The American Indian Movement (AIM) was founded in Minneapolis,
Minnesota, in the summer of 1968 by founders Dennis Banks (1937–)
and Clyde Bellecourt (1939–). Modeling itself after the Black Panther
Party, the organization initially focused on forming street patrols to stop
police brutality and other violence in the local Indian community. A
number of service programs ranging from alternative schools to low-cost
housing followed within the next two years.
Expands to national goals
After 1971, with the recruitment of American Indian activists such as
Russell Means (1939–) and John Trudell (1946–), the organization became national in character and shifted its focus to gaining recognition of
American Indian treaty rights in Indian reservations. (Reservations are
tracts of land set aside by the federal government for use by the American
Indians, often as the result of major concessions on the part of American
Indian communities.) Most of AIM’s activity from late 1972 onward was
based at the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota.
Trail of Broken Treaties
For a time, AIM pursued a strategy of forcing confrontations with federal, state, and local authorities to gain national attention for the plight
of American Indians. The most spectacular of these clashes was called the
Trail of Broken Treaties.
Originating on the West Coast in the autumn of 1972, the Trail of
Broken Treaties began as a car caravan of several hundred American
Indians who traveled across the country to Washington, D.C. There
they were prepared to carry out a week-long schedule of ceremonies,
meetings, and peaceful protests. The protesters brought with them a list
of twenty points for presentation to federal officials, calling for the
restoration of treaty activity between federal and tribal governments, the
recognition of existing treaties, the creation of a commission to review
treaty commitments, and much more. The document forcefully asserted
sovereignty (self-rule) for Indian people.
The road-weary protesters expected to find decent accommodations
when they arrived in Washington. Instead, they found they had no assigned places to stay, no provisions, and no real acknowledgment from
federal officials. Hundreds found themselves stranded in an unfamiliar
city. On the morning of November 3, caravan participants sought shelter in the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) building while the group’s
leaders met with federal officials. A confrontation between police and
Native Americans soon erupted in the lobby of the bureau. Within minutes, the police were pushed out onto the street and the building was barricaded from within. The protesters officially occupied the BIA building
for the next week.
The takeover of the BIA might have been interpreted by some as a
bold act of political resistance. However, damage to the building and its
contents, and the destruction and removal of important tribal documents, as well as those pertaining to individual Native Americans, resulted in notable negative press. As the main force behind the Trail of
Broken Treaties, AIM had secured a reputation as a militant (war-like)
organization capable of violence.
Wounded Knee II
AIM’s membership grew in the early 1970s as many American Indians
joined the movement for American Indians rights. Attention began to
focus on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota when Richard
Wilson was elected president of the Oglala Sioux tribal council in 1972.
Wilson was accused of buying hundreds of votes in that election. His administration was charged with mishandling government funds and
granting questionable contracts to whites. In response to these charges,
Wilson had opponents beaten and their families threatened. He maintained a GOON squad—an acronym for Guardians of the Oglala
Nation—to physically intimidate his opponents.
Investigators from the Department of Justice concluded later that
Wilson had imposed a “reign of terror” on reservation residents and that
federal authorities had funded him to do so. But Wilson won the support of the BIA by refusing to allow protests within the reservation. The
BIA ignored complaints against him, funded his GOON squad, and sent
its own agents to help him. Means, by then an AIM leader, vowed to run
against Wilson in the next election for tribal chair, but that would not
occur until 1974.
The residents of Pine Ridge voted to impeach Wilson as tribal chair
in 1973, but at his hearing he managed to talk the tribal council into voting in his favor. Several hundred angry members of the Oglala Sioux tribe
convened a meeting, asking AIM to attend. AIM’s policy was to enter the
reservation only on request. The Oglala Sioux Civil Rights Organization
made the official request for AIM’s help in overthrowing Wilson.
The occupation
On February 26, 1973, AIM members began to caravan to the Pine
Ridge Reservation. As he tried to enter the reservation, two members of
Wilson’s police force beat Means. He later returned, leading a larger band
of about 250 Indians. According to a police report, they broke into the
reservation store at 7:55 PM and took weapons and ammunition. Then
they took over the community of Wounded Knee, the site of the 1890
Wounded Knee massacre. Their original intent appears to have been a
short occupation to negotiate for Wilson’s dismissal and a traditional
tribal government free of BIA interference. The various government
forces, however, blockaded the roads and arrested anyone coming out of
Wounded Knee who appeared to be implicated in the takeover. In response, the occupiers set up defenses and barricades of their own. A seventy-one-day armed standoff had begun.
Support for the occupation grew on other reservations. Other
Indians made their way to Wounded Knee. During the occupation, there
was regular gunfire between the federal agents and the occupiers.
Hundreds of thousands of shots were fired into the village; two Indians
were killed and another dozen badly wounded during the fighting. The
occupation ended peacefully when federal officials agreed to discuss violations of U.S. treaty obligations with the Oglala chiefs.
The aftermath
In the aftermath of Wounded Knee, 562 federal felony charges were lodged
against AIM members. Only fifteen of those resulted in convictions, but the
expense of continuously posting bail and paying attorneys exhausted the
movement’s funds and diverted its members’ attention for years.
From March 1973 to March 1976, at least 69 AIM members and
supporters died violently on Pine Ridge, while some 340 others suffered
serious physical assaults. In twenty-one of the AIM deaths, eyewitnesses
identified the killers as known GOON squad members. Not one of these
crimes was ever brought to trial as the result of a federal investigation.
The disagreement among the Oglala Sioux did not end, nor did friction between AIM and the government. A shootout at Pine Ridge in
June 1975, which killed one Indian and two FBI agents, led in 1977 to
a controversial trial and a life sentence for murder for AIM leader
Leonard Peltier (1944–).
Later years
Despite the Wounded Knee trials and Peltier’s conviction, AIM has remained active. The organization has drawn considerable national and international attention to the Peltier case. In 1978, AIM participated in the
“Longest Walk,” a national march on Washington, D.C., in the continued attempt to air Native American grievances. Three years later, AIM
established Yellow Thunder Camp on federal land in the Black Hills of
South Dakota. The establishment of the camp was the first step, according to AIM leaders, in reclaiming this sacred land for the Lakota, or
Sioux, people. AIM has also protested against false and harmful images
of Native Americans in the media and as sports team mascots, and
against environmental abuses.