Anna Mae Aquash
Encyclopedia
Anna Mae Aquash (March 27, 1945 – mid-December 1975) was a Mi'kmaq activist from Nova Scotia
, Canada
who became the highest-ranking woman in the American Indian Movement
(AIM) in the United States during the mid-1970s.
Aquash participated in the 1972 Trail of Broken Treaties
and occupation of the Department of Interior headquarters in Washington, DC; the Wounded Knee Incident
in 1973; and armed occupations in Canada and Wisconsin in following years. On February 24, 1976, her body was found on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation
in South Dakota
; she was determined to have been shot execution style. Born in Indian Brook 14
, Hants County, Nova Scotia
, Canada
, Aquash was thirty years old at the time of her death.
After decades of investigation and the hearing of testimony by three federal grand juries, in March 2003, Arlo Looking Cloud and John Graham (also known as John Boy Patton) were indicted for the murder of Aquash. Looking Cloud was convicted in 2004 and Graham in 2010; both received life sentences. Thelma Rios was indicted along with Graham, but she pled guilty to charges as an accessory to the kidnapping. In 2008 Vine Richard "Dick" Marshall was charged with aiding the murder, but was acquitted of providing the gun. As of 2011, authorities continue to investigate the murder, as they believe that higher ranking AIM leader(s) ordered the execution in the mistaken suspicion that Aquash was an informant.
First Nation at Indian Brook Reservation in Shubenacadie, Nova Scotia
. Her mother was Mary Ellen Pictou and her father Francis Thomas Levi. She had two older sisters, Mary and Becky Pictou, and a younger brother Francis. Her mother and sisters survived her death. Pictou and her siblings received their early educations on the reservation.
(AIM), founded in Minneapolis in 1968, who were organizing among urban Indians. Pictou became involved in the Teaching and Research in Bicultural Education School Project (TRIBES), a program in Bar Harbor, Maine
to teach young American Indians
about their history. On Thanksgiving
Day 1970, AIM activists in Boston protested against the Mayflower II
celebration at the harbor
by boarding and seizing the ship. Pictou helped create the Boston Indian Council (now the North American Indian Center of Boston
), to work to improve conditions for Indians in the city.
In 1972 Pictou participated in the Trail of Broken Treaties
march of American Indian activists to Washington, D.C.
. Protesters occupied the Bureau of Indian Affairs
national headquarters and presented a list of 20 demands to the government, 12 of them dealing with treaty issues. In Boston, Pictou had met Nogeeshik Aquash, from Walpole Island
, Canada
, and they started a close relationship.
In 1973 Pictou and Aquash traveled together to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation
in South Dakota to join AIM activists and Oglala Lakota
in what developed into the 71-day armed occupation of Wounded Knee
. They were married there by Wallace Black Elk, a Lakota elder.
Now using the surname Aquash, in 1974 she was based mostly in Minneapolis, where she worked on the Red Schoolhouse project, for a culturally based school for Indian students. She participated in the armed occupation by Ojibway activists and AIM supporters at Anicinabe Park in Kenora, Ontario
in 1974, to protest treatment of Ojibway in Kenora and northwestern Ontario in relation to health, police harassment, education and other issues, and failures by the government's Office of Indian Affairs. In January 1975, Aquash worked with the Menominee
Warriors Society in the month-long armed occupation of the Alexian Brothers Novitiate at Gresham, Wisconsin
. Her quick release on bond from two federal weapons-related arrests in 1975 heightened internal AIM rumors that Aquash might be a government informant. Leaders were nervous since they had discovered in late 1974 that Douglas Durham, a prominent member and by then appointed head of security for AIM, was an FBI informant. He was expelled from the organization in February 1975 at a public press conference.
According to her biographer Johanna Brand, by the spring of 1975, Aquash was "recognized and respected as an organizer in her own right and was taking an increasing role in the decision-making of AIM policies and programs." She was close to AIM leaders Leonard Peltier
and Dennis Banks
, the latter with whom she had a sexual relationship beginning in the summer of 1974, which created jealousy among other members. She was considered the highest-ranking woman in AIM. Aquash worked until her death for the Elders and Lakota People of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation
.
in the northeast corner of the reservation, about 10 miles from Wanblee, South Dakota
. Her body was discovered by Roger Amiotte, a rancher, during an unusual thaw. An autopsy was conducted by medical practitioner, W. O. Brown, who wrote: "it appears she had been dead for about 10 days." Failing to notice a bullet wound in her skull, Brown concluded that "she had died of exposure." She was not then identified. Her hands were cut off and sent to the Federal Bureau of Investigation
headquarters in Washington, D.C.
for fingerprinting. Her body was soon buried as a Jane Doe.
On March 10, 1976, eight days after the burial, Aquash's remains were exhumed due to requests made separately by her family and AIM supporters, and by the FBI. AIM arranged for a second autopsy to be conducted by Dr. Garry Peterson, an independent pathologist from Minneapolis. He found that she had been shot by a .32 caliber
bullet in the back of the head, execution style. She was reinterred in Oglala Lakota land. Rumors persisted that she had been killed as an informant related to the Leonard Peltier
case. Aquash had not been at the Pine Ridge Reservation at the time of the murders of the two FBI agents in June 1975, for which Peltier was convicted in 1976.
Her murder was investigated both by the Denver police, as it was found that she had been kidnapped from there in December 1975, and by the FBI, as she was transported across state lines and killed on an American Indian reservation. Federal grand juries were called to hear testimony on her case in 1976, 1982 and 1994, but no indictments were made. In 1997 Paul DeMain, editor of the independent newspaper News From Indian Country
, started regularly publishing articles about the investigation of the murder of Aquash.
, associated with the Denver-based AIM movement, held a press conference in Denver at the Federal Building to discuss the slow progress of the investigation into Aquash's murder. It had been under investigation both by the Denver police, as Aquash had been kidnapped from there, and by the FBI, as she had been taken across state lines and killed on an Indian reservation. Both Branscombe and Means accused Vernon Bellecourt
, a high-ranking leader of AIM, of having ordered the execution of Aquash. Means said that Clyde Bellecourt
, a founder of AIM, had ensured that it was carried out at the Pine Ridge Reservation. Means said that an AIM tribunal had banned the Bellecourt brothers but tried to keep the reason for the dissension internal to protect AIM.
The Associated Press
(AP) reporter Robert Weller noted that this was the first time that an AIM leader active at the time of Aquash's death had publicly implicated AIM in the murder. [Note: The AIM organization split in 1993: the American Indian Movement
Grand Governing Council is based in Minneapolis; and the AIM-International Confederation of Autonomous Chapters
is based in Denver.] Means and Branscombe accused three indigenous people: Arlo Looking Cloud, Theda Nelson Clark and John Graham, of having been directly involved in the kidnapping and murder of Aquash.
Earlier that day in a telephone interview with the journalists Paul DeMain and Harlan McKosato prior to the press conference, the journalist Minnie Two Shoes had said, speaking of the importance of Aquash,
On 4 November 1999, in a followup show on Native American Calling the next day, Vernon Bellecourt denied any involvement by him and his brother in the death of Aquash. Their office released a statement that Means was no longer part of the national AIM, and may have been trying to deflect attention from his own involvement. The AP noted the longstanding dissension within AIM between Means and the Bellecourt brothers.
In an editorial written in January 2002 in the News from Indian Country, the publisher Paul DeMain said that he had met with several people who said they had heard Leonard Peltier
in 1975 confess to the shootings of the two FBI agents on 26 June 1975 at the Pine Ridge Reservation. They further said that they believed the motive for the execution-style murder of Aquash "allegedly was her knowledge that Leonard Peltier had shot the two [FBI] agents, as he was convicted." DeMain did not reveal his sources because of their personal danger in having spoken to him. In an editorial of March 2003, DeMain withdrew his support for clemency for Peltier. In response, Peltier sued DeMain for libel on May 1, 2003. On May 25, 2004, after the Arlo Looking Cloud trial ended with his conviction, Peltier withdrew the suit; he and DeMain reached a settlement.
DeMain issued a statement that included the following:
Athabascan), from Whitehorse
, Yukon
, Canada. Although Theda Nelson Clark, Graham's adopted aunt, was also alleged to have been involved, she was not indicted; by then she was being cared for in a nursing home.
Bruce Ellison, who has been Leonard Peltier
's lawyer since the 1970s, invoked his Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination and refused to testify at the grand jury hearings on charges against Looking Cloud or at his trial in 2004. During the trial, the federal prosecutor referred to Ellison as a co-conspirator in the Aquash case. Witnesses say that Ellison participated in interrogating Anna Mae Aquash on December 11, 1975, shortly before her murder.
and Robert Ecoffey, the Director of the Bureau of Indian Affairs Office of Law Enforcement Services. On March 27, 2003, Looking Cloud said that John Graham was the gunman.
Looking Cloud testified on videotape that he was present at the murder and that John Graham pulled the trigger; he said that he was making his statement while under the influence of "a little bit of alcohol." Trial testimony showed that Looking Cloud told a number of other individuals in various times and places about having been at the murder.
Looking Cloud appealed his conviction. In the appeal, filed by attorney Terry Gilbert, who replaced his trial attorney Tim Rensch, Looking Cloud retracted his videotaped confession, saying that it was false. He appealed based on the grounds that his trial counsel Rensch was ineffective in failing to object to the introduction of Looking Cloud's videotaped statement, that he failed to object to hearsay statements of Anna Mae Aquash, failed to object to hearsay instruction for the jury, and failed to object to leading questions by the prosecution to Robert Ecoffey. The United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit
denied Looking Cloud's appeal. On August 19, 2005, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit affirmed the judgment of conviction. Richard Two Elk, adopted brother of Looking Cloud; Troy Lynn Yellow Wood, former AIM chairman John Trudell
, and Aquash's daughters Denise and Debbie Maloney were other witnesses who testified at the trial that Looking Cloud had separately confessed his involvement to them.
, ordered the extradition of John Graham to the United States to face charges on his alleged involvement in the murder of Aquash. Graham appealed the order and was held under house arrest, with conditions. In July 2007, a Canadian court denied his appeal, and upheld the extradition order. On December 6, 2007 the Supreme Court of Canada
denied Graham's second appeal of his extradition.
In a 2004 interview recorded at Pacifica Radio, Graham denied any involvement in the death of Anna Mae Aquash. He claims that the U.S. government threatened to name him as the murderer if he "didn't co-operate". He said that he last saw Aquash on a drive that took them from Denver to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, where he left her at a "safe house." (Graham said the FBI questioned him about the death and offered him the witness protection program if he implicated the AIM leadership.)
at the time of Aquash's murder. It was alleged that Graham, Looking Cloud and Theda Nalson Clark had taken Aquash to Marshall's house, where they held her prior to taking her to her execution. Marshall's wife, Cleo Gates, testified to this at Looking Cloud's trial. Marshall is alleged to have provided the murder weapon to Graham and Looking Cloud. Marshall was imprisoned in 1976 after being convicted in the 1975 shooting death of a man. He was paroled from prison in 2000. He was acquitted in the Aquash case.
, was charged by the state of South Dakota in September 2009, along with John Graham, for the kidnapping, rape and murder of Aquash. Already in poor health, she avoided a trial on murder charges by agreeing to a plea bargain
"that acknowledged her role in the events leading up to Aquash's death." In November 2010, she pled guilty to the charge of being an accessory to kidnapping and received a 5-year sentence, most of which was suspended.
Rios admitted in court that she "relayed a message to other AIM members to bring Aquash from Denver to Rapid City in December 1975, because they thought she was a government informant." Rios died of lung cancer 9 February 2011. Although names were redacted in her plea agreement at court, she had said she heard two people ordering Aquash to be brought from Denver to Rapid City and that she should be killed.
testified in both the 1976 Butler and Robideau trial and the 2004 Looking Cloud trial that Dennis Banks
had told him that the body of Anna Mae Aquash had been found before it was officially identified. Banks wrote in his autobiography, Ojibwa Warrior, that Trudell told him that the body found was that of Aquash. Banks wrote that he did not know until then that Aquash had been killed, although she had been missing.
In Looking Cloud's trial, the prosecution argued that AIM's suspicion of Aquash stemmed from her having heard Peltier admit to the murders. Darlene “Kamook” Nichols, former wife of the AIM leader Dennis Banks, testified that in late 1975, Peltier confessed to shooting the FBI agents. He was talking to a small group of fugitive AIM activists then on the run from law enforcement. They included Nichols, her sister Bernie Nichols (later Lafferty), Nichols' husband Dennis Banks, and Aquash, among several others. Nichols testified that Peltier said, “The mother fucker was begging for his life, but I shot him anyway.” Bernie Nichols-Lafferty gave the same account of Peltier’s statement.
Other witnesses have testified that once Aquash came under suspicion as an informant, Peltier interrogated her while holding a gun to her head. Peltier and David Hill later had Aquash participate in bomb-making so that her fingerprints would be on the bombs. The trio planted the bombs at two power plants on the Pine Ridge reservation. Extensive testimony suggests that AIM leaders ordered the murder of Aquash; because of her position, lower-ranking members would not have moved against her without permission from above.
for reinterment on June 21 at Indian Brook Reservation in Shubenacadie
. They held appropriate Mi'kmaq ceremonies and celebrated the work and life of the activist. Family and supporters have held annual anniversary ceremonies in her honor since then.
Nova Scotia
Nova Scotia is one of Canada's three Maritime provinces and is the most populous province in Atlantic Canada. The name of the province is Latin for "New Scotland," but "Nova Scotia" is the recognized, English-language name of the province. The provincial capital is Halifax. Nova Scotia is the...
, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
who became the highest-ranking woman in the American Indian Movement
American Indian Movement
The American Indian Movement is a Native American activist organization in the United States, founded in 1968 in Minneapolis, Minnesota by urban Native Americans. The national AIM agenda focuses on spirituality, leadership, and sovereignty...
(AIM) in the United States during the mid-1970s.
Aquash participated in the 1972 Trail of Broken Treaties
Trail of Broken Treaties
The Trail of Broken Treaties was a cross-country protest in the United States by American Indian and First Nations organizations that took place in the autumn of 1972...
and occupation of the Department of Interior headquarters in Washington, DC; the Wounded Knee Incident
Wounded Knee Incident
The Wounded Knee incident began February 27, 1973 when about 200 Oglala Lakota and followers of the American Indian Movement seized and occupied the town of Wounded Knee, South Dakota on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation...
in 1973; and armed occupations in Canada and Wisconsin in following years. On February 24, 1976, her body was found on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation
Pine Ridge Indian Reservation
The Pine Ridge Indian Reservation is an Oglala Sioux Native American reservation located in the U.S. state of South Dakota. Originally included within the territory of the Great Sioux Reservation, Pine Ridge was established in 1889 in the southwest corner of South Dakota on the Nebraska border...
in South Dakota
South Dakota
South Dakota is a state located in the Midwestern region of the United States. It is named after the Lakota and Dakota Sioux American Indian tribes. Once a part of Dakota Territory, South Dakota became a state on November 2, 1889. The state has an area of and an estimated population of just over...
; she was determined to have been shot execution style. Born in Indian Brook 14
Indian Brook 14, Nova Scotia
Indian Brook 14 is a Mi'kmaq reserve located in Hants County, Nova Scotia.It is administratively part of the Shubenacadie First Nation....
, Hants County, Nova Scotia
Hants County, Nova Scotia
Hants County is a county in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia which was the home of Thomas Chandler Haliburton, Alden Nowlan and Noel Doiron. The county of Hants was created June 17, 1781, and consisted of the townships of Windsor, Falmouth and Newport...
, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, Aquash was thirty years old at the time of her death.
After decades of investigation and the hearing of testimony by three federal grand juries, in March 2003, Arlo Looking Cloud and John Graham (also known as John Boy Patton) were indicted for the murder of Aquash. Looking Cloud was convicted in 2004 and Graham in 2010; both received life sentences. Thelma Rios was indicted along with Graham, but she pled guilty to charges as an accessory to the kidnapping. In 2008 Vine Richard "Dick" Marshall was charged with aiding the murder, but was acquitted of providing the gun. As of 2011, authorities continue to investigate the murder, as they believe that higher ranking AIM leader(s) ordered the execution in the mistaken suspicion that Aquash was an informant.
Early life and education
Anna Mae Pictou was born into the Mi'kmaqMi'kmaq
The Míkmaq are a First Nations people, indigenous to the northeastern region of New England, Canada's Atlantic Provinces, and the Gaspé Peninsula of Quebec. The nation has a population of about 40,000 , of whom nearly 9,100 speak the Míkmaq language...
First Nation at Indian Brook Reservation in Shubenacadie, Nova Scotia
Shubenacadie, Nova Scotia
Shubenacadie is a community located in Hants County, in central Nova Scotia, Canada. As of 2006, the population was 2,074.In the Micmac language, Shubenacadie means "abounding in ground nuts" or "place where the red potato Shubenacadie (['ʃuːbə'nækədiː]) is a community located in Hants County, in...
. Her mother was Mary Ellen Pictou and her father Francis Thomas Levi. She had two older sisters, Mary and Becky Pictou, and a younger brother Francis. Her mother and sisters survived her death. Pictou and her siblings received their early educations on the reservation.
Marriage and family
In 1962 Anna Mae Pictou and Jake Maloney moved together to Boston. They had two daughters together, Denise born in 1964 and Debbie born in September 1965. They married that year, but divorced in mid-1970.Activism
In Boston, Pictou began to meet urban American Indians and other First Nations people from Canada. About 1968-1969, she met members of the American Indian MovementAmerican Indian Movement
The American Indian Movement is a Native American activist organization in the United States, founded in 1968 in Minneapolis, Minnesota by urban Native Americans. The national AIM agenda focuses on spirituality, leadership, and sovereignty...
(AIM), founded in Minneapolis in 1968, who were organizing among urban Indians. Pictou became involved in the Teaching and Research in Bicultural Education School Project (TRIBES), a program in Bar Harbor, Maine
Bar Harbor, Maine
Bar Harbor is a town on Mount Desert Island in Hancock County, Maine, United States. As of the 2010 census, its population is 5,235. Bar Harbor is a famous summer colony in the Down East region of Maine. It is home to the College of the Atlantic, Jackson Laboratory and Mount Desert Island...
to teach young American Indians
Indigenous peoples of the Americas
The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...
about their history. On Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving (United States)
Thanksgiving, or Thanksgiving Day, is a holiday celebrated in the United States on the fourth Thursday in November. It has officially been an annual tradition since 1863, when, during the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a national day of thanksgiving to be celebrated on Thursday,...
Day 1970, AIM activists in Boston protested against the Mayflower II
Mayflower II
The Mayflower II is a replica of the 17th century ship Mayflower, celebrated for transporting the Pilgrims to the New World.The replica was built in Devon, England, during 1955–1956, in a collaboration between Englishman Warwick Charlton and Plimoth Plantation, an American museum...
celebration at the harbor
Port of Boston
The Port of Boston, , is a major seaport located in Boston Harbor and adjacent to the City of Boston...
by boarding and seizing the ship. Pictou helped create the Boston Indian Council (now the North American Indian Center of Boston
North American Indian Center of Boston
The North American Indian Center of Boston, Inc. is a non-profit organization located in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, which provides assistance to American Indians, Native Canadians, and other indigenous peoples of North America....
), to work to improve conditions for Indians in the city.
In 1972 Pictou participated in the Trail of Broken Treaties
Trail of Broken Treaties
The Trail of Broken Treaties was a cross-country protest in the United States by American Indian and First Nations organizations that took place in the autumn of 1972...
march of American Indian activists to Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
. Protesters occupied the Bureau of Indian Affairs
Bureau of Indian Affairs
The Bureau of Indian Affairs is an agency of the federal government of the United States within the US Department of the Interior. It is responsible for the administration and management of of land held in trust by the United States for Native Americans in the United States, Native American...
national headquarters and presented a list of 20 demands to the government, 12 of them dealing with treaty issues. In Boston, Pictou had met Nogeeshik Aquash, from Walpole Island
Walpole Island
Walpole Island is an island and Indian reserve in southwestern Ontario, Canada, on the border between Ontario and Michigan in the United States. It is located in the mouth of the St. Clair River on Lake St. Clair, approximately thirty miles northeast of Detroit, Michigan, and Windsor, Ontario.In...
, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, and they started a close relationship.
In 1973 Pictou and Aquash traveled together to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation
Pine Ridge Indian Reservation
The Pine Ridge Indian Reservation is an Oglala Sioux Native American reservation located in the U.S. state of South Dakota. Originally included within the territory of the Great Sioux Reservation, Pine Ridge was established in 1889 in the southwest corner of South Dakota on the Nebraska border...
in South Dakota to join AIM activists and Oglala Lakota
Oglala Lakota
The Oglala Lakota or Oglala Sioux are one of the seven subtribes of the Lakota people; along with the Nakota and Dakota, they make up the Great Sioux Nation. A majority of the Oglala live on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, the eighth-largest Native American reservation in the...
in what developed into the 71-day armed occupation of Wounded Knee
Wounded Knee Incident
The Wounded Knee incident began February 27, 1973 when about 200 Oglala Lakota and followers of the American Indian Movement seized and occupied the town of Wounded Knee, South Dakota on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation...
. They were married there by Wallace Black Elk, a Lakota elder.
Now using the surname Aquash, in 1974 she was based mostly in Minneapolis, where she worked on the Red Schoolhouse project, for a culturally based school for Indian students. She participated in the armed occupation by Ojibway activists and AIM supporters at Anicinabe Park in Kenora, Ontario
Kenora, Ontario
Kenora , originally named Rat Portage, is a small city situated on the Lake of the Woods in Northwestern Ontario, Canada, close to the Manitoba boundary, and about east of Winnipeg...
in 1974, to protest treatment of Ojibway in Kenora and northwestern Ontario in relation to health, police harassment, education and other issues, and failures by the government's Office of Indian Affairs. In January 1975, Aquash worked with the Menominee
Menominee
Some placenames use other spellings, see also Menomonee and Menomonie.The Menominee are a nation of Native Americans living in Wisconsin. The Menominee, along with the Ho-Chunk, are the only tribes that are indigenous to what is now Wisconsin...
Warriors Society in the month-long armed occupation of the Alexian Brothers Novitiate at Gresham, Wisconsin
Gresham, Wisconsin
Gresham is a village in Shawano County, Wisconsin, United States. The population was 575 at the 2000 census.-Geography:Gresham is located at ....
. Her quick release on bond from two federal weapons-related arrests in 1975 heightened internal AIM rumors that Aquash might be a government informant. Leaders were nervous since they had discovered in late 1974 that Douglas Durham, a prominent member and by then appointed head of security for AIM, was an FBI informant. He was expelled from the organization in February 1975 at a public press conference.
According to her biographer Johanna Brand, by the spring of 1975, Aquash was "recognized and respected as an organizer in her own right and was taking an increasing role in the decision-making of AIM policies and programs." She was close to AIM leaders Leonard Peltier
Leonard Peltier
Leonard Peltier is a Native American activist and member of the American Indian Movement . In 1977 he was convicted and sentenced to two consecutive terms of life imprisonment for first degree murder in the shooting of two Federal Bureau of Investigation agents during a 1975 conflict on the Pine...
and Dennis Banks
Dennis Banks
Dennis Banks , a Native American leader, teacher, lecturer, activist and author, is an Anishinaabe born on Leech Lake Indian Reservation in northern Minnesota. Banks is also known as Nowa Cumig...
, the latter with whom she had a sexual relationship beginning in the summer of 1974, which created jealousy among other members. She was considered the highest-ranking woman in AIM. Aquash worked until her death for the Elders and Lakota People of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation
Pine Ridge Indian Reservation
The Pine Ridge Indian Reservation is an Oglala Sioux Native American reservation located in the U.S. state of South Dakota. Originally included within the territory of the Great Sioux Reservation, Pine Ridge was established in 1889 in the southwest corner of South Dakota on the Nebraska border...
.
Murder
Three years after the Wounded Knee occupation, and less than a year after the shootout at Jumping Bull Ranch on the Pine Ridge Reservation, on February 24, 1976, Aquash's body was found by the side of State Road 73South Dakota Highway 73
South Dakota Highway 73 is a state route that runs across western South Dakota. It begins at the Nebraska border north of Merriman, Nebraska, as a continuation of Nebraska Highway 61. It runs to the North Dakota border, where it continues as North Dakota Highway 49...
in the northeast corner of the reservation, about 10 miles from Wanblee, South Dakota
Wanblee, South Dakota
Wanblee is a census-designated place on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, located in Jackson County, South Dakota, United States. The population was 725 at the 2010 census, virtually all of whom are members of the Oglala band of Lakota Sioux...
. Her body was discovered by Roger Amiotte, a rancher, during an unusual thaw. An autopsy was conducted by medical practitioner, W. O. Brown, who wrote: "it appears she had been dead for about 10 days." Failing to notice a bullet wound in her skull, Brown concluded that "she had died of exposure." She was not then identified. Her hands were cut off and sent to the Federal Bureau of Investigation
Federal Bureau of Investigation
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is an agency of the United States Department of Justice that serves as both a federal criminal investigative body and an internal intelligence agency . The FBI has investigative jurisdiction over violations of more than 200 categories of federal crime...
headquarters in Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
for fingerprinting. Her body was soon buried as a Jane Doe.
On March 10, 1976, eight days after the burial, Aquash's remains were exhumed due to requests made separately by her family and AIM supporters, and by the FBI. AIM arranged for a second autopsy to be conducted by Dr. Garry Peterson, an independent pathologist from Minneapolis. He found that she had been shot by a .32 caliber
8 mm caliber
This article lists firearm cartridges which have a bullet in the to caliber range.*Length refers to the empty cartridge case length.*OAL refers to the overall length of the loaded cartridge.All measurements are in mm .-Pistol cartridges:...
bullet in the back of the head, execution style. She was reinterred in Oglala Lakota land. Rumors persisted that she had been killed as an informant related to the Leonard Peltier
Leonard Peltier
Leonard Peltier is a Native American activist and member of the American Indian Movement . In 1977 he was convicted and sentenced to two consecutive terms of life imprisonment for first degree murder in the shooting of two Federal Bureau of Investigation agents during a 1975 conflict on the Pine...
case. Aquash had not been at the Pine Ridge Reservation at the time of the murders of the two FBI agents in June 1975, for which Peltier was convicted in 1976.
Her murder was investigated both by the Denver police, as it was found that she had been kidnapped from there in December 1975, and by the FBI, as she was transported across state lines and killed on an American Indian reservation. Federal grand juries were called to hear testimony on her case in 1976, 1982 and 1994, but no indictments were made. In 1997 Paul DeMain, editor of the independent newspaper News From Indian Country
News from Indian Country
News From Indian Country is a nationwide, privately owned newspaper, published twice a month, founded by Paul DeMain in 1986, who is the managing editor and an owner. It is the oldest continuing, nationally distributed publication that is not owned by a tribal government...
, started regularly publishing articles about the investigation of the murder of Aquash.
People come forward
On 3 November 1999, Robert Pictou-Branscombe, a maternal cousin of Aquash from Canada, and Russell MeansRussell Means
Russell Charles Means is an Oglala Sioux activist for the rights of Native American people. He became a prominent member of the American Indian Movement after joining the organisation in 1968, and helped organize notable events that attracted national and international media coverage...
, associated with the Denver-based AIM movement, held a press conference in Denver at the Federal Building to discuss the slow progress of the investigation into Aquash's murder. It had been under investigation both by the Denver police, as Aquash had been kidnapped from there, and by the FBI, as she had been taken across state lines and killed on an Indian reservation. Both Branscombe and Means accused Vernon Bellecourt
Vernon Bellecourt
Vernon Bellecourt, Indian name WaBun-Inini, was a member of the White Earth Band of Ojibwe , and a Native American rights activist, one of the highest leaders in the American Indian Movement...
, a high-ranking leader of AIM, of having ordered the execution of Aquash. Means said that Clyde Bellecourt
Clyde Bellecourt
Clyde Howard Bellecourt is a White Earth Ojibwe civil rights organizer noted for co-founding the American Indian Movement in 1968 with Dennis Banks, Herb Powless, and Eddie Benton Banai, among others. His older brother, the late Vernon Bellecourt, was also active...
, a founder of AIM, had ensured that it was carried out at the Pine Ridge Reservation. Means said that an AIM tribunal had banned the Bellecourt brothers but tried to keep the reason for the dissension internal to protect AIM.
The Associated Press
Associated Press
The Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...
(AP) reporter Robert Weller noted that this was the first time that an AIM leader active at the time of Aquash's death had publicly implicated AIM in the murder. [Note: The AIM organization split in 1993: the American Indian Movement
American Indian Movement
The American Indian Movement is a Native American activist organization in the United States, founded in 1968 in Minneapolis, Minnesota by urban Native Americans. The national AIM agenda focuses on spirituality, leadership, and sovereignty...
Grand Governing Council is based in Minneapolis; and the AIM-International Confederation of Autonomous Chapters
American Indian Movement of Colorado
The American Indian Movement of Colorado , also called AIM-International Confederation of Autonomous Chapters, split by 1993-1994 from the Minneapolis-based, national organization of the American Indian Movement, since then known as the AIM Grand Governing Council, which claims the right to the name...
is based in Denver.] Means and Branscombe accused three indigenous people: Arlo Looking Cloud, Theda Nelson Clark and John Graham, of having been directly involved in the kidnapping and murder of Aquash.
Earlier that day in a telephone interview with the journalists Paul DeMain and Harlan McKosato prior to the press conference, the journalist Minnie Two Shoes had said, speaking of the importance of Aquash,
"Part of why she was so important is because she was very symbolic, she was a hard working woman, she dedicated her life to the movement, to righting all the injustices that she could, and to pick somebody out and launch their little cointelpro program on her to bad jacket her to the point where she ends up dead, whoever did it, let’s look at what the reasons are, you know, she was killed and lets look at the real reasons why it could have been any of us, it could have been me, it could have been, ya gotta look at the basically thousands of women, you gotta remember that it was mostly women in AIM, it could have been any one of us and I think that’s why it’s been so important and she was just such a good person."McKosato said, "...her [Aquash's] death has divided the American Indian Movement..."
On 4 November 1999, in a followup show on Native American Calling the next day, Vernon Bellecourt denied any involvement by him and his brother in the death of Aquash. Their office released a statement that Means was no longer part of the national AIM, and may have been trying to deflect attention from his own involvement. The AP noted the longstanding dissension within AIM between Means and the Bellecourt brothers.
In an editorial written in January 2002 in the News from Indian Country, the publisher Paul DeMain said that he had met with several people who said they had heard Leonard Peltier
Leonard Peltier
Leonard Peltier is a Native American activist and member of the American Indian Movement . In 1977 he was convicted and sentenced to two consecutive terms of life imprisonment for first degree murder in the shooting of two Federal Bureau of Investigation agents during a 1975 conflict on the Pine...
in 1975 confess to the shootings of the two FBI agents on 26 June 1975 at the Pine Ridge Reservation. They further said that they believed the motive for the execution-style murder of Aquash "allegedly was her knowledge that Leonard Peltier had shot the two [FBI] agents, as he was convicted." DeMain did not reveal his sources because of their personal danger in having spoken to him. In an editorial of March 2003, DeMain withdrew his support for clemency for Peltier. In response, Peltier sued DeMain for libel on May 1, 2003. On May 25, 2004, after the Arlo Looking Cloud trial ended with his conviction, Peltier withdrew the suit; he and DeMain reached a settlement.
DeMain issued a statement that included the following:
"…I do not believe that Leonard Peltier received a fair trial in connection with the murders of which he was convicted. Certainly he is entitled to one. Nor do I believe, according to the evidence and testimony I now have, that Mr. Peltier had any involvement in the death of Anna Mae Aquash."DeMain did not retract his allegations that Peltier was guilty of the murders of the FBI agents, and that the motive for Aquash's murder was the fear that she might inform on the activist.
Indictments and a co-conspirator
In January 2003, a fourth federal grand jury was called in Rapid City to hear testimony about the murder of Aquash. She was known to have been taken from the home of Troy Lynn Yellow Wood of Denver, Colorado on December 10, 1975, and transported to Rapid City, where she was interrogated and held at Thelma Rios' house. Aquash was next taken to the Pine Ridge Reservation, where she was killed in mid-December. On March 20, 2003, a federal grand jury indicted two men for her murder: Fritz Arlo Looking Cloud (an Oglala Lakota) and John Graham (aka John Boy Patton) (a Southern TutchoneSouthern Tutchone
The Southern Tutchone are a First Nations people living mainly in the southern Yukon in Canada. The Southern Tutchone language, originally spoken by the Southern Tutchone people is a variety of the Tutchone language, part of the Athabaskan language family, although it may be argued that Northern...
Athabascan), from Whitehorse
Whitehorse, Yukon
Whitehorse is Yukon's capital and largest city . It was incorporated in 1950 and is located at kilometre 1476 on the Alaska Highway in southern Yukon. Whitehorse's downtown and Riverdale areas occupy both shores of the Yukon River, which originates in British Columbia and meets the Bering Sea in...
, Yukon
Yukon
Yukon is the westernmost and smallest of Canada's three federal territories. It was named after the Yukon River. The word Yukon means "Great River" in Gwich’in....
, Canada. Although Theda Nelson Clark, Graham's adopted aunt, was also alleged to have been involved, she was not indicted; by then she was being cared for in a nursing home.
Bruce Ellison, who has been Leonard Peltier
Leonard Peltier
Leonard Peltier is a Native American activist and member of the American Indian Movement . In 1977 he was convicted and sentenced to two consecutive terms of life imprisonment for first degree murder in the shooting of two Federal Bureau of Investigation agents during a 1975 conflict on the Pine...
's lawyer since the 1970s, invoked his Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination and refused to testify at the grand jury hearings on charges against Looking Cloud or at his trial in 2004. During the trial, the federal prosecutor referred to Ellison as a co-conspirator in the Aquash case. Witnesses say that Ellison participated in interrogating Anna Mae Aquash on December 11, 1975, shortly before her murder.
Looking Cloud convicted
On February 8, 2004 the trial of Arlo Looking Cloud began before a U.S. federal jury; five days later he was found guilty. On April 23, 2004 he was given a mandatory sentence of life in prison. Although no physical evidence linking Looking Cloud to the crime was presented, a videotape was shown in which he admitted to having been at the scene of the murder, but said he was not aware that Aquash was going to be killed. In that video, Looking Cloud was interviewed by Detective Abe Alonzo of the Denver Police DepartmentDenver Police Department
The Denver Police Department is the full service police department jointly for the City and County of Denver, Colorado, which provides the full spectrum of police services to the entire county, and may provide contractual security police services to special districts within the county.The current...
and Robert Ecoffey, the Director of the Bureau of Indian Affairs Office of Law Enforcement Services. On March 27, 2003, Looking Cloud said that John Graham was the gunman.
Looking Cloud testified on videotape that he was present at the murder and that John Graham pulled the trigger; he said that he was making his statement while under the influence of "a little bit of alcohol." Trial testimony showed that Looking Cloud told a number of other individuals in various times and places about having been at the murder.
Looking Cloud appealed his conviction. In the appeal, filed by attorney Terry Gilbert, who replaced his trial attorney Tim Rensch, Looking Cloud retracted his videotaped confession, saying that it was false. He appealed based on the grounds that his trial counsel Rensch was ineffective in failing to object to the introduction of Looking Cloud's videotaped statement, that he failed to object to hearsay statements of Anna Mae Aquash, failed to object to hearsay instruction for the jury, and failed to object to leading questions by the prosecution to Robert Ecoffey. The United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit
United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit
The United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit is a federal court with appellate jurisdiction over the district courts in the following districts:* Eastern District of Arkansas* Western District of Arkansas...
denied Looking Cloud's appeal. On August 19, 2005, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit affirmed the judgment of conviction. Richard Two Elk, adopted brother of Looking Cloud; Troy Lynn Yellow Wood, former AIM chairman John Trudell
John Trudell
John Trudell is a Native American-Mexican author, poet, actor, musician, and former political activist. He was the spokesperson for the United Indians of All Tribes' takeover of Alcatraz beginning in 1969, broadcasting as Radio Free Alcatraz...
, and Aquash's daughters Denise and Debbie Maloney were other witnesses who testified at the trial that Looking Cloud had separately confessed his involvement to them.
Extradition of Graham
On June 22, 2006 Canada's Minister of Justice, Vic ToewsVic Toews
Victor "Vic" Toews, PC QC MP is a Canadian politician. He has represented Provencher in the Canadian House of Commons since 2000, and currently serves in the cabinet of Prime Minister Stephen Harper as Minister of Public Safety. He previously served in the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba from...
, ordered the extradition of John Graham to the United States to face charges on his alleged involvement in the murder of Aquash. Graham appealed the order and was held under house arrest, with conditions. In July 2007, a Canadian court denied his appeal, and upheld the extradition order. On December 6, 2007 the Supreme Court of Canada
Supreme Court of Canada
The Supreme Court of Canada is the highest court of Canada and is the final court of appeals in the Canadian justice system. The court grants permission to between 40 and 75 litigants each year to appeal decisions rendered by provincial, territorial and federal appellate courts, and its decisions...
denied Graham's second appeal of his extradition.
In a 2004 interview recorded at Pacifica Radio, Graham denied any involvement in the death of Anna Mae Aquash. He claims that the U.S. government threatened to name him as the murderer if he "didn't co-operate". He said that he last saw Aquash on a drive that took them from Denver to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, where he left her at a "safe house." (Graham said the FBI questioned him about the death and offered him the witness protection program if he implicated the AIM leadership.)
Richard Marshall
In August 2008, a federal grand jury indicted a third man, Vine Richard "Dick" Marshall, with aiding and abetting the murder. Marshall was a bodyguard for Russell MeansRussell Means
Russell Charles Means is an Oglala Sioux activist for the rights of Native American people. He became a prominent member of the American Indian Movement after joining the organisation in 1968, and helped organize notable events that attracted national and international media coverage...
at the time of Aquash's murder. It was alleged that Graham, Looking Cloud and Theda Nalson Clark had taken Aquash to Marshall's house, where they held her prior to taking her to her execution. Marshall's wife, Cleo Gates, testified to this at Looking Cloud's trial. Marshall is alleged to have provided the murder weapon to Graham and Looking Cloud. Marshall was imprisoned in 1976 after being convicted in the 1975 shooting death of a man. He was paroled from prison in 2000. He was acquitted in the Aquash case.
State trial for Graham and Rios
In September 2009, Graham and Thelma Rios, a Lakota advocate in Rapid City, were charged by the State Court of South Dakota with the kidnapping, rape and murder of Anna Mae. The case against the defendants continued through much of 2010.Thelma Rios
Thelma Rios, a longtime Lakota advocate in Rapid CityRapid City, South Dakota
Rapid City is the second-largest city in the U.S. state of South Dakota, and the county seat of Pennington County. Named after Rapid Creek on which the city is established, it is set against the eastern slope of the Black Hills mountain range. The population was 67,956 as of the 2010 Census. Rapid...
, was charged by the state of South Dakota in September 2009, along with John Graham, for the kidnapping, rape and murder of Aquash. Already in poor health, she avoided a trial on murder charges by agreeing to a plea bargain
Plea bargain
A plea bargain is an agreement in a criminal case whereby the prosecutor offers the defendant the opportunity to plead guilty, usually to a lesser charge or to the original criminal charge with a recommendation of a lighter than the maximum sentence.A plea bargain allows criminal defendants to...
"that acknowledged her role in the events leading up to Aquash's death." In November 2010, she pled guilty to the charge of being an accessory to kidnapping and received a 5-year sentence, most of which was suspended.
Rios admitted in court that she "relayed a message to other AIM members to bring Aquash from Denver to Rapid City in December 1975, because they thought she was a government informant." Rios died of lung cancer 9 February 2011. Although names were redacted in her plea agreement at court, she had said she heard two people ordering Aquash to be brought from Denver to Rapid City and that she should be killed.
Graham convicted of felony murder
On December 10, 2010 after two days of deliberation in the state court, jurors found Graham guilty of felony murder, but acquitted him of the premeditated murder charge. The felony murder conviction carries a mandatory sentence of life in prison.Theories
Observers and historians speculate about who ordered the murder of Anna Mae Aquash. John TrudellJohn Trudell
John Trudell is a Native American-Mexican author, poet, actor, musician, and former political activist. He was the spokesperson for the United Indians of All Tribes' takeover of Alcatraz beginning in 1969, broadcasting as Radio Free Alcatraz...
testified in both the 1976 Butler and Robideau trial and the 2004 Looking Cloud trial that Dennis Banks
Dennis Banks
Dennis Banks , a Native American leader, teacher, lecturer, activist and author, is an Anishinaabe born on Leech Lake Indian Reservation in northern Minnesota. Banks is also known as Nowa Cumig...
had told him that the body of Anna Mae Aquash had been found before it was officially identified. Banks wrote in his autobiography, Ojibwa Warrior, that Trudell told him that the body found was that of Aquash. Banks wrote that he did not know until then that Aquash had been killed, although she had been missing.
In Looking Cloud's trial, the prosecution argued that AIM's suspicion of Aquash stemmed from her having heard Peltier admit to the murders. Darlene “Kamook” Nichols, former wife of the AIM leader Dennis Banks, testified that in late 1975, Peltier confessed to shooting the FBI agents. He was talking to a small group of fugitive AIM activists then on the run from law enforcement. They included Nichols, her sister Bernie Nichols (later Lafferty), Nichols' husband Dennis Banks, and Aquash, among several others. Nichols testified that Peltier said, “The mother fucker was begging for his life, but I shot him anyway.” Bernie Nichols-Lafferty gave the same account of Peltier’s statement.
Other witnesses have testified that once Aquash came under suspicion as an informant, Peltier interrogated her while holding a gun to her head. Peltier and David Hill later had Aquash participate in bomb-making so that her fingerprints would be on the bombs. The trio planted the bombs at two power plants on the Pine Ridge reservation. Extensive testimony suggests that AIM leaders ordered the murder of Aquash; because of her position, lower-ranking members would not have moved against her without permission from above.
Denise and Debby Maloney
Together with federal and state investigators, Aquash's daughters Denise and Debby believe that high-ranking AIM leaders ordered the death of their mother due to fears of her being an informant; they support the continued investigation. Denise Pictou-Maloney is the executive director of the "Indigenous Women for Justice," a group she founded to support justice for her mother and other Native women. In a 2004 interview, Pictou-Maloney said her mother was killed by AIM members who"thought she knew too much. She knew what was happening in California, she knew where the money was coming from to pay for the guns, she knew the plans, but more than any of that, she knew about the killings."
Reinterment at Indian Brook Reservation
After the conviction of Looking Cloud in 2004, Aquash's family had her remains exhumed and transported to Nova ScotiaNova Scotia
Nova Scotia is one of Canada's three Maritime provinces and is the most populous province in Atlantic Canada. The name of the province is Latin for "New Scotland," but "Nova Scotia" is the recognized, English-language name of the province. The provincial capital is Halifax. Nova Scotia is the...
for reinterment on June 21 at Indian Brook Reservation in Shubenacadie
Shubenacadie, Nova Scotia
Shubenacadie is a community located in Hants County, in central Nova Scotia, Canada. As of 2006, the population was 2,074.In the Micmac language, Shubenacadie means "abounding in ground nuts" or "place where the red potato Shubenacadie (['ʃuːbə'nækədiː]) is a community located in Hants County, in...
. They held appropriate Mi'kmaq ceremonies and celebrated the work and life of the activist. Family and supporters have held annual anniversary ceremonies in her honor since then.
Representation in media
- Yvette Nolan's play, Annie Mae's Movement (1999), is about Aquash and her participation in AIM. It was originally published in Toronto and reprinted in 2006 by Playwrights Canada Press.
- The Spirit of Anna Mae (2002) is a 72-minute film directed by Catherine Anne Martin, a tribute by women who knew Aquash. It was produced by the National Film Board of CanadaNational Film Board of CanadaThe National Film Board of Canada is Canada's twelve-time Academy Award-winning public film producer and distributor. An agency of the Government of Canada, the NFB produces and distributes documentary, animation, alternative drama and digital media productions...
(NFB). - Steve Hendricks, The Unquiet Grave: The FBI and the Struggle for the Soul of Indian Country (2006), non-fiction study of events at Pine Ridge Reservation and the murders of Ray Robinson and Anna Mae Aquash
- Joseph H. Trimbach and John H. Trimbach, American Indian Mafia: An FBI Agent's True Story about Wounded Knee, Leonard Peltier, and the American Indian Movement (AIM) (2007), book by the FBI Special Agent in Charge (SAC), Minneapolis region, at the time of the Wounded Knee Incident and later murders at Pine Ridge.
Further reading
- Voices from Wounded Knee, 1973, In the Words of the Participants Rooseveltown, New York: Akwesasne Notes, 1974. ISBN 0-914838-01-6.
- Anna Mae Aquash, "Letter from jail", 1975.
- Antoinette Nora Claypoole, Who Would Unbraid Her Hair: The Legend of Annie Mae. Anam Cara Press, 1999. ISBN 0-9673853-0-X
- Steve Hendricks, The Unquiet Grave: The FBI and the Struggle for the Soul of Indian Country. New York: Thunder's Mouth Press, 2006. ISBN 1-56025-735-0
- Michael Donnelly, "Getting Away with Murder", Counterpunch, 2006.
- Charlie Smith, "John Graham says Native chiefs under FBI spell". The Georgia StraightThe Georgia StraightThe Georgia Straight is a free Canadian weekly news and entertainment newspaper published in Vancouver, British Columbia, by the Vancouver Free Press Publishing Corp...
July 12, 2007 - Brand, Johanna, The Life and Death of Anna Mae Aquash, Lorimer; 2 edition (January 1, 1993). ISBN 1550284223.
External links
- John LeKay, "Interview with Robert Robideau on Anna Mae Aquash", Heyoka Magazine, Vol. 7, Spring 2007
- Anna Mae Aquash biography
- Justice for Annie Mae and Ray Robinson, Official Website
- "Anna Mae Pictou Aquash" archive, First Nations/Issues of Consequence site
- Indigenous Women for Justice
- "Our Freedom", A blog about Anna Mae Aquash, John Graham, Arlo Looking Cloud and Leonard Peltier
- Monica Charles, "Daughter of Tse Whit Zen", A blog about Anna Mae Aquash, Arlo Looking Cloud and John Graham, by a veteran of the 1973 Wounded Knee incident]
- Antoinette Claypoole Blog, "John Graham fights extradition to the U.S.: details of his continued efforts"
- John Graham Defense Committee