Early Indian Prisoners of “The Rock”
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Printed label on back of photo, source unknown. back row, left to
right: unidentified, Polingyouma (Polingyaoma), Hahvema (Hebima),
Masatewa (Masatiwa), Quoyahoinema; 2nd row: Kochventewa (Kochiventiwa),
Beephongwa (Piephungwa), Poolegoiva, Lomahongyoma, Lomanankwosa,
Kochadah (Lomayoshtiwa), Yukioma; front row: Tubewohyoma, Yoda,
Patupha, Kochyouma (Kochyaoma), Soukhongva, Sekaneptewa (Sikaheptiwa),
Karshongnewa.
I had lived in San Francisco for more than 20 years before I finally
took the Alcatraz tour. The sight of the island had become so familiar
that I took it for granted, with my impressions of it derived mostly
from Hollywood mythology, films like The Birdman of Alcatraz, Escape
From Alcatraz and The Rock. In those movies, it is invariably called
The Rock, which is, to be sure, suitable. Looking at Alcatraz, one sees
a complex of drab institutional buildings, a water tower and a
lighthouse perched on what seems like solid rock, with only a few
inconspicuous, wind-beaten trees.
The
dock at Alcatraz, ca. 1900. The island’s use as a military prison
predates its use as a federal penitentiary, beginning in December 1859
when the first permanent army garrison was installed. The population
grew during the Civil War with the addition of army deserters,
the crew of a Confederate privateer and civilians accused of treason.
Alcatraz
is now the habitat of world travelers, a million of whom visit it every
year. It has been the home of, successively, pelicans (Alcatraz is an
anglicized version of the Spanish word for pelican—alcatrace),
prisoners and Indians. The wind and sea keep talking to the island, the
cellblocks rust, birds drift over the place where the Birdman did his
work, and red-and-white tour boats putter along its shoreline.
The average person’s impression of Alcatraz was that it was a federal
prison, but that part of its history began relatively recently—in 1934.
Before then it was a military fort, and that part of its history yields
some of its most fascinating and little-known stories.
First Indian Prisoner 1873
Just as American Indians were the last inhabitants of the island during
the American Indian Movement (AIM) occupation of 1969–71 (see Fall 1999
issue), they were also among the earliest prisoners in the military
stockade. A fort was established on Alcatraz in 1850, and from the very
beginning the Army incarcerated a few prisoners in a dungeon near the
dock. This soon expanded to four cellblocks, and on June 5, 1873, the
first Indian prisoner, Paiute Tom, was transferred from Fort McDermit
in Nevada. There is no record of what his crime was, or why he was shot
and killed by a guard two days later.
Later that same year, two Modocs, Barncho and Sloluck, were sent from
Fort Klamath in Oregon to Alcatraz. They had been convicted of murder
and assault and sentenced to be hanged with four other Modocs. At Fort
Klamath, the six graves had already been dug. For some reason lost to
history, President Ulysses Grant commuted the sentences of Barncho and
Sloluck to life imprisonment on Alcatraz, although the other four
Modocs were hanged. Barncho ended up dying of scrofula (tuberculosis)
in 1875, while Sloluck was on The Rock until 1878 when he was
transferred to Fort Leavenworth in Kansas and then released to join the
remaining Modoc people exiled in Indian Territory (Oklahoma).
More Indians were sent to Alcatraz during the 1870s and 1880s, but
records are incomplete regarding their arrival and departure dates.
This included at least three Paiutes, two of whom were Indian scouts
involved in a mutiny in Arizona Territory. General George Crook’s
campaign against the Chiricahua Apache in Arizona also resulted in the
arrest in July 1884 of a young chief named Kaetena and his imprisonment
at Alcatraz. He was released in March 1886, at which time Crook wrote,
“His stay on Alcatraz has worked a complete reformation of his
character.” In 1887, five more “mutineers” were sent from the San
Carlos, Arizona reservation to Alcatraz.
Hopi Group Interned 1895
The Jan. 4, 1895 issue of the San Francisco Call newspaper ran a story
with the headline “A Batch of Apaches.” The story reported the
confinement of a group of “crafty redskins” who refused to live
according to the “civilized ways of the white men.” It began by saying,
“Nineteen murderous-looking Apache Indians were landed at Alcatraz
Island yesterday morning.”
The 19 Indians referred to were actually Hopi, not Apache, and their
crimes were considerably less spectacular than murder: refusing to send
their children to distant boarding schools and to do the style of
farming prescribed for them by federal officials.
Another article in the Call a few weeks later stated, “Uncle Sam has
summarily arrested 19 Moqui Indians (the term used at the time for the
Hopi)…but he has not done it unkindly. The life of the burnt-umber
natives is one of ease, comparatively speaking. They have not hardship,
aside from the fact that they have been rudely snatched from the bosom
of their families and are prisoners, and prisoners they shall stay
until they have learned to appreciate the advantages of education.”
The order confining the Hopis—named Heevi’ima, Polingyawma, Masatiwa,
Qotsventiwa, Piphongva, Lomahongewma, Lomayestiwa, Yukiwma,
Tuvehoyiwma, Patupha, Qotsyawma, Talagayniwa, Nasingayniwa, Lomayawma,
Tawalestiwa, Aqawsi, Qoiwiso, Sikyakeptiwa and Talasyawma—to Alcatraz
stated that they were to be “held in confinement, at hard labor,
until…they shall show…they fully realize the error of their evil
ways…and until they shall evince, in an unmistakable manner, a desire
to cease interference with the plans of the government for the
civilization and education of its Indian wards.” Conspiracy to commit
truancy and refusal to cultivate vegetables are surely the least
serious offenses that ever landed anyone on Alcatraz.
There are conflicting reports about what life was like on The Rock for
the Hopi. One writer describes their quarters as “tiny wooden
cells…worlds removed from the western deserts and plains.” Another
account, written in 1902, said that the “old cell blocks were rotten
and sanitary conditions very dangerous to health.”
Daily Life Monotonous
On the other hand, a Call article said that the prisoners spent their
days sawing large logs into shorter lengths, occasionally interrupted
by trips into San Francisco where they were taken to public schools “so
that they can see the harmlessness of the multiplication table in its
daily application.” Their accommodations were said to be the same as
those of white prisoners and their food “like that of any second-class
hotel.”
This article also stated, “It is difficult to find work for them at
times. They rise early, go to work, if the weather is fine, eat their
dinner at noon and then work all afternoon. This is followed by tea or
a wholesome equivalent, and then bed. Their taskmaster is a
good-natured, well-educated young man with a sympathetic understanding
of their condition that makes it easy for him to deal with them and
keeps them in even humor.”
The Hopis were kept on Alcatraz until Aug. 7, 1895. I could find no record of the circumstances of their release.
I wonder how many of the Indians occupying Alcatraz in the late 1960s
knew about the Indian prisoners who preceded them by nearly a century.
The modern occupation failed, unfortunately, due to many reasons, but
if things had happened differently, Alcatraz might today again be
Indian territory.
Before the Spanish came to California in the 18th century, there were
about 300,000 Indians in the Bay Area, and oral history indicates that
they used Alcatraz as a place to isolate or ostracize tribal members
who had violated a tribal law or taboo—in effect, a prison.
Imagine some lonely Indian in the 17th century exiled on Alcatraz,
looking longingly across the bay at the land where no buildings then
stood, little dreaming what the future held for that land, the island
and his people. And it leaves us wondering—a hundred years from now,
who might find themselves serving time on this isolated rock?
Larry Tritten of San Francisco has written for Harper’s, Vanity Fair,
Playboy, Travel & Leisure, The New Yorker, National Geographic
Traveler, Field & Stream, Art & Antiques, Reader’s Digest and
other leading magazines and newspapers.
