1. The Treay of Fort Laramie
2. January 3, 1970: Yvonne Oakes, 13-year-old daughter of Annie and stepdaughter to Richard Oakes, fell to her death, prompting the Oakes family to leave the island (said they just didn't have the heart for it anymore).
1. In an interview with “Radio Free Alcatraz”, occupant and Sioux Indian, John Trudell, lamented of how, “water [was] still [their] big number one problem, and how “rapidly, [their] number two problem [was] becoming electricity”. The government often shut off all electricity to the island, as well as made it difficult for water to reach the occupants in an effort to make them desert the island.
3. Robert Robertson, a Republican working for the National Council on Indian Opportunity, arrived on the island in 1970, just a week after Yvonne Oakes’ passing, Means took the lead in trying to negotiate the grant for the cultural center.
1. Robertson originally met with a group of occupiers to discuss safety and negotiations regarding the occupation.
2. Robertson would not agree to a $500,000 grant to renovate the island (proposed by Means) and would continue to refuse the occupiers’ proposals until May 1970, when the federal government began to transfer Alcatraz to the Department of the Interior and the National Park System.(no longer considered surplus land, and therefore not viable, leglly, for native americans to take back their land).
4. Means believed that if she could hire a high-profile attorney to represent their claim for the Treaty of Fort Laramie, IOAT would win their case.
1. Trudell disagreed with her approach: These opposing views between Means and Trudell are only one simple example of the power struggle that was one of the main reasons for the demise of the occupation.
2. This proved true in the Occupation of Alcatraz when the occupation turned out to not be as united as the occupants first hoped it to be. Their demands proved contradictory of each other, and their inability to see past differences and compromise proved detrimental to the occupation of the island.
5. Late May of 1971: the government had cut off all electrical power and all telephone service to the island.
6. In June, a fire of disputed origin destroyed numerous buildings on the island. Left without power, fresh water, and in the face of diminishing public support and sympathy, the number of occupiers began to dwindle.
7. On June 11, 1971, a large force of government officers removed the remaining 15 people from the island.