrated by men who seek coal and water from our soil that they may create more power for the whiteman’s cities. . . . The Great Spirit said not to allow this to happen. . . . The Great Spirit said not to take from the Earth—not to destroy living things. . . .
It is said by the Great Spirit that if a gourd of ashes is dropped upon the Earth, that many men will die and that the end of this way of life is near at hand. We interpret this as the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. We do not want to see this happen to any place or any nation again, but instead we should turn all this energy for peaceful uses, not for war. . . .