Most people, at least in some circles, have at least heard of Leonard Peltier and are somewhat familiar with the atrocities at Pine Ridge that led to the continuing injustices being perpetrated on him.
But many of those same people have never heard of Anna Mae Pictou Aquash, or if they have, they know little about her, even though the conduct of the law enforcement authorities involved and the lack of justice this case has received are just as frightening and reprehensible as in the case of Leonard Peltier.
There are a variety of reasons why so little is generally known about her and why no investigation has ever occurred - and most of those reasons point to the hand of the FBI and the bag of dirty tricks they routinely continue to use to attempt to supress political activism - especially political activism by people they perceive to be "leaders" who could pose some real or imagined threat to the "status quo," which they equate with national security.
By way of background, Anna Mae Pictou Aquash was a Micmac woman from Nova Scotia, Canada, who joined Leonard Peltier, Dennis Banks and other AIM activists during the 1973 Wounded Knee occupation. She became close to Dennis Banks and Leonard Peltier, and exhibited leadership abilities which made her a well-known activist in AIM circles.
Paula Giese, a former humanities professor at the University of Minnesota, who knew Anna Mae when she worked in the St.Paul-Minneapolis AIM office, lauded Anna Mae's strategic abilities. "She could see a hundred years from now, and she could see what had to be done to get from here to there." (p. 117, "The Life and Death of Anna Mae Aquash", by Johanna Brand (James Lorimer & Company, Publishers, Toronto, 1993). In 1974, Anna Mae became part of a small group along with AIM activist Dino Butler, that was sent to reorganize the Los Angeles Chapter of AIM and assist with their fund-raising activities. AIM confidence in Anna Mae is further demonstrated by the fact that in 1975 she was asked to provide security at the Keshena, Wisconsin support base for the Menominee Warrior Society occupation of the Gresham Novitiate. She was among those who assumed responsibility for handling media for this occupation after Douglass Durham (who turned out to be an FBI spy) left the scene.
By Spring 1975, Anna Mae had become well respected as an organizer in her own right - partially because of her firm belief that AIM needed to develop and carry out solid educational and leadership [training programs to reinforce and provide for ongoing substantive progress toward the achievement of AIM's objectives. Her strength and relentlessness in pushing for real educational and leadership training programs was most impressive. She believed that sound leadership training programs were necessary so that the movement would not depend on a handful of vulnerable leaders. "She believed new leaders should be continually emerging, regenerating AIM's momentum, strengthening the movement and broadening its appeal." IBID., p. 119. Anna Mae's vision went far beyond that of many AIM activists who were preoccupied with the problems of short-term survival, such as dealing with the fact that more than half the court cases that arose out of Wounded Knee had to be prepared for up-coming trials.
This recognition of her leadership abilities and potential evidently triggered the FBI's interest in Anna Mae and made her a target of their surveillances, investigations and activities to attempt to "neutralize" her as a potential "threat".
Examples of Anna Mae being a target of FBI surveillance are many. For example, in the Spring of 1975, before the 26th shoot out that led to the deaths of two FBI agents and AIM member Joe (Killsright) Stuntz, when she was living at Pine Ridge and working to organize the women there, FBI Agent David Price used the murder of Jeanette Bissonnette as a pretext to detain and interrogate her - by then a common practice. On September 5, 1976, Anna Mae and six others were arrested during an FBI raid on the Rosebud Reservation, when the FBI was allegedly trying to serve arrest warrants on five men who had been involved in a minor scuffle two days before. When Agent David Price came face to face with Anna Mae he said, "I've been looking all over for you. I'm so glad I found you." IBID., p. 131. He also allegedly told her that if she did not cooperate in the investigation of the June 26th incident, she would not live out the year. These statements are telling evidence of her being targeted for "chilling" her invlolvement and "neutralizing" her effectiveness. Agent Price charged her with illegal possession of dynamite, but when she arrived at the jail in Pierre, South Dakota, she was told the charge was possession of a firearm with an obliterated serial number. When she demanded a lawyer, she was told she didn't need one, because she was to be questioned about the killings of the FBI Agents on June 26th, not about that morning's raid! When she refused to plead guilty in court the next morning, her bail was set at $5,000, even though it was her first arrest. Having now been officially arrested and charged made her an even easier target for FBI harassment.
At the end of October, '76, Anna Mae called the Wounded Knee Legal Defense / Offense Committee (WKLDOC) office to find out her court date for the September arrest. Unfortunately, she was erroneously told that no court appearances had been scheduled for her. Therefore, she failed to appear for a November hearing, and immediately a bench warrant was issued for her, and she became a federal fugitive charged with violations of the firearms law.
Two weeks after the bench warrant was issued, the Portland, OR office of the FBI notified all the police agencies in the area to watch for a Dodge Explorer motor home with New Mexico license plates, registered to Marlon Brando, travelling with a white station wagon. It was alleged that the motor home was transporting Dennis Banks and Leonard Peltier and others wanted for the June 26th murders of the FBI agents. The two vehicles were spotted and stopped by Oregon State Troopers on the night of November 14th near the Oregon/Idaho border. Two of the passengers submitted immediately to arrest. The Troopers then ordered the other passengers out of the vehicle, and Anna Mae, Kamook Banks (eight months pregnant at the time) and her three year old daughter, and an unidentified man, alleged to be Leonard, descended. The motor home then sped away, and the unidentified man ran away. As he ran, he allegedly turned and fired a gun in the direction of the Troopers, forcing Anna Mae, Namook and Namook's little girl to dive face down onto the highway to avoid being shot. Both Anna Mae and Namook were arrested, but not immediately charged. Both were later indicted on multiple state and federal charges as a result of the incident. Agent David Price was reported to have been at the police station where Anna Mae and Kamook were taken to be booked.
While awaiting extradition to South Dakota, Anna Mae wrote to her sister, Rebecca Julian "South Dakota is a very racist state. I am sure I will be sent up even though it is my first arrest....I knew it would come...My efforts to raise the consciousness of whites that are so against Indians here in the United States were bound to be stopped by the FBI..." IBID., p. 136.
In the jail in Oregon, Anna Mae was placed in chains, always surrounded by a large complement of officers and under very strict security during her transfer to South Dakota, seeming to confirm that the FBI considered her very dangerous. However, a very strange thing happened the evening after her hearing before Judge Robert Mehrige. She was released into the custody of her lawyer by Judge Mehrige, who was sympathetic when he learned that her earlier failure to appear was due to a miscommunication from the WKLDOC office. Shortly after being checked into a motel room, she received a phone call from a friend, whereupon she walked out of what seemingly should have been a high-security, carefully guarded situation, got into a car and headed west. Had she not escaped, charges against her might have been dropped, as they were against her co-defendants from he September 5th Rosebud raid. Instead, outraged by her disappearance after his sympathetic leniency, Judge Mehrige issued a bench warrant for her. Very soon thereafter, the Federal multiple-count indictment was handed down against Anna Mae and the others involved in the Oregon incident.
Her ability to escape so easily after her hearing, and the fact that men thought to be Banks and Peltier were almost apprehended during that incident rekindled earlier suspicions that Anna Mae was an FBI spy. Adding fuel to this suspicion was the fact that the information which led to the stopping of the motor home on November 14th reportedly came from the Washington State AIM encampment where Anna Mae had been staying. Other suspicious AIM activists pointed out that she seemed to get preferential treatment from the FBI, as she was the first person to be released after being charged during the September 5th raid.
But Anna Mae certainly had no reason to believe that charges against her would be dropped, because she knew the FBI wanted to pry information from her. She also knew she'd be facing additional charges from the Oregon incident. Her escape may have unwittingly served the purposes of the FBI, or, as her friends and supporters believe, the FBI may have purposely allowed her escape hoping she'd lead them to Peltier and Banks, and hoping it would serve to further jeopardize her relationships within AIM. As the FBI hunt for Banks and Peltier intensified, tension and suspicion among AIM members grew significantly.
Obviously, there were informers who had knowledge and sensitive information of AIM's plans and activities; Douglas Durham did turn out to be a spy. Unfortunately, the bulk of suspicion fell on Anna Mae and the accusations of those who were suspicious of her were taken seriously; so much so that in early December of '75 Anna Mae was brought from Denver to Rapid City to be questioned by AIM leadership. No new evidence against her was found, and she was released and went to the West Coast. Despite her fugitive status and despite the AIM accusations against her, so strong was her belief in the work of AIM, that she continued to work for them. WKLDOC attorneys were not convinced she was not a spy and continued to speculate about her despite the fact that her behavior was never that usually typical of informers (i.e. being unobtrusive and only on the periphery - or if active, proving to be a disruptive force in some way.) Neither category fit Anna Mae, and the relentless work she did clearly benefitted and advanced the goals of AIM. All the accusations against her were based solely on speculation.
Some AIM members believe it was John Stewart (alias Darryl Blue Lake) who began spreading the rumors and planting suspicions about Anna Mae being an informer. There is wide spread speculation in AIM that Stewart was (or may even still be) an informer himself. Stewart had helped man the roadblocks set up around Wounded Knee by Tribal Chair Richard Wilson and his GOONS in 1973. Then, sometime prior to June 26, 1975, he forced his way back into the Oglala home of his ex-wife. He had no job and no visible income, yet he volunteered his car to WKLDOC workers on the reservation and became an "AIM chauffeur". After the September 5th Rosebud raid, he drove some AIM activists to Denver. He then left on a tour of north-western states and Canada, supposedly in his own car. AIM chapters which Stewart visited were suspicious of him due to his sometimes disruptive behavior. Subsequently he appeared on the list of prosecution witnesses during the '76 trial of Robert Robideau and Darelle Butler. He didn't actually testify, but subsequently was escorted back to the reservation by FBI agents. Belief remains that he is an informer; he has since disappeared.
Indeed, the FBI practice of harrassing, apprehending and interrogating individuals they have targeted is doubly useful to them. Not only might they be able to elicit information that they want, but the very act of interrogation serves the purpose of raising doubts among the person's associates: did the person succumb to FBI threats give them information or "cut a deal" with the FBI in exchange for the promise of certain favors?
It is certainly within the realm of possibility that the FBI was purposely harrassing and interrogating Anna Mae to plant and exacerbate suspicions about her and create dissension within the group. Her being the first to be released after the September 5th arrest, and being allowed to escape following her November hearing could also have been part of an FBI plan to isolate her from her fellow AIM activists and "neutralize" her effectiveness. If this was the FBI's intent, it was effective, for when she turned up dead - obviously murdered, - an outcry of demands for an investigation and justice for her were very slow in coming and weak, at best.
Copyright Mendocino Environmental Center 1997
Permission granted to excerpt or use this article if source is cited