September 17, 2024 • 39 mins
Alcatraz! For a lot of us, this former island prison occupies an iconic space in the American zeitgeist. It's been home to some of the country's most notorious criminals, and has been the inspiration for tons of top-notch works of fiction and cinema. Yet in today's episode, Ben, Noel and Max learn this supposedly-impenetrable place was not once, but multiple times invaded and occupied by Native American activists in the modern day.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
(00:27):
the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so much
for tuning in. We are coming to you live from
a kind of rainy, overcast day here in our fair
metropolis of Atlanta, Georgia, and it reminds me of something.
Oh wait, and that's our super producer, mister Max Williams. Hello,
(00:50):
I am here, And that's mister Noel Brown. I to
him here, I'm Ben Bullen. I would say I'm about
eighty percent here, you guys. When I imagine Alcatraz, for
some reason in my head, it's always nighttime and there's
always a storm, even though I know that's not true.
(01:11):
So like a rainy day is a perfect Alcatraz day
for me, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
I mean, you know, San Francisco is obviously a bit
north of the sunshiny, gleaming toaster vibes that is Los
Angeles and southern California, so it definitely has a bit
more of a haste to it. But when you get
out on that harbor, man and you hear the barkings
of the sea lions and the squawkings of the gulls,
and then off in the distance, just out of sight,
(01:37):
hiding behind the fog, you can almost see the erie
outline of Alcatraz Island.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
Yeah, you know, when we put it that way, it
is exactly like when you discover a ruined castle in
a mountain and skyrim. You know, you get closer, there's
the reveal, and then you get the notification. This for
a lot of us, I think, especially Americans or fans
of film, we're familiar with this strange place via the
(02:08):
world of cinema. As we'll earn, Alcatraz is still very
much a thing around that you could visit. But I
always think of Alcatraz in films like The Birdman of
Alcatraz and of course The Rock.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
I mean, yeah, The Rock is obviously kind of for
our generation, probably the most flagship Alcatraz film, but it
definitely looms large in cinema history. You've got Escape from
Alcatraz starring Clint Eastwood, which I've actually never seen, nor
have I seen The Birdman of Alcatraz. But The Rock,
you know, it's isn't it Michael Bay. That's a Michael
(02:44):
Bay film.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
Right, it has to be.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
It has to be, yeah, of course, I mean, you know,
Nicholas cage up to his Shenanigans. This time he's breaking
into an impenetrable prison, as opposed to breaking out with
the help of Shan Kong, who's the only man who's
ever escaped from Alcatrash. He does the good thing, doesn't he.
That's Sean Connery. I'm shot called got okay.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
He's he's a retired Captain John Patrick Mason. And because
he refuses to do you know, other accents than his own, uh,
they just said, okay, this guy's also I six that
what a living right.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
You're just so iconic on your own steam, just as
as you are in interviews that they don't even ask
you to do a different voice. They don't ask you
to put on a different careacter, whether you're King Richard
in the Bad robin Hood move Watch Out.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
The first ten minutes of that are banging.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
Completely agree. That also involves an escape from a prison. Yes,
it's only when Kevin Costner starts to speak that things
begin to go a bit south.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
Yeah, yeah, and you're thinking, what the field the dreams guy?
I don't remember the order in which those movies published,
but there is something It's a bit discursive, but there
is something to be said, I think about that, that
school of acting. It's very common in high level American actors.
They're never not them, right, it's al Pacino is the devil,
(04:13):
it's al Pacino as a football coach. But it's always.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
Al that's true. But early al Pacino, like seventies, Like
I was actually thinking about another great prison movie, Dog
Day Afternoon, he does do a bit more character acting,
just once he starts becoming just larger than life al Pacino,
that he just sort of lapses into his like old
man al Pacino phase, which I also enjoys a powerful
performance whatever he does.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
He also, Yeah, not far for us to disparage these
icons of American acting in their own way. They're as
iconic as Alcatraz, their own personal alcatraz is. Alcatraz, I
would argue, is more than a place. It's a symbol,
(05:00):
like this ruined castle of some sort. It's impenetrable, or
thought to be. So it represents larger than life prisoners.
You know, your capones, your birdmen, and of course it
represents injustice.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
I love the notion of birdmen. There's as many, there's
so many. They come along with every few generations.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
There's a flock of them. It's a recessive gene. Yeah,
the symbolism of Alcatraz is what launched today's story. Just
like a group of boats sailing through the bay under
the cover of night. This is our story that we
discovered in stuff they don't want you to know about.
How not once, but multiple times civilians got together to
(05:43):
invade Alcatraz to break into it, just like those guys
in the Rock.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
Maybe not quite as impressive of a heist, but they
definitely landed on Alcatraz right, right, and then decided to
hang around for various reasons.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
Yeah, maybe to set the stage here, we learn a
little bit more about Alcatraz itself, because it's both the
name of the island and the name of the former prison.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
That's right, And I do believe it is still a
tourist destination in San Francisco. I don't think you can
any longer go into the prison, but you can take
a little pleasure cruise and a cruise by, and I
think maybe get off on the island. But when I
was a kid, you could go in. Unless I'm completely
having one of those false memories, I swear I remember
(06:31):
visiting Alcatraz as a kid. One point five miles off
the coast of San Francisco's Bay and of course San Francisco, California,
and taking a little bit of a tour and seeing
some kind of like you know, makeshift cells set up,
you know, like as they were back in the day,
sort of the way you can tour Ellis Island, you know,
in New York City. But I'm hoping that's not a
(06:52):
false memory. I do believe that it is no longer
the case where you can go inside. But the island
comprises twenty two acres of land, only twelve of those
acres would actually be considered usable land.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
Yeah, that's interesting because it's such a it's such a
rocky place, right, it's very craggy. We'll get into the
the tours, but just just in case you are a
couple with very specific interest, I learned in the course
of researching Alcatraz that they do let you hold weddings there,
(07:27):
which seems like a very specific choice for a place
to get married.
Speaker 2 (07:32):
You know, I mean, it seems like something some history
buffs would do, you know, Like I bet you people
get married at the Alamo from problem. Yeah, so let's
let's get married the site of a historical blood bath
that'd be cool, or a place where many people were
imprisoned and probably died. I bet Alcatraz is haunted a
(07:55):
f ben.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
I wouldn't be surprised. There's definitely for people who believe
even ghosts. There's definitely a deep and troubled emotional record
there right, and deaths as well. But for a while,
Alcatraz didn't have this reputation. For most of history, it
was a home to seabirds more so than humans. And
when Lieutenant won Manuel de Ayala explored it in seventeen
(08:21):
seventy five, the guy looks around, he sees all these
birds on this pile of rocks out in the middle
of San Francisco Bay, and he says, you know what,
I'm gonna call this the Isle of the Pelicans.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
Right. That's because that's about all that was going on,
probably a lot of bird poop on all those rocks.
And by the way, I believe what threw me was
when I was in San Francisco. It's been a minute,
a handful of years ago. Alcatraz Island, the prison part
of it was closed for renovations. Yes, kind of a
funny thing to think about. Let's let's have some renovations
(08:54):
of this prison. But it is maintained by the National
Park Service and as part of the Golden Gate National
Recreation Area, and you can take a tour of the
island accompanied by a helpful audio supplement that you can
listen to while walking through, which I tend to really
enjoy those, Ben I'm not sure about you. Sometimes it's
not the mood that I'm in. I kind of wanted
to experience the thing, but sometimes it's nice to get
(09:15):
a little extra push in your education.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
Yeah, and we'll get to the idea of visiting Alcatraz
at the end. But when you do it, folks, if
you do, we'd love to hear of your ventures. And
we want to be clear you're not going to be
doing the same thing as the heroes or protagonist of
our story today. If we go back to the history,
we see that in eighteen forty nine the island was
officially sold to the US government, and then later they
(09:42):
built actually California's first lighthouse on the island. And as
time went on, Uncle Sam builds other structures on the site,
and in eighteen fifty nine, same year we have the
construction of that lighthouse. We see the first permanent army
pres since garrison there, And we don't know exactly what happened,
(10:04):
but just a few years later the island became a
residence for military offenders. So maybe that first group of
army guys was just partying too hard and they turned
the island to a brig unclear.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
I gotta wonder too though, because of its impenetrability, you know,
and the kind of imposing rock structures that surround the island,
I could see how it might seem on paper to
be a good potential spot for like a stronghold. Maybe
they just realized it wasn't quite as strategically valuable as
they may have thought, and that it would be better
served as a place to just, you know, have people
(10:39):
imprisoned where they could never escape, right to jump in here.
Speaker 3 (10:42):
It's like, what are you protecting from from that way? Like,
is thisn't like the English Channel where the French are
coming across.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
It's like it's really close off of the coast. So
I guess it could be just like a guard post
or something for a little bit of early responding, but
it's too close. It would almost be too late by
that point exactly.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
Yeah, right, if there were another adjacent country that was belligerent,
then it would make more sense. But for now, a
lighthouse is a good It was a good function for
it at the time, and so Alcatraz's main function over
time transformed into a penal colony, a prison. Our pals
(11:22):
of Britannica note that they started picking up non military prisoners,
hope Indians from the Arizona Territory who were just peacefully
resisting the government so protesters, nineteen of them get arrested.
And then American soldiers who were fighting in the Philippines
who would switched sides and sided with Filipino forces, they
(11:44):
got put in Alcatraz in nineteen hundred. In nineteen oh
seven they make it official and they say this is
the Pacific branch of the US military prison.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
At this point, still just from military offenders right then,
but it would transition to being a federal prison. From
nineteen thirty four to nineteen sixty three, it served as
just that and served as home to some of the
most notorious civilian I guess prisoners in American history, people
like machine Gun Kelly, not that one, not the rapper,
(12:18):
though he maybe should be imprisoned for philographs, humanity just joking,
but don't at me. Machine Gun Kelly. Yeah, I don't know.
He's yeah, he's back to rapping a little bit. He
did go through that kind of emo pop punk phase
or whatever that well, you know whatever. It's good for
people to enjoy things, so far, far be it from
me to yuck. Anyone's yum, but no George machine Gun Kelly,
(12:42):
the notorious gangster Robert Stroud, and of course, the titular
Birdman of Alcatraz, subject of the nineteen sixty two film
of the same name. My Alcatraz cinematic history has got
a lot of blind spots in it, Ben, I don't
know much about the Birdman of Alcatraz. What made him
the Birdman?
Speaker 1 (13:02):
The wings mainly?
Speaker 2 (13:03):
Oh, so he was one of those guys like he
would climb up like buildings for show, Like, no, he
was half bird okay? Cool? Hey? So he was he
an attorney at law?
Speaker 1 (13:13):
He was, yeah, but oddly enough, just real estate, not
bird law. Yeah. So he became known he was a murderer.
He definitely killed. He became known as Birdman because during
his time in Leavenworth he started rearing birds and selling
them and actually made a name for himself as an ornithologist.
(13:36):
Oh and so when he got incarcerated to Alcatraz in
nineteen forty two to nineteen fifty nine and they said, look,
we're not going to allow you to keep birds. So
that part of the story is kind of sad.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
So is he is. He portrayed as sort of a
misunderstood gentle giant who loves all God's creatures despite his
checkered past in the film.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
I'd have to rewatch the film, but I do know
he was a legitimate published ornithologist, like, he wrote books,
he made contributions to bird research. He earned the title Birdman.
I bet he really would have loved the game Wingspan.
He probably would have. Yeah, he might have had some
(14:20):
notes on it. But the thing that we're saying here
is each of these prisoners are probably their own story,
and maybe we'll revisit some in a future episode. But
this Alcatraz kind of kind of breaks our stereotypes of
a lot of American prisons because it wasn't overpopulated. It
(14:42):
was built to house four hundred and fifty convicts, but
at any one time there were no more than two
hundred and fifty total there, and they part of the
There are a lot of factors for this, but it's
first off, it's already kind of a pain in the
butt to get to and from there, so they put
people there if they wanted to make it very difficult
(15:03):
for them to escape in a lot of situations. So, yeah,
you can get outside the prison walls, but then you
have to survive a mile and a half of San
Francisco Bay water, and that's an entirely different skill set.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
There's a really cool little article on the FBI's website
FBI dot gov referring to Alcatraz as the ultimate maximum
security prison. And it was actually known nicknamed the Rock,
you know, like in the movie in nineteen thirty four.
By the way, it was part of this kind of
like new push for a war on crime and kind
(15:39):
of like you know, the idea of like snuffing out
all this organized crime. It was actually refortified at that point,
and like there is a lot of construction that took
place to make it the world's most secure prison.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
And what to go back to the idea of trying
to escape a prison which is already tough but doable,
and having to swim or acquire a watercraft.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
Right.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
Because of these factors, we still do not know for
sure how many people successfully escaped or simply drowned in
their attempts, because the bay is big, right, and if
someone drowns, it can be really difficult to find their body. So,
like you said, like the FBI said, a top notch
mac security lock up. But the same factors that made
(16:24):
Alcatraz such an effective prison also proved to be its undoing.
You had this constant need to transport fresh water to
the island. There's no natural potable water source. You had
to move waste off of the island. Ultimately, this constant
hassle led the authorities to close Alcatraz and abandon it
in nineteen sixty three. And that's we're just giving you
(16:47):
high level history here, because there's much more to the
Alcatraz story. But nineteen sixty three, in nineteen sixty four
is where things start to get really really interesting.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
Right. You already mentioned the idea of sort of passive,
peaceful protesters from the Hoping Nation being incarcerated there on Alcatraz,
and they and others in the Native American kind of
pantheon are the centers largely of our story or at
least the first case of occupying Alcatraz for protest purposes.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
Yeah, yeah, not for a heist really. But if we
look back in these previous decades the context in which
this occurs, we see that the US government at the
time was in an intense and antagonistic situation with Native
American activists. They were absolutely seeking to crush groups like
the American Indian Movement and these various other associated activists
(17:51):
were staging public protests, and they were pushing for basic rights,
a lot of which had honestly been spelled out explicitly
in treaties and then later ignored.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
Wouldn't you say, In some ways this is almost like
the equivalent of what the African American community was going
through with the Civil rights movement. Like you obviously had
laws on the books that in theory gave black people,
you know, equal protection under the law and equal rights,
but that just wasn't happening despite it being spelled out
on paper. The same thing was happening with Native American
(18:21):
tribes who were in theory, you know, made a whole
by the government for all the horrible things that you know,
our government did to these people. But then all that
stuff didn't really stick, and so you were left with
a situation where protest was absolutely necessary to insist upon
being given that equal treatment under law.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
Yeah, his power given or his power taken is the
old way to put it. And we we mentioned this
on stuff. They want you to know that parallel to
the civil rights movement is inescapable and to Uncle Sam,
to intelligence and law enforcement of this time, squashing these
movements was seen as not a not a dick move,
(19:03):
but a matter of national security. And on the other side,
we see that the protesters, the activist and increasingly the
public saw this these actions as just one more instance
of the great many sins America had already committed against
Indigenous people. So the prison shuts down, it's nineteen sixty three,
(19:24):
it's abandoned, people aren't using it, people aren't going on
you know, park service tours, and Native American community members
start lobbying the local government saying, hey, let let's try
to redevelop this island as a Indian cultural center and school.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
Right and like, in the same way that some of
these treaties, most of these treaties were not being honored,
you know, at least to the spirit of what was
agreed upon in a brilliant move I think, kind of
highlighting that the Sioux Nation attempted to use an existing treaty,
the Fort Laramie Treaty of eighteen sixty eight, as kind
(20:01):
of a way in here saying hey, this is what
it says here. Apparently it would allow Native Americans to
appropriate surplus federal land. It was just a matter of
what was classified as surplus federal land, and obviously that
would largely be up to Uncle Sam to determine. But
their argument was, it's not being used, it's sitting there derelict.
(20:22):
It should be up for grabs, and based on the
letter of this treaty, we were exercising our rights to
do this.
Speaker 1 (20:30):
Yeah, yeah, brilliant, actually brilliant peaceful activism. This effort wasn't successful.
We'll get to why, but it became it transformed Alcatraz
now into a symbol of government indifference towards the indigenous.
So reclaiming this became a huge, unifying rallying cry. This
(20:51):
small group, well it was the Sioux were the small group,
and they were able to occupy the island for only
four hours, but those four hours utterly galvanized larger movements,
and there was part of it is because there was
a lot of publicity, reporters, photographers, legal support showed up.
So the actual party ended up being like forty people.
(21:14):
And they said, look, we're doing this demonstration, we're doing
it peacefully, we're doing it in accordance with sue treaty rights.
And then they did something absolutely love this great ridiculous history.
They offered the US government a deal. They said, look,
this is ours, we read the treaty, but we'll solid. Yeah,
(21:36):
we'll help you out, buddy, because of our long friendship together.
We'll sell you this island for the price you initially
offered our predecessors forty seven cents. Breaker, that's nine dollars
and forty cents for the entire island, talked San Francisco
real estate books. Right, if we do the inflation calculator bio,
(22:03):
then we'll see nine dollars and forty cents back then
is equal to ninety five dollars and ninety five cents
now still yeah, I mean they but the government refused
to play ball. They weren't vibing with this, so they
threatened everybody with felony charges, and the demonstrators departed peacefully,
(22:28):
but no one forgot the mission. And they said, oh,
we did get you know, the federal government to talk
with us.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
They noticed us notice us federal government. No, it was
absolutely necessary in those days because to your point, Ben,
I mean, the need to squash these I mean, they
would look at it as rebellion, you know, but these
peaceful protests was fundamentally necessary as far as Uncle Sam
was concerned, because they couldn't have these radical ideas spreading
(22:56):
to the general population. You know, they had to nip
it in the bud, as they would say in the South.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
Right exactly. Wait, is that just the thing people say.
Speaker 2 (23:05):
I don't know, that's kind of southern eat. I don't know,
nip it in the bud. I just feel like it's
something you got to kind of say with a Southern accent.
But maybe they say it in the in the in
the Midwest.
Speaker 1 (23:14):
It's gonna feel weird to hear. Sean Connery.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
I can't I can't even get now doing Verner Herzog.
You know, Vernon Herzog would have been a good person
to make a documentary about Alcatraz. The nihilism of Erner Herzog,
I think is very appropriate for such a stark and
foreboding location. All right, here's the pitch.
Speaker 3 (23:34):
We're going to do a documentary about Sean Connery where
Verner Herzog plays Sean Connery.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
Boom, Okay, if the documentary is about Pokemon.
Speaker 2 (23:45):
Yes, so it's sort of a meta documentary, like we're
doing a documentary about a film that it will never
actually be made, just the sort of troubled production of it.
It will also be a book. Okay, fair.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
I think all documentaries are meta documentaries.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
They're kind of you know, and not to get off
too off track, but it's a good point, ben, I mean,
anytime there's a documentary, there is a viewpoint. We've all
participated in this kind of stuff, and there is inherently
sort of like a little bit of twisty turniness in
terms of the way things are presented.
Speaker 1 (24:18):
Yeah, there's a narrative there, the same way that a
disguise is really or a costume is an autobiography of
the person who chose to war it.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
Have you seen Werner Herzog as a villain? He plays
a villain one time, actually twice, he was in one
of those Star Wars series. But the first time I
think you ever appeared on screen as a villain He's in.
It was like a Tom Cruise movie, Jack Reacher. He
plays this sinister like like you know, European villain who's
(24:47):
been in like gulags or whatever in Siberia, and he
had to chew off his own fingers. But he just
once again, Verner h and Sean Connery both so magnetic.
They just kind of play themselves whenever they're Yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:01):
And speaking of cinematic actions, here's here's what happens next.
A fire destroys San Francisco's American Indian Center in October
of nineteen sixty nine. A few years later, and then
the activist group is kind of like a supergroup known
as Indians of All Tribes, say, let's reevaluate this Alcatraz idea.
(25:24):
And again a couple of other people have visited with
similar similar aims.
Speaker 2 (25:29):
Well, and they're certainly like they do. They are serious
about using the site as a cultural heritage sense, just
like they were the first time. It just happens to
also be a great act of kind of civil disobedience.
Speaker 1 (25:43):
Yeah, it's not theater. They are going to actually use
the land. And so on November ninth, nineteen sixty nine,
largely under the leadership of Richard Oakes, a handful of
protesters go to the islands again. Authorities remove them the
next day, but Oaks is still counting this as a win,
(26:03):
and he tells the San Francisco Chronicle, if a one
day occupation by white men on Indian land years ago
established squatters' rights, then a one day occupation of Alcatraz
should establish Indian rights to the island. So they're continually
doing this. Let's play by the same rules, guys, We're
playing by the way that you applied your rules.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
Right. Hey, all of these moves are so clever because
they really just do put in sharp focus like how
hypocritical the United States actions have been every step of
the way after they gave sort of their half hearted
apology for you know, stealing all of the Indians' land
and treating them absolutely inhumanly for decades.
Speaker 1 (26:45):
And Richard Oakes's statement to the Chronicle would prove prescient,
I think, because just a few days later in the
Let's get some Let's get some sinister sailing music cover.
Speaker 2 (27:08):
Yeah, it's the wee.
Speaker 1 (27:09):
Hours of November twentieth, nineteen sixty nine. This time The
group is returning with an occupation force of eighty nine men, women,
and children. They sail through the San Francisco Bay under
cover of darkness. They land at Alcatraz. They claim the
island for all of the tribes of North America. The
(27:31):
Coast Guard, by the way, is fighting against them. They're
trying to create a blockade to prevent these folks from landing.
Fourteen protesters make it through. They begin the occupation. There's
one guy at wall.
Speaker 2 (27:44):
Oh my god, this guy, the caretaker, the guard.
Speaker 1 (27:49):
He knows he's outnumbered.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
He says into his radio, mayday, may day, the Indians
have landed.
Speaker 1 (27:58):
Oh my gosh, as much.
Speaker 2 (28:01):
What do you think was gonna Do you think they
were gonna like murder him? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (28:04):
Who knows what was going through his head?
Speaker 2 (28:06):
Is may day something you say at sea?
Speaker 1 (28:09):
Though?
Speaker 2 (28:09):
Is not even like kind of a misnomer for him
to use may day? Maybe now it might just be
a general like I'm in trouble kind of call. But
I guess I always think of it as like our
ship is sinking.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
I thought it was aircrafts and ships in distress, But
it might just.
Speaker 2 (28:24):
Be mayday for a crashing shit airplane too. Certainly mayday. Yeah,
I absolutely have heard that as.
Speaker 1 (28:29):
Well, but maybe just a general radio telephonic distress signal. Anyway, Well,
we know the guy was stressed out, that he was distressed.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
And he made aid, and once the Indians landed, as
he so astutely put it, they issued a manifesto addressed
in a delightfully pointed manner to the Great White Father
and all his people. A little bit of dark in there,
maybe it's I don't know, what do you think? Then?
Speaker 1 (29:03):
Yeah, I think, uh, you know, we talked about this
a little bit. I think he's uh. The concept is,
we're cheekily referring to Uncle Sam, right, the ID of
America in that sense, and then.
Speaker 2 (29:15):
The boss of all white people.
Speaker 1 (29:17):
And I guess we shall also stop here to point
this out. We've been using the phrase native American or
indigenous or Indian, and we're when we're saying Indian there,
obviously we're not we're not casting any aspersions.
Speaker 2 (29:31):
We're it's the term they were using some of these
you know, yeah, organizing acts.
Speaker 1 (29:36):
Yeah, and it's in a lot of the quotations from
different sources. So you're you're absolutely right, they've got this
somewhat cheeky tone. And here's why we think it's cheeky
because in their manifesto they said, look, we're actually, unlike you,
going to use the land. We'll make a cultural center
in Indian school. We're building a museum. Alcatraz is ours
(29:59):
by right of discovery. Take that, they said. But hang on, guys, we're.
Speaker 2 (30:06):
They they called DIBs. Basically shot.
Speaker 1 (30:09):
Yeah, they said, hey, we're cool. Though, we're cool, even
though this is ours. We'll play your little games and
we will pay you for it if you want, We'll
give you, quote, twenty four dollars in glass beads and
red cloth.
Speaker 2 (30:25):
Gotta be red cloth. Red was a that was like
one of the more sought after colors, I believe, right,
because you wasn't I think so. I mean, maybe I'm
thinking of purple because there were certain like certain dyes
that were more pricey or more rare. But point being,
they were going with the same kind of line of
reasoning as their predecessors, you know, who had attempted this occupation,
(30:47):
the idea of offering them something insultingly low. Once again
to point out the insultingly low offers that the United
States have made in an attempt to kind of wipe
their conscience clean, you know. But it was always a
grift with Uncle Sam. You know, it was capitalizing on
inexperience and making negotiations where the playing field was just
(31:09):
not even at all. Because this is not people that
were coming from a place of commerce or coming from
a place of you know, the absolute unchecked capitalism that
was the United States and England.
Speaker 1 (31:22):
Yeah. And also twenty four dollars in glass beads and
red cloth is according to legends, so the same price
that Indian communities were supposedly paid for the island of Manhattan,
all of.
Speaker 2 (31:35):
Manhattan, Yeah, the whole thing, and so long island.
Speaker 1 (31:39):
Right, And we've talked about this in the past, but
that's just peak trolling, brilliant, amazing stuff. And then the
conversation came up, as it would in any occupation or siege,
how long can these folks hang out? Right, Because, as
any student of the really old school war stuff knows,
(31:59):
you cut off the supply chain, right yeah, Castle, yeah,
blockade too.
Speaker 2 (32:06):
All they had to do is make it past four
hours though, and they you know, they had one up
on the previous attempt.
Speaker 1 (32:11):
Yeah, when the activists were I wouldn't say, threatened with this,
but when they were thinking through this, they further trolled
in an even more sincere way, and they said, look,
we don't mind that this island is underdeveloped. We don't
care that it lacks potable fresh water, because you see,
most of us have already endured similar conditions on countless reservations.
Speaker 2 (32:37):
Right. No, they're basically saying, come at us, uncle Sam,
like we've got this, like we were. We can make
this work because we're not a bunch of babies, you know.
I mean, there is sort of a bit of a
flex there, you know, and saying, you know, you subjected
us to conditions far worse than this, and we will
not be swayed by the things that would probably cause
(32:57):
you guys to turn tail and run home.
Speaker 1 (32:58):
Oh yeah, that's a good point. And the government agreed
to negotiate, but were they negotiating in good faith? They
immediately rejected all of the proposed demands from the occupiers,
none of which were super crazy, none of which were
bonkers again, a school, cultural center, the return of Alcatraz
(33:21):
to American Indians. If anything, it seems that the government
was worried about setting a precedent, so the organizers, as
were the occupiers. I should say, as soon as they
get to the island, they start as self organize. They
give everybody a job, everybody votes on major decisions. There's
a council of guidance and elders, and they set up
(33:44):
the school within three weeks. They have the elders teaching
traditional arts and crafts, costume decoration, the cultural rituals that
define a people.
Speaker 2 (33:57):
And can we also just point out something that we
talked a lot about and I've done a whole episode
about and stuff that i want you to know. The
notion of an Indian school and what they were building
here and creating here was in stark contrast to the
Indian schools that the United States government set up for
the very purposes of erasing all of the things that
you just described as being taught in this particular situation,
(34:20):
like it was, you know, to assimilate Native American children
and strip them of all of these customs and traditions
and you know, dance and music and just culture. Its
absolute erasure.
Speaker 1 (34:31):
Yeah, one hundred percent. And things were perfect with this occupation,
the island became increasingly a difficult place to live. As
time went on on December fourth, Alcatraz had all their
electricity cut, the government disconnected in coming phone calls. They
(34:52):
had a water main and they had a fuel line,
but both were leaking. And then a lot of the
occupiers students, students love protesting, so a lot a lot
of the yeah, a lot of the the college kids
had to go back to school just to keep their
scholarships and their loans. And then you started seeing some
(35:14):
of the less well intentioned people coming into the.
Speaker 2 (35:19):
Game, a bit of an unsavory set, folks that perhaps
had criminal records, addiction problems, many who were simply just
capitalizing on a scene, you know, a far out happening man.
You know, like a lot of these hippies who are
essentially just looking for somewhere to go and hang out,
sort of feign actual activism, but really they were more
(35:43):
there like they were hanging out in a fish lot,
you know, and like huffing balloons of nitrous or whatever.
Speaker 1 (35:49):
M Yeah, what you might hear called dreambows sometimes exactly.
So this again, it's the occupation is imperfect, but it
becomes regards it is as a success because the presidential
administration at the time, Nixon says, we're gonna bide our time.
We don't want violent intervention as long as these folks
(36:11):
are peaceful, and hopefully they'll just you know, get tired
and go home. As we mentioned, celebrities were showing their support.
This became a literal cause celebrity and President Nixon gave
a speech saying the time has come for new era
in which the Indian future is determined by Indian acts
(36:33):
and Indian decisions all at all. Before they left, this
group held Alcatraz for nineteen months.
Speaker 2 (36:43):
Incredible, more than four hours. This is a feat. Again,
think about all the impediments, you know, like all of
the obstacles. I mean, it's very very, very impressive.
Speaker 1 (36:55):
Agreed, and this is where we're going to stop in here,
because there's much more to the story. We do know
it met with. We do know this plan and this
peak trolling did lead to serious policy change. The US
government returned millions of acres of ancestral land and pasted
fifty plus legislative proposals supporting tribal self rule. There's a
(37:20):
story a lot of people might not be super familiar
with in the modern day, but it's a fundamental part
of the struggle for rights and self determination which continues now.
And I think it's a beautiful thing. But I still
knowing that these folks lasted nineteen months. Guess it's astonishing,
but for me, it's every time they came to them
(37:42):
and said, Okay, we'll make a deal with you America.
You guys like beads.
Speaker 2 (37:48):
Who doesn't love beads? So well, it may not have
yielded the results that the protesters and the organizers were
looking for quickly, it definitely made an impact historically speaking,
and did sort of set that precedent to a degree
you were describing earlier, right, Ben, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (38:06):
Yeah, agreed. And this is again, this is a strange story,
but it's an important one to remember. If you'd like
to learn more about the US government's contentious relationship and
conspiracies against some of these activist groups, check out our
episode Uncle Sam versus the American Indian Movement. Thanks as
(38:29):
always to our super producer mister Max Williams. Thanks to
our composer Alex Williams, who made this slap and bop.
Speaker 2 (38:37):
H indeed continuously slap. Thanks to Christopherraciotis and Eve's Jeff Coates,
both here in spirit. Jonathan Strickland the quizzer. You know,
we spoke to Jonathan the other day in a work
capacity and he mentioned that he's really waiting for that
call to hop back on the show and quiz us out.
(38:58):
So I think it's time. I think we shoul to
make that happen. But I did inform him that he's
never far from our thoughts, at least as far as
these outros are concerned, and that a shiny bald head
is often mentioned in detail, and he said he had
just recently polished it, so we'll see a real shiny
Jonathan Stricklan also thanks to aj Bahamas Jacobs of course,
(39:19):
a huzzler.
Speaker 1 (39:20):
Yes, yes, he's our own Sean Connery and we hope
to see him soon. In the meantime, folks, be well.
Our journey through state by state ridiculous History continues later
this week with Nebraska.
Speaker 2 (39:35):
We'll see you next time, folks. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
(00:27):
the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so much
for tuning in. We are coming to you live from
a kind of rainy, overcast day here in our fair
metropolis of Atlanta, Georgia, and it reminds me of something.
Oh wait, and that's our super producer, mister Max Williams. Hello,
(00:50):
I am here, And that's mister Noel Brown. I to
him here, I'm Ben Bullen. I would say I'm about
eighty percent here, you guys. When I imagine Alcatraz, for
some reason in my head, it's always nighttime and there's
always a storm, even though I know that's not true.
(01:11):
So like a rainy day is a perfect Alcatraz day
for me, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
I mean, you know, San Francisco is obviously a bit
north of the sunshiny, gleaming toaster vibes that is Los
Angeles and southern California, so it definitely has a bit
more of a haste to it. But when you get
out on that harbor, man and you hear the barkings
of the sea lions and the squawkings of the gulls,
and then off in the distance, just out of sight,
(01:37):
hiding behind the fog, you can almost see the erie
outline of Alcatraz Island.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
Yeah, you know, when we put it that way, it
is exactly like when you discover a ruined castle in
a mountain and skyrim. You know, you get closer, there's
the reveal, and then you get the notification. This for
a lot of us, I think, especially Americans or fans
of film, we're familiar with this strange place via the
(02:08):
world of cinema. As we'll earn, Alcatraz is still very
much a thing around that you could visit. But I
always think of Alcatraz in films like The Birdman of
Alcatraz and of course The Rock.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
I mean, yeah, The Rock is obviously kind of for
our generation, probably the most flagship Alcatraz film, but it
definitely looms large in cinema history. You've got Escape from
Alcatraz starring Clint Eastwood, which I've actually never seen, nor
have I seen The Birdman of Alcatraz. But The Rock,
you know, it's isn't it Michael Bay. That's a Michael
(02:44):
Bay film.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
Right, it has to be.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
It has to be, yeah, of course, I mean, you know,
Nicholas cage up to his Shenanigans. This time he's breaking
into an impenetrable prison, as opposed to breaking out with
the help of Shan Kong, who's the only man who's
ever escaped from Alcatrash. He does the good thing, doesn't he.
That's Sean Connery. I'm shot called got okay.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
He's he's a retired Captain John Patrick Mason. And because
he refuses to do you know, other accents than his own, uh,
they just said, okay, this guy's also I six that
what a living right.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
You're just so iconic on your own steam, just as
as you are in interviews that they don't even ask
you to do a different voice. They don't ask you
to put on a different careacter, whether you're King Richard
in the Bad robin Hood move Watch Out.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
The first ten minutes of that are banging.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
Completely agree. That also involves an escape from a prison. Yes,
it's only when Kevin Costner starts to speak that things
begin to go a bit south.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
Yeah, yeah, and you're thinking, what the field the dreams guy?
I don't remember the order in which those movies published,
but there is something It's a bit discursive, but there
is something to be said, I think about that, that
school of acting. It's very common in high level American actors.
They're never not them, right, it's al Pacino is the devil,
(04:13):
it's al Pacino as a football coach. But it's always.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
Al that's true. But early al Pacino, like seventies, Like
I was actually thinking about another great prison movie, Dog
Day Afternoon, he does do a bit more character acting,
just once he starts becoming just larger than life al Pacino,
that he just sort of lapses into his like old
man al Pacino phase, which I also enjoys a powerful
performance whatever he does.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
He also, Yeah, not far for us to disparage these
icons of American acting in their own way. They're as
iconic as Alcatraz, their own personal alcatraz is. Alcatraz, I
would argue, is more than a place. It's a symbol,
(05:00):
like this ruined castle of some sort. It's impenetrable, or
thought to be. So it represents larger than life prisoners.
You know, your capones, your birdmen, and of course it
represents injustice.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
I love the notion of birdmen. There's as many, there's
so many. They come along with every few generations.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
There's a flock of them. It's a recessive gene. Yeah,
the symbolism of Alcatraz is what launched today's story. Just
like a group of boats sailing through the bay under
the cover of night. This is our story that we
discovered in stuff they don't want you to know about.
How not once, but multiple times civilians got together to
(05:43):
invade Alcatraz to break into it, just like those guys
in the Rock.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
Maybe not quite as impressive of a heist, but they
definitely landed on Alcatraz right, right, and then decided to
hang around for various reasons.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
Yeah, maybe to set the stage here, we learn a
little bit more about Alcatraz itself, because it's both the
name of the island and the name of the former prison.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
That's right, And I do believe it is still a
tourist destination in San Francisco. I don't think you can
any longer go into the prison, but you can take
a little pleasure cruise and a cruise by, and I
think maybe get off on the island. But when I
was a kid, you could go in. Unless I'm completely
having one of those false memories, I swear I remember
(06:31):
visiting Alcatraz as a kid. One point five miles off
the coast of San Francisco's Bay and of course San Francisco, California,
and taking a little bit of a tour and seeing
some kind of like you know, makeshift cells set up,
you know, like as they were back in the day,
sort of the way you can tour Ellis Island, you know,
in New York City. But I'm hoping that's not a
(06:52):
false memory. I do believe that it is no longer
the case where you can go inside. But the island
comprises twenty two acres of land, only twelve of those
acres would actually be considered usable land.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
Yeah, that's interesting because it's such a it's such a
rocky place, right, it's very craggy. We'll get into the
the tours, but just just in case you are a
couple with very specific interest, I learned in the course
of researching Alcatraz that they do let you hold weddings there,
(07:27):
which seems like a very specific choice for a place
to get married.
Speaker 2 (07:32):
You know, I mean, it seems like something some history
buffs would do, you know, Like I bet you people
get married at the Alamo from problem. Yeah, so let's
let's get married the site of a historical blood bath
that'd be cool, or a place where many people were
imprisoned and probably died. I bet Alcatraz is haunted a
(07:55):
f ben.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
I wouldn't be surprised. There's definitely for people who believe
even ghosts. There's definitely a deep and troubled emotional record
there right, and deaths as well. But for a while,
Alcatraz didn't have this reputation. For most of history, it
was a home to seabirds more so than humans. And
when Lieutenant won Manuel de Ayala explored it in seventeen
(08:21):
seventy five, the guy looks around, he sees all these
birds on this pile of rocks out in the middle
of San Francisco Bay, and he says, you know what,
I'm gonna call this the Isle of the Pelicans.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
Right. That's because that's about all that was going on,
probably a lot of bird poop on all those rocks.
And by the way, I believe what threw me was
when I was in San Francisco. It's been a minute,
a handful of years ago. Alcatraz Island, the prison part
of it was closed for renovations. Yes, kind of a
funny thing to think about. Let's let's have some renovations
(08:54):
of this prison. But it is maintained by the National
Park Service and as part of the Golden Gate National
Recreation Area, and you can take a tour of the
island accompanied by a helpful audio supplement that you can
listen to while walking through, which I tend to really
enjoy those, Ben I'm not sure about you. Sometimes it's
not the mood that I'm in. I kind of wanted
to experience the thing, but sometimes it's nice to get
(09:15):
a little extra push in your education.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
Yeah, and we'll get to the idea of visiting Alcatraz
at the end. But when you do it, folks, if
you do, we'd love to hear of your ventures. And
we want to be clear you're not going to be
doing the same thing as the heroes or protagonist of
our story today. If we go back to the history,
we see that in eighteen forty nine the island was
officially sold to the US government, and then later they
(09:42):
built actually California's first lighthouse on the island. And as
time went on, Uncle Sam builds other structures on the site,
and in eighteen fifty nine, same year we have the
construction of that lighthouse. We see the first permanent army
pres since garrison there, And we don't know exactly what happened,
(10:04):
but just a few years later the island became a
residence for military offenders. So maybe that first group of
army guys was just partying too hard and they turned
the island to a brig unclear.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
I gotta wonder too though, because of its impenetrability, you know,
and the kind of imposing rock structures that surround the island,
I could see how it might seem on paper to
be a good potential spot for like a stronghold. Maybe
they just realized it wasn't quite as strategically valuable as
they may have thought, and that it would be better
served as a place to just, you know, have people
(10:39):
imprisoned where they could never escape, right to jump in here.
Speaker 3 (10:42):
It's like, what are you protecting from from that way? Like,
is thisn't like the English Channel where the French are
coming across.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
It's like it's really close off of the coast. So
I guess it could be just like a guard post
or something for a little bit of early responding, but
it's too close. It would almost be too late by
that point exactly.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
Yeah, right, if there were another adjacent country that was belligerent,
then it would make more sense. But for now, a
lighthouse is a good It was a good function for
it at the time, and so Alcatraz's main function over
time transformed into a penal colony, a prison. Our pals
(11:22):
of Britannica note that they started picking up non military prisoners,
hope Indians from the Arizona Territory who were just peacefully
resisting the government so protesters, nineteen of them get arrested.
And then American soldiers who were fighting in the Philippines
who would switched sides and sided with Filipino forces, they
(11:44):
got put in Alcatraz in nineteen hundred. In nineteen oh
seven they make it official and they say this is
the Pacific branch of the US military prison.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
At this point, still just from military offenders right then,
but it would transition to being a federal prison. From
nineteen thirty four to nineteen sixty three, it served as
just that and served as home to some of the
most notorious civilian I guess prisoners in American history, people
like machine Gun Kelly, not that one, not the rapper,
(12:18):
though he maybe should be imprisoned for philographs, humanity just joking,
but don't at me. Machine Gun Kelly. Yeah, I don't know.
He's yeah, he's back to rapping a little bit. He
did go through that kind of emo pop punk phase
or whatever that well, you know whatever. It's good for
people to enjoy things, so far, far be it from
me to yuck. Anyone's yum, but no George machine Gun Kelly,
(12:42):
the notorious gangster Robert Stroud, and of course, the titular
Birdman of Alcatraz, subject of the nineteen sixty two film
of the same name. My Alcatraz cinematic history has got
a lot of blind spots in it, Ben, I don't
know much about the Birdman of Alcatraz. What made him
the Birdman?
Speaker 1 (13:02):
The wings mainly?
Speaker 2 (13:03):
Oh, so he was one of those guys like he
would climb up like buildings for show, Like, no, he
was half bird okay? Cool? Hey? So he was he
an attorney at law?
Speaker 1 (13:13):
He was, yeah, but oddly enough, just real estate, not
bird law. Yeah. So he became known he was a murderer.
He definitely killed. He became known as Birdman because during
his time in Leavenworth he started rearing birds and selling
them and actually made a name for himself as an ornithologist.
(13:36):
Oh and so when he got incarcerated to Alcatraz in
nineteen forty two to nineteen fifty nine and they said, look,
we're not going to allow you to keep birds. So
that part of the story is kind of sad.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
So is he is. He portrayed as sort of a
misunderstood gentle giant who loves all God's creatures despite his
checkered past in the film.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
I'd have to rewatch the film, but I do know
he was a legitimate published ornithologist, like, he wrote books,
he made contributions to bird research. He earned the title Birdman.
I bet he really would have loved the game Wingspan.
He probably would have. Yeah, he might have had some
(14:20):
notes on it. But the thing that we're saying here
is each of these prisoners are probably their own story,
and maybe we'll revisit some in a future episode. But
this Alcatraz kind of kind of breaks our stereotypes of
a lot of American prisons because it wasn't overpopulated. It
(14:42):
was built to house four hundred and fifty convicts, but
at any one time there were no more than two
hundred and fifty total there, and they part of the
There are a lot of factors for this, but it's
first off, it's already kind of a pain in the
butt to get to and from there, so they put
people there if they wanted to make it very difficult
(15:03):
for them to escape in a lot of situations. So, yeah,
you can get outside the prison walls, but then you
have to survive a mile and a half of San
Francisco Bay water, and that's an entirely different skill set.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
There's a really cool little article on the FBI's website
FBI dot gov referring to Alcatraz as the ultimate maximum
security prison. And it was actually known nicknamed the Rock,
you know, like in the movie in nineteen thirty four.
By the way, it was part of this kind of
like new push for a war on crime and kind
(15:39):
of like you know, the idea of like snuffing out
all this organized crime. It was actually refortified at that point,
and like there is a lot of construction that took
place to make it the world's most secure prison.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
And what to go back to the idea of trying
to escape a prison which is already tough but doable,
and having to swim or acquire a watercraft.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
Right.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
Because of these factors, we still do not know for
sure how many people successfully escaped or simply drowned in
their attempts, because the bay is big, right, and if
someone drowns, it can be really difficult to find their body. So,
like you said, like the FBI said, a top notch
mac security lock up. But the same factors that made
(16:24):
Alcatraz such an effective prison also proved to be its undoing.
You had this constant need to transport fresh water to
the island. There's no natural potable water source. You had
to move waste off of the island. Ultimately, this constant
hassle led the authorities to close Alcatraz and abandon it
in nineteen sixty three. And that's we're just giving you
(16:47):
high level history here, because there's much more to the
Alcatraz story. But nineteen sixty three, in nineteen sixty four
is where things start to get really really interesting.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
Right. You already mentioned the idea of sort of passive,
peaceful protesters from the Hoping Nation being incarcerated there on Alcatraz,
and they and others in the Native American kind of
pantheon are the centers largely of our story or at
least the first case of occupying Alcatraz for protest purposes.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
Yeah, yeah, not for a heist really. But if we
look back in these previous decades the context in which
this occurs, we see that the US government at the
time was in an intense and antagonistic situation with Native
American activists. They were absolutely seeking to crush groups like
the American Indian Movement and these various other associated activists
(17:51):
were staging public protests, and they were pushing for basic rights,
a lot of which had honestly been spelled out explicitly
in treaties and then later ignored.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
Wouldn't you say, In some ways this is almost like
the equivalent of what the African American community was going
through with the Civil rights movement. Like you obviously had
laws on the books that in theory gave black people,
you know, equal protection under the law and equal rights,
but that just wasn't happening despite it being spelled out
on paper. The same thing was happening with Native American
(18:21):
tribes who were in theory, you know, made a whole
by the government for all the horrible things that you know,
our government did to these people. But then all that
stuff didn't really stick, and so you were left with
a situation where protest was absolutely necessary to insist upon
being given that equal treatment under law.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
Yeah, his power given or his power taken is the
old way to put it. And we we mentioned this
on stuff. They want you to know that parallel to
the civil rights movement is inescapable and to Uncle Sam,
to intelligence and law enforcement of this time, squashing these
movements was seen as not a not a dick move,
(19:03):
but a matter of national security. And on the other side,
we see that the protesters, the activist and increasingly the
public saw this these actions as just one more instance
of the great many sins America had already committed against
Indigenous people. So the prison shuts down, it's nineteen sixty three,
(19:24):
it's abandoned, people aren't using it, people aren't going on
you know, park service tours, and Native American community members
start lobbying the local government saying, hey, let let's try
to redevelop this island as a Indian cultural center and school.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
Right and like, in the same way that some of
these treaties, most of these treaties were not being honored,
you know, at least to the spirit of what was
agreed upon in a brilliant move I think, kind of
highlighting that the Sioux Nation attempted to use an existing treaty,
the Fort Laramie Treaty of eighteen sixty eight, as kind
(20:01):
of a way in here saying hey, this is what
it says here. Apparently it would allow Native Americans to
appropriate surplus federal land. It was just a matter of
what was classified as surplus federal land, and obviously that
would largely be up to Uncle Sam to determine. But
their argument was, it's not being used, it's sitting there derelict.
(20:22):
It should be up for grabs, and based on the
letter of this treaty, we were exercising our rights to
do this.
Speaker 1 (20:30):
Yeah, yeah, brilliant, actually brilliant peaceful activism. This effort wasn't successful.
We'll get to why, but it became it transformed Alcatraz
now into a symbol of government indifference towards the indigenous.
So reclaiming this became a huge, unifying rallying cry. This
(20:51):
small group, well it was the Sioux were the small group,
and they were able to occupy the island for only
four hours, but those four hours utterly galvanized larger movements,
and there was part of it is because there was
a lot of publicity, reporters, photographers, legal support showed up.
So the actual party ended up being like forty people.
(21:14):
And they said, look, we're doing this demonstration, we're doing
it peacefully, we're doing it in accordance with sue treaty rights.
And then they did something absolutely love this great ridiculous history.
They offered the US government a deal. They said, look,
this is ours, we read the treaty, but we'll solid. Yeah,
(21:36):
we'll help you out, buddy, because of our long friendship together.
We'll sell you this island for the price you initially
offered our predecessors forty seven cents. Breaker, that's nine dollars
and forty cents for the entire island, talked San Francisco
real estate books. Right, if we do the inflation calculator bio,
(22:03):
then we'll see nine dollars and forty cents back then
is equal to ninety five dollars and ninety five cents
now still yeah, I mean they but the government refused
to play ball. They weren't vibing with this, so they
threatened everybody with felony charges, and the demonstrators departed peacefully,
(22:28):
but no one forgot the mission. And they said, oh,
we did get you know, the federal government to talk
with us.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
They noticed us notice us federal government. No, it was
absolutely necessary in those days because to your point, Ben,
I mean, the need to squash these I mean, they
would look at it as rebellion, you know, but these
peaceful protests was fundamentally necessary as far as Uncle Sam
was concerned, because they couldn't have these radical ideas spreading
(22:56):
to the general population. You know, they had to nip
it in the bud, as they would say in the South.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
Right exactly. Wait, is that just the thing people say.
Speaker 2 (23:05):
I don't know, that's kind of southern eat. I don't know,
nip it in the bud. I just feel like it's
something you got to kind of say with a Southern accent.
But maybe they say it in the in the in
the Midwest.
Speaker 1 (23:14):
It's gonna feel weird to hear. Sean Connery.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
I can't I can't even get now doing Verner Herzog.
You know, Vernon Herzog would have been a good person
to make a documentary about Alcatraz. The nihilism of Erner Herzog,
I think is very appropriate for such a stark and
foreboding location. All right, here's the pitch.
Speaker 3 (23:34):
We're going to do a documentary about Sean Connery where
Verner Herzog plays Sean Connery.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
Boom, Okay, if the documentary is about Pokemon.
Speaker 2 (23:45):
Yes, so it's sort of a meta documentary, like we're
doing a documentary about a film that it will never
actually be made, just the sort of troubled production of it.
It will also be a book. Okay, fair.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
I think all documentaries are meta documentaries.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
They're kind of you know, and not to get off
too off track, but it's a good point, ben, I mean,
anytime there's a documentary, there is a viewpoint. We've all
participated in this kind of stuff, and there is inherently
sort of like a little bit of twisty turniness in
terms of the way things are presented.
Speaker 1 (24:18):
Yeah, there's a narrative there, the same way that a
disguise is really or a costume is an autobiography of
the person who chose to war it.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
Have you seen Werner Herzog as a villain? He plays
a villain one time, actually twice, he was in one
of those Star Wars series. But the first time I
think you ever appeared on screen as a villain He's in.
It was like a Tom Cruise movie, Jack Reacher. He
plays this sinister like like you know, European villain who's
(24:47):
been in like gulags or whatever in Siberia, and he
had to chew off his own fingers. But he just
once again, Verner h and Sean Connery both so magnetic.
They just kind of play themselves whenever they're Yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:01):
And speaking of cinematic actions, here's here's what happens next.
A fire destroys San Francisco's American Indian Center in October
of nineteen sixty nine. A few years later, and then
the activist group is kind of like a supergroup known
as Indians of All Tribes, say, let's reevaluate this Alcatraz idea.
(25:24):
And again a couple of other people have visited with
similar similar aims.
Speaker 2 (25:29):
Well, and they're certainly like they do. They are serious
about using the site as a cultural heritage sense, just
like they were the first time. It just happens to
also be a great act of kind of civil disobedience.
Speaker 1 (25:43):
Yeah, it's not theater. They are going to actually use
the land. And so on November ninth, nineteen sixty nine,
largely under the leadership of Richard Oakes, a handful of
protesters go to the islands again. Authorities remove them the
next day, but Oaks is still counting this as a win,
(26:03):
and he tells the San Francisco Chronicle, if a one
day occupation by white men on Indian land years ago
established squatters' rights, then a one day occupation of Alcatraz
should establish Indian rights to the island. So they're continually
doing this. Let's play by the same rules, guys, We're
playing by the way that you applied your rules.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
Right. Hey, all of these moves are so clever because
they really just do put in sharp focus like how
hypocritical the United States actions have been every step of
the way after they gave sort of their half hearted
apology for you know, stealing all of the Indians' land
and treating them absolutely inhumanly for decades.
Speaker 1 (26:45):
And Richard Oakes's statement to the Chronicle would prove prescient,
I think, because just a few days later in the
Let's get some Let's get some sinister sailing music cover.
Speaker 2 (27:08):
Yeah, it's the wee.
Speaker 1 (27:09):
Hours of November twentieth, nineteen sixty nine. This time The
group is returning with an occupation force of eighty nine men, women,
and children. They sail through the San Francisco Bay under
cover of darkness. They land at Alcatraz. They claim the
island for all of the tribes of North America. The
(27:31):
Coast Guard, by the way, is fighting against them. They're
trying to create a blockade to prevent these folks from landing.
Fourteen protesters make it through. They begin the occupation. There's
one guy at wall.
Speaker 2 (27:44):
Oh my god, this guy, the caretaker, the guard.
Speaker 1 (27:49):
He knows he's outnumbered.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
He says into his radio, mayday, may day, the Indians
have landed.
Speaker 1 (27:58):
Oh my gosh, as much.
Speaker 2 (28:01):
What do you think was gonna Do you think they
were gonna like murder him? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (28:04):
Who knows what was going through his head?
Speaker 2 (28:06):
Is may day something you say at sea?
Speaker 1 (28:09):
Though?
Speaker 2 (28:09):
Is not even like kind of a misnomer for him
to use may day? Maybe now it might just be
a general like I'm in trouble kind of call. But
I guess I always think of it as like our
ship is sinking.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
I thought it was aircrafts and ships in distress, But
it might just.
Speaker 2 (28:24):
Be mayday for a crashing shit airplane too. Certainly mayday. Yeah,
I absolutely have heard that as.
Speaker 1 (28:29):
Well, but maybe just a general radio telephonic distress signal. Anyway, Well,
we know the guy was stressed out, that he was distressed.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
And he made aid, and once the Indians landed, as
he so astutely put it, they issued a manifesto addressed
in a delightfully pointed manner to the Great White Father
and all his people. A little bit of dark in there,
maybe it's I don't know, what do you think? Then?
Speaker 1 (29:03):
Yeah, I think, uh, you know, we talked about this
a little bit. I think he's uh. The concept is,
we're cheekily referring to Uncle Sam, right, the ID of
America in that sense, and then.
Speaker 2 (29:15):
The boss of all white people.
Speaker 1 (29:17):
And I guess we shall also stop here to point
this out. We've been using the phrase native American or
indigenous or Indian, and we're when we're saying Indian there,
obviously we're not we're not casting any aspersions.
Speaker 2 (29:31):
We're it's the term they were using some of these
you know, yeah, organizing acts.
Speaker 1 (29:36):
Yeah, and it's in a lot of the quotations from
different sources. So you're you're absolutely right, they've got this
somewhat cheeky tone. And here's why we think it's cheeky
because in their manifesto they said, look, we're actually, unlike you,
going to use the land. We'll make a cultural center
in Indian school. We're building a museum. Alcatraz is ours
(29:59):
by right of discovery. Take that, they said. But hang on, guys, we're.
Speaker 2 (30:06):
They they called DIBs. Basically shot.
Speaker 1 (30:09):
Yeah, they said, hey, we're cool. Though, we're cool, even
though this is ours. We'll play your little games and
we will pay you for it if you want, We'll
give you, quote, twenty four dollars in glass beads and
red cloth.
Speaker 2 (30:25):
Gotta be red cloth. Red was a that was like
one of the more sought after colors, I believe, right,
because you wasn't I think so. I mean, maybe I'm
thinking of purple because there were certain like certain dyes
that were more pricey or more rare. But point being,
they were going with the same kind of line of
reasoning as their predecessors, you know, who had attempted this occupation,
(30:47):
the idea of offering them something insultingly low. Once again
to point out the insultingly low offers that the United
States have made in an attempt to kind of wipe
their conscience clean, you know. But it was always a
grift with Uncle Sam. You know, it was capitalizing on
inexperience and making negotiations where the playing field was just
(31:09):
not even at all. Because this is not people that
were coming from a place of commerce or coming from
a place of you know, the absolute unchecked capitalism that
was the United States and England.
Speaker 1 (31:22):
Yeah. And also twenty four dollars in glass beads and
red cloth is according to legends, so the same price
that Indian communities were supposedly paid for the island of Manhattan,
all of.
Speaker 2 (31:35):
Manhattan, Yeah, the whole thing, and so long island.
Speaker 1 (31:39):
Right, And we've talked about this in the past, but
that's just peak trolling, brilliant, amazing stuff. And then the
conversation came up, as it would in any occupation or siege,
how long can these folks hang out? Right, Because, as
any student of the really old school war stuff knows,
(31:59):
you cut off the supply chain, right yeah, Castle, yeah,
blockade too.
Speaker 2 (32:06):
All they had to do is make it past four
hours though, and they you know, they had one up
on the previous attempt.
Speaker 1 (32:11):
Yeah, when the activists were I wouldn't say, threatened with this,
but when they were thinking through this, they further trolled
in an even more sincere way, and they said, look,
we don't mind that this island is underdeveloped. We don't
care that it lacks potable fresh water, because you see,
most of us have already endured similar conditions on countless reservations.
Speaker 2 (32:37):
Right. No, they're basically saying, come at us, uncle Sam,
like we've got this, like we were. We can make
this work because we're not a bunch of babies, you know.
I mean, there is sort of a bit of a
flex there, you know, and saying, you know, you subjected
us to conditions far worse than this, and we will
not be swayed by the things that would probably cause
(32:57):
you guys to turn tail and run home.
Speaker 1 (32:58):
Oh yeah, that's a good point. And the government agreed
to negotiate, but were they negotiating in good faith? They
immediately rejected all of the proposed demands from the occupiers,
none of which were super crazy, none of which were
bonkers again, a school, cultural center, the return of Alcatraz
(33:21):
to American Indians. If anything, it seems that the government
was worried about setting a precedent, so the organizers, as
were the occupiers. I should say, as soon as they
get to the island, they start as self organize. They
give everybody a job, everybody votes on major decisions. There's
a council of guidance and elders, and they set up
(33:44):
the school within three weeks. They have the elders teaching
traditional arts and crafts, costume decoration, the cultural rituals that
define a people.
Speaker 2 (33:57):
And can we also just point out something that we
talked a lot about and I've done a whole episode
about and stuff that i want you to know. The
notion of an Indian school and what they were building
here and creating here was in stark contrast to the
Indian schools that the United States government set up for
the very purposes of erasing all of the things that
you just described as being taught in this particular situation,
(34:20):
like it was, you know, to assimilate Native American children
and strip them of all of these customs and traditions
and you know, dance and music and just culture. Its
absolute erasure.
Speaker 1 (34:31):
Yeah, one hundred percent. And things were perfect with this occupation,
the island became increasingly a difficult place to live. As
time went on on December fourth, Alcatraz had all their
electricity cut, the government disconnected in coming phone calls. They
(34:52):
had a water main and they had a fuel line,
but both were leaking. And then a lot of the
occupiers students, students love protesting, so a lot a lot
of the yeah, a lot of the the college kids
had to go back to school just to keep their
scholarships and their loans. And then you started seeing some
(35:14):
of the less well intentioned people coming into the.
Speaker 2 (35:19):
Game, a bit of an unsavory set, folks that perhaps
had criminal records, addiction problems, many who were simply just
capitalizing on a scene, you know, a far out happening man.
You know, like a lot of these hippies who are
essentially just looking for somewhere to go and hang out,
sort of feign actual activism, but really they were more
(35:43):
there like they were hanging out in a fish lot,
you know, and like huffing balloons of nitrous or whatever.
Speaker 1 (35:49):
M Yeah, what you might hear called dreambows sometimes exactly.
So this again, it's the occupation is imperfect, but it
becomes regards it is as a success because the presidential
administration at the time, Nixon says, we're gonna bide our time.
We don't want violent intervention as long as these folks
(36:11):
are peaceful, and hopefully they'll just you know, get tired
and go home. As we mentioned, celebrities were showing their support.
This became a literal cause celebrity and President Nixon gave
a speech saying the time has come for new era
in which the Indian future is determined by Indian acts
(36:33):
and Indian decisions all at all. Before they left, this
group held Alcatraz for nineteen months.
Speaker 2 (36:43):
Incredible, more than four hours. This is a feat. Again,
think about all the impediments, you know, like all of
the obstacles. I mean, it's very very, very impressive.
Speaker 1 (36:55):
Agreed, and this is where we're going to stop in here,
because there's much more to the story. We do know
it met with. We do know this plan and this
peak trolling did lead to serious policy change. The US
government returned millions of acres of ancestral land and pasted
fifty plus legislative proposals supporting tribal self rule. There's a
(37:20):
story a lot of people might not be super familiar
with in the modern day, but it's a fundamental part
of the struggle for rights and self determination which continues now.
And I think it's a beautiful thing. But I still
knowing that these folks lasted nineteen months. Guess it's astonishing,
but for me, it's every time they came to them
(37:42):
and said, Okay, we'll make a deal with you America.
You guys like beads.
Speaker 2 (37:48):
Who doesn't love beads? So well, it may not have
yielded the results that the protesters and the organizers were
looking for quickly, it definitely made an impact historically speaking,
and did sort of set that precedent to a degree
you were describing earlier, right, Ben, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (38:06):
Yeah, agreed. And this is again, this is a strange story,
but it's an important one to remember. If you'd like
to learn more about the US government's contentious relationship and
conspiracies against some of these activist groups, check out our
episode Uncle Sam versus the American Indian Movement. Thanks as
(38:29):
always to our super producer mister Max Williams. Thanks to
our composer Alex Williams, who made this slap and bop.
Speaker 2 (38:37):
H indeed continuously slap. Thanks to Christopherraciotis and Eve's Jeff Coates,
both here in spirit. Jonathan Strickland the quizzer. You know,
we spoke to Jonathan the other day in a work
capacity and he mentioned that he's really waiting for that
call to hop back on the show and quiz us out.
(38:58):
So I think it's time. I think we shoul to
make that happen. But I did inform him that he's
never far from our thoughts, at least as far as
these outros are concerned, and that a shiny bald head
is often mentioned in detail, and he said he had
just recently polished it, so we'll see a real shiny
Jonathan Stricklan also thanks to aj Bahamas Jacobs of course,
(39:19):
a huzzler.
Speaker 1 (39:20):
Yes, yes, he's our own Sean Connery and we hope
to see him soon. In the meantime, folks, be well.
Our journey through state by state ridiculous History continues later
this week with Nebraska.
Speaker 2 (39:35):
We'll see you next time, folks. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History News
Hosts And Creators
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
Popular Podcasts
1. Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
2. Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations.
3. Crime Junkie
If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people.