What happened at Alcatraz?

taking what we want what we want what we want
we’re taking what we want while you sleep while you weep

surplus property occupied by a group of committed people
indigenous to these United States
defended on a treaty right to usurp unused federal land

 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty: The Holes and the Lies

Article 1.
“From this day forward all war between the parties
to this agreement shall for ever cease.
The government of the United States desires peace,
and its honor is hereby pledged to keep it.
The Indians desire peace,
and they now pledge their honor to maintain it.”

taking what we want what we want what we want
we’re taking what we want while you sleep while you weep

Article XI promised unlimited hunting on tracts of land
“so long as the buffalo may range thereon
in such numbers as to justify the chase”
the same land we will run a railroad through
which you will not oppose.
not oppose not
oppose
not

Upon its completion,
sharpshooters ride long iron serpents
down tracks of the promised land
decimating buffalo to end the charade.

taking what we want what we want what we want
we’re taking what we want while you sleep while you weep

Alcatraz Sits Empty

Article VII guarantees that
any male Indian over 18
improving land that “is not mineral land,
nor reserved by the United States
for special purposes
other than Indian occupation,
and who shall have made improvements thereon
of the value of two hundred dollars or more,
and continuously occupied the same as a homestead
for the term of three years,
shall be entitled to receive from the United States
a patent for one hundred and sixty
acres of land including his said improvements.”

The third occupation brought 80 Native people
from 20 different tribes
to said land.

Reinventing Alcatraz
as a worldwide outlet for indigenous art
soothing governmental responsibility
to native peoples, the Indians speak
of possibility lined with hope.

The United States of America seldom concedes.
Wounds fester what concessions could heal.

say we’ll do one thing
turn around and do another
execute plans created at the promise of beginning
kill the Indian kill the Indian

Trudell tells it this way:
two faces
one operates the left hand
two faces
one operates the right hand

differences deceit decimation

we called them Indian
we did not call them people

Alcatraz sits empty