Richard Oakes, Alcatraz and More

From ‘Akwesasne Notes’, Late Autumn, 1972

(Hank Adams is 29, an Assiniboine-Sioux who resides at Frank’s Landing, Washington. He has been active in fishing rights, and was himself the target of a late-night vigilante shooting in February, 1971. He was an acquaintance of Richard Oakes — and he wrote after his death this memoir.)

by Hank Adams

The death of Richard Oakes provides emphatic proof that there has been no ebb in the sickness and sea of violence which White America has maintained against Indian people throughout its history to sweep away the lives of our nameless and our renowned.

The flood of Indian deaths and murders has swept unabated throughout all the states — repeatedly in California, New York, New Mexico, Arizona, Pennsylvania, Minnesota and Washington — beyond American borders in Canada, Mexico and Brazil to cover the full expanse and breadth of the Native American continents. But in the United States the record of late is most foul and savage.

The pastime of killing Indians has not been surrendered from the self-esteemed “pioneer spirit” of White America in the 1970’s. Both policemen and private citizens, as vigilantes and as hunters, recognize no sanctions against stalking Indians and shooting them for any cause and on any occasion.

If Richard Oakes is only to be publicly identified with Alcatraz to the public by news media, then let the public remember that Alcatraz was instrumental in placing the needs and concerns of Indian people upon the national agenda. Remember that, despite its own failure in claims, Alcatraz had direct and powerful bearing upon the final results in settlement of claims with Alaska Natives, in return of Blue Lake to Taos Pueblo, Mt. Adams to the Yakimas, the establishment of DQU [Deganawidah-Quetzalcoatl University] in Davis, California, and the Seattle Indian involvement in the President of the U.S. “legacy of parks” decisions at Ft. Lawton, Washington.

For Indians, Alcatraz was never meant for confinement of people or of purpose nor to constrain the ideas or dreams of any. Its impact has been felt elsewhere.

Richard Oakes’ presence beyond Alcatraz and his influence upon many Indian people shall continue to live within the body and soul of Indian experience. Born to the American soil, and responding strongly to his peoples’ struggle and suffering upon it, the living spirit of Richard Oakes could not now die nor cease to be remembered upon American land.

Neither elegy nor eulogy can satisfy his life or death. But both can be looked to for generation within this land a legacy of protection for Indian people throughout it, a simply legacy promised Indian people during the infancy of the United States.

Can 50 states and 225,000,000 people now shield themselves from their own obligations under their Constitution and their treaty contracts to deny Indian people the protections due them? They can — it is obvious — because they have done it.

The question is simply whether the United States and its citizens shall continue doing so.