Adam Fortunate Eagle Nordwall (1929- ), a termite exterminator, claimed Italy for the Chippewa Indians in 1973 using the Vatican’s Doctrine of Discovery:
What right had Columbus to discover America when it was already inhabited for thousands of years? The same right that I have to come now to Italy and claim to have discovered your country.
Later he went to see the pope. When the pope held out his hand to be kissed, Nordwall held out his hand to be kissed! People were shocked but the pope laughed it off and shook his hand.
Nordwall is a master of political theatre, what he calls serious joke medicine.
He is best known as a mastermind of the Indian takeover of Alcatraz island in San Francisco Bay in 1969. The prison that stood there had been closed since 1963.
After they took over Alcatraz and claimed it by right of discovery, they read out Nordwall’s “Alcatraz Proclamation to the Great White Father and his People”. It offered to buy the island for $24 in glass beads and red cloth – the same price whites paid for the much larger island of Manhattan and more than twice the going price whites were paying for Indian land in California.
The Proclamation offered a place for whites on the island:
We will give to the inhabitants of this island a portion of the land of their own to be held in trust … by the Bureau of Caucasian Affairs … in perpetuity – for as long as the sun shall rise and the rivers go down in the sea. We will further guide the inhabitants in the proper way of living. We will offer them our religion, our education, our way of life – ways in order to help them achieve our level of civilization and thus raise them and all their white brothers up from their savage and unhappy state.
They held the island for 19 months. Over 10,000 Indians came. It was the beginning of the Red Power movement. By the time they lost the island President Nixon had ended the government’s Termination policy, which would have shut down all Indian reservations. Indians would have lost what little land they had left.
To this day Indians celebrate Unthanksgiving Day on Alcatraz.
As you might imagine, Nordwall had a thick FBI file.
In early 1970s the government fined Nordwall’s termite extermination business and audited his taxes. It destroyed his suburban, middle-class life. He and his wife moved to her Paiute-Shoshone reservation near Fallon, Nevada.
In 1987 he was arrested for selling eagle feathers as part of the headdresses he made. Even though white ranchers killed eagles, the government only went after Indians. He faced up to six years in prison but in the end was fined $15,000 (2,300 crowns).
One time he made a totem pole for Livermore, California. But when they put it up, they left out the bottom part. He asked them to restore it but they refused. So he cursed their sewers! Two weeks the sewers started backing up and they gave in.
See also:
- The Alcatraz Proclamation
- Christopher Columbus
- John Trudell: When Columbus Got Off The Boat – Trudell ran the radio station during the occupation of Alcatraz and was one of the last to remain on the island
- “Manhattan was sold for $24″
- Cointelpro
- Assata Shakur
- “white is right”
Interesting information. Thanks. There will continue to be a struggle over history because history is not just about what happened but what some people want you to think.
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Abagond,
I’m still learning about the Black-Indian tribes that we belonged to. So much has been deliberately hidden from us, it’s next to impossible to find it all. I’ve always had a soft spot for tribes, primarily because of my own family ties but when I got word of what the Cherokee, who now claim to be “whitemen”, are doing to black Indians, we’re so ashamed of their behaviour and prejudice against Freedmen.
There has always been an unspoken alliance with some Natives because of slavery and interbreeding. We had no choice but to band together. We lived on each others farms and reservations and help each other. Of course not all tribes were friendly and some acted out of hostility and racial prejudice but there were a few that were genuine and we married them.
I contacted Russell Means and he’s offering citizenship to their tribe. Hmmm…tempting, if you know what I mean.
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This is a good post. “When the Pope held out his hand to be kissed,Nordwell held out his hand”. HaHaHa!!! Love that. That’s awesome.
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Wow! Just wow!
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[…] I LOVE this guy! "Adam Fortunate Eagle Nordwall (1929- ), a termite exterminator, claimed Italy for the Chippewa Indians in 1973 using the Vatican’s Doctrine of Discovery: What right had Columbus to discover America when it was already inhabited for thousands of years? The same right that I have to come now to Italy and claim to have discovered your country. Later he went to see the pope. When the pope held out his hand to be kissed, Nordwall held out his hand to be kissed! People were shocked but the pope laughed it off and shook his hand. Nordwall is a master of political theatre, what he calls serious joke medicine. – MORE – […]
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@ Peanut
He is Chippewa. Also an adopted Crow. Not sure what was special about the bottom of the pole. Maybe nothing in particular: if someone cut off the bottom of something I had worked on, I would be upset too.
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I’ve spent time in Adam Fortunate Eagle’s home, and in his shop and gallery. He’s also an accomplished artist. Check out his books and videos (just Google his name and you’ll find them). He is a national treasure. I am glad to have made his acquaintance.
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@Truthbetold
I have issues with American-Indians in this country, as well as those in Central & South America. Some tribes enslaved black people, the bs hispanic/latino issue, black-indians thrown under the bus, tribal membership, and so forth. My level of respect for Indian men has gone down a lot, being honest about it. Despite all of that, they need to buck up and reclaim what rightfully belongs to them. This country doesn’t belong to white folks, they know this to be true. Europe has nothing, which is why they killed and enslaved American-Indians as they did. Truth, do you think that Indians from central/south america will ever shed the chains of Spain going forward? All of this that we’re discussing means nothing if Indians continue to identify themselves by the names of their slavemasters.
Tyrone
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‘unthanksgiving day’ tehehe.
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@tyrone
Zapatistas, Guna revolution, stuff going on in Bolivia just to name a few.
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@tyrone
I’m sure many Indians have issues with blacks as well. Considering Bacon’s Rebellion where the combined efforts of white and black former-indentured servants rose up in rebellion and in the process murdered Indians (the Doeg) and all this occurred before the Five Tribes engaged in chattel slavery. Let’s add the buffalo soldiers who greatly assisted in displacing tribes further out west, tribes who had little or nothing to do with slavery back east. That’s something not typically written in history books.
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So Columbus made this land a “Catholic Nation”!?!?!?!
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