Beginning on November 20, 1969, a group of Native Americans called United Indians of All Tribes, mostly college students from San Francisco, occupied the island to protest federal policies related to American Indians. Some of them were children of Indians who had resettled in the city as part of an urbanization program encouraged by the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) from the 1930s to the 1950s. The BIA hoped to give Indians new opportunities in the cities, as many Indian reservations were isolated from job markets.

The occupiers, who stayed on the island for nearly two years, demanded the island’s facilities be adapted and new structures built for an Indian education center, ecology center and cultural center. The American Indians claimed the island by provisions of the Treaty of Fort Laramie (1868) between the U.S. and the Sioux; they said the treaty promised to return all retired, abandoned or out-of-use federal lands to the Native peoples from whom it was acquired. (Note: The Treaty of 1868 stated that all abandoned or unused federal land adjacent to the Great Sioux Reservation could be reclaimed by descendants of the Sioux Nation.) Indians of All Tribes then claimed Alcatraz Island by the “Right of Discovery”, as indigenous peoples knew it thousands of years before any Europeans had come to North America. Begun by urban Indians of San Francisco, the occupation attracted other Native Americans from across the country, including American Indian Movement (AIM) urban activists from Minneapolis.

The Native Americans demanded reparation for the many treaties broken by the US government and for the lands which were taken from so many tribes. In discussing the Right of Discovery, the historian Troy R. Johnson states in The Occupation of Alcatraz Island, that indigenous peoples knew about Alcatraz at least 10,000 years before any European knew about any part of North America.

Native Americans objected to federal policies such as intense pressure to send their children to boarding schools. They cited the Moqui Hopi in 1895, who were held as military prisoners by the US. The U.S. government offered to release the people if they agreed to send their children to U.S. Indian schools. The Hopi refused, believing this would cause their culture to deteriorate and force assimilation. The effect of the policy was to break any positive relations the Hopi may have built with the U.S. government.

During the nineteen months and nine days of occupation by the American Indians, several buildings at Alcatraz were damaged or destroyed by fire, including the recreation hall, the Coast Guard quarters and the Warden’s home. The origins of the fires are unknown. The U.S. government demolished a number of other buildings (mostly apartments) after the occupation had ended. Graffiti from the period of Native American occupation are still visible at many locations on the island.

During the occupation, President Richard Nixon rescinded the Indian termination policy, designed by earlier administrations to end federal recognition of tribes and their special relationship with the US government. He established a new policy of self-determination, in part as a result of the publicity and awareness created by the occupation. The occupation ended on June 11, 1971.

The Alcatraz occupation inspired numerous other political actions by American Indian activists: the seizure of the Mayflower II in Boston on Thanksgiving Day 1970; the Indian occupation of Mount Rushmore; the Trail of Broken Treaties in 1972, ending in Indian occupation of the Department of Interior headquarters in Washington, DC; the Wounded Knee Incident at Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in 1973, in which Oglala Lakota held territory against federal forces for 71 days; and the Longest Walk in 1985.

The occupation of Alcatraz gave many Native Americans a sense of shared pan-Indian identity, as well as renewed purpose about activism and reclaiming their cultures. It is defined as a key movement in their struggle for enforcement of treaty rights, recognition of tribal sovereignty and desire for self-government, and a renewal of American Indian identity. Following a succession of demands at Alcatraz, the U.S. government returned excess, unused land to the Taos, Yakama, Navajo and Washoe tribes.

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