![]() ![]() The entry is signed by Luwana Quitiquit, a Pomo-Modoc Indigenous activist who was one of many women to have important roles in the occupation of Alcatraz. One of the log’s inside flaps features a tidy note in blue script that reads: “HISTORY: This book found in the old boiler room by myself, brought to the pier, for registration of new residents and visitors.” The inscriptions also tell a story about the book’s origins. (Someone entered signatures for “Daddy Warbucks” and “John Wayne.”) (An entry by Vickie Domingo of Salinas, Calif., reports that “the island is going to do plenty for me and my children and my grandchildren, and their children after them, to make them free and peaceful.”) It is also to find evidence of the class cutup. To read its pages is to find heartfelt sentiment. Nearly 48 years later, Chicano leader David Sanchez revisits the island and the legacy of the Berets’ three-week occupation. In 1972, the mission of the Brown Berets was to occupy Catalina Island - land they believed belonged to Mexico. At the age of 6, he says, he was rather mystified by the proceedings: “I’m thinking, why are a bunch of Native folks going to an island that is a prison voluntarily? Until my father explained that it’s a very conceptual act.”Īs Richard Oakes, a key organizer of the occupation, once stated: “Alcatraz was not an island, it was an idea.”Ĭalifornia Column One: Nearly half a century ago, activists ‘invaded’ this California island by claiming it for Mexico He remembers getting into a crowded boat to make the journey across the bay. On at least one outing, Horse Capture came to the island with his father. Horse Capture, who was then working as a welding inspector for the state of California. Among the activists who joined in the occupation was Horse Capture’s father, George P. Its high profile also led Indigenous people from around the country to rally to the cause. This mediagenic protest drew attention to its cause with a newsletter and a radio show - drawing press and celebrities, including visits from Ethel Kennedy, Jane Fonda and members of the band Creedence Clearwater Revival, who donated money for a boat to ferry supplies. And, resoundingly, it showcases how many people took the risk to come to San Francisco to be present and take the additional risk of signing this book.” You see a dynamic snapshot of the diversity of Indian country within this book. “It gives us insight into the fact that this was a movement that involved all nations,” he adds. But it had never been reproduced in a way that might make it broadly available to those wanting to know more about the occupation. The Alcatraz Logbook has been displayed at the Autry at least once in the past (in connection with an exhibition devoted to the work of Pomo healer and basket weaver Mabel McKay in 2016). ![]() But I’ve never had access to it until now.” “It’s been known among the veterans of Alcatraz, and as a scholar of Alcatraz, I’ve known about it. “It’s this holy grail of Alcatraz research,” says Kent Blansett, an associate professor of Indigenous studies and history at the University of Kansas in Lawrence. The book’s tattered cloth cover features the words “INDIAN LAW” drawn in an elaborate typeface in red ballpoint ink, surrounded by renderings of Indigenous patterns, an arrowhead and more names. “CUSTER HAD IT COMING,” says an all-caps addendum at the bottom of yet another. “RED POWER,” reads another ledger entry that runs up and down the length of one page in large letters. ![]() 20, 1970 - exactly one year into the 19-month Indigenous occupation of Alcatraz Island that lasted from 1969 to 1971 and generated headlines around the world.īeneath Quitiquit’s words someone wrote in capital letters: It is remarkable for other reasons too: Quitiquit, who was of Pomo-Modoc descent, wrote those words into a book 50 years ago this week, on Nov. This entry is remarkable for the sentimentality it displays toward Alcatraz, a barren, rocky outcropping in the San Francisco Bay that once functioned as a notorious island penitentiary. “To this beautiful little Island, which means a little something, which no one will ever understand, my feelings.” “We are about to leave for Alcatraz, maybe for the last time,” reads the ledger entry, written in a tidy blue cursive script. ![]()
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