Statements - Extremely Eloquent, Therefore Extremely Dangerous

A Letter to the People by John Trudell | April 28, 1987

We would like to express this thought. We must be careful of the illusions. The attack against our liberation struggle is intense. The insanity of greed and genocide is spreading a war against the natural world unparalleled in human history. We are only a minute part of the natural world. Yet how we handle ourselves and this situation can either create a balance or aid and abet the enemy in our destruction. The enemy attack depends on our reactions to feed its justification. In this generation, the enemy has controlled the economic and political environment since our arrival to this life. Through this control, the enemy has conditioned us to react. React to his initiative of greed. The Industrialist is the enemy. His power is money and exploitation. Brutality is his nature.

Black Hills International Survival Gathering | July 18-27, 1980

I’d like to thank all of you for coming to this place, and I would like to give thanks for being welcomed here myself. I would like to talk tonight in honor of all of us in the struggle who have lost our relations to the Spirit World. And I would like to talk in honor of the wind, one of the natural elements. This is a survival gathering and one of the things I hope that you all learn while you’re here is, you learn to appreciate the energy and power that the elements are, the sun, the rain and the wind, and that you go away from here understanding that this is power and this is the only true real power. This is the only true real connection we will ever have to power, our relationship to Mother Earth.

Before We Were Indians | Early Autumn, 1975

This statement is by John Trudell, national chairman of the American Indian Movement, issued in September, 1975.

We are human beings. Alcohol makes us drunks. Pride and history make us “The People.” I wish everyone would think about this. Before we were “Indians”, we were “The People.” For the Europeans to justify with their humanitarian beliefs the oppression that they have put on our people, they had to create a false label for us. They had to call us something that was not human. Something other than what we actually were. When Columbus came here and thought he was in India, he called us ” Indians” and so we have been “Indians” for only a brief period of time in the history of our people. Our people have been on this land for thousands and thousands and thousands of years. Our people are the product of this land. We can refer to ourselves as the indigenous, the sovereign people, the native people, or native Americans, but we are “The People” as we relate to being “The People”, as long as we act accordingly.

A Statement from John Trudell | Early Autumn, 1975

NOTE: This summer, shortly after the shooting of the FBI agents at Pine Ridge, John Trudell was arrested at his home in Nevada. This is a statement of the legal struggle which he is waging and facing. He requires assistance to cover legal fees.

I’m charged with assault with a deadly weapon and commission of a crime on an Indian reservation because of an incident that happened at a trading post in Owyhee, Nevada. But the real issue comes down to a jurisdictional question, because the way the federal law is set up, if an Indian is accused of committing a crime against a white on a reservation, that Indian is taken into federal custody and tried in federal court on felony charges. If a white commits a crime on a reservation, the white is also taken into federal custody and tried in federal court on felony charges. If an Indian commits a crime against an Indian on the reservation, nine times out of ten it is sent back by federal attorneys to tribal court to be dealt with. So we’re talking about racism being perpetuated by federal law. It’s an automatic crime for an Indian to stand up against a white on a reservation, no matter what that white does to you. The laws are set up so that anyone operating a business on a reservation can violate every law on the books and rob the people, but if the people stand up against the non-Indian for his violations, the people face a special federal law automatically guaranteeing a trip to federal court. Whereas if the Indians are fighting against each other, it is resolved in tribal court.

John Trudell: Radio Free Alcatraz | July, 1970

Everything out here is in good shape except for our water supply. We are running into a hassle on that. The government still hasn’t eased up on us and given us any water. But the morale is still high. Everyone is still behind what we are doing. We are making arrangements now to see what we can do, to see if we can get someone to intervene and maybe supply us with some water. The weather has been cold, except for the past couple of days the sun has been shining. The cold weather has been to our advantage, because, without enough water, if the heat were to come out here we would be in real trouble. But with God on our side, the weather has been cold, although it is kind of a hardship at times. We could use wood, I guess, things to burn. Another bit of good news is that we are expecting to have a birth out here on the island, sometime within the next forty-eight hours. It’s my wife who’s going to be having a son, maybe.

Source: Johnson, Troy R, The Occupation of Alcatraz Island. 1996

John Trudell: Radio Free Alcatraz | June, 1970

Right now everything on the island is fine. We are in good shape morally. Morale is high and we are still in the same position as far as electricity goes. We had our lighthouse burned out, we blew some bulbs a couple of nights ago when we went without a lighthouse for a night, but things are running all right again. But our biggest problem we have now is running into this deal about water. We are out of water. I think we have fifty gallons of water left and that is it. So now our biggest worry is getting water. We need water because we have children out here. We need the water for them. We need the water for ourselves.

John Trudell: Radio Free Alcatraz | June 2, 1970

Here is what happened last night, June 1, 1970. We had a fire that burnt down the warden’s home, the old clinic, and the old lighthouse building. All that is left of the lighthouse building or the lighthouse is a long skinny thing with a light on the end that sticks up in the air. That is all that was burned. The next question was how did the fire start, do you know? No, we don’t know that. All we know was that at about 10:30 last night that it started and that it finally died out this morning. We tried to keep the lighthouse from going, but it went, and there was nothing we could do about it. We didn’t have any water to fight it with and by the time the Coast Guard came it was too late for them to do anything, so we didn’t let them come on the island. They asked if they could land. We told them no and they stayed off, away from the shore. They couldn’t save the buildings, they were already too far gone to be saved.

John Trudell: Radio Free Alcatraz | May 27, 1970

T. E. Hannon made a statement yesterday that they had met with us over thirty times. That’s kind of weird, because I’ve never seen him around, except for about three times. I can actually name things that were said. Yeah, well, anyway, we told the government, no, we don’t plan on leaving. Well, the situation was, they said that it’s [Alcatraz] going to be a national park with an Indian flavor and that they were removing their officials from the lighthouse. They encouraged us to leave too. So today they cut off the electricity, and yesterday they took our water barge. We were told we’d get it back by today, so we would have plenty of water for the weekend. This is the story we were told, then they ripped us off. They took off with that water barge. Took the GSA personnel off the island. There are only Indians here now.