500 Indians Seize U.S. Building After Scuffle With Capital Police
Another 'Wounded Knee' Was Feared Friday Night
Friday night, most of the more than 500 American Indians inside the Bureau of Indian Affairs building armed themselves with clubs, knives and a few bows and arrows and put on (lipstick) war paint for what they predicted might be "another Wounded Knee"--the famous 1890 battle in which an Army regiment massacred 250 to 300 Sioux Indians, most of them women and children.
It was the second night in a row that Indians who have come here from across the land to petition the government to honor ancient treaties and improve their long-impoverished lot had prepared to fight.
"We now call this the Native American Embassy . . . It is ours. It belongs to the original, sovereign people of this land," Russell Means, a Sioux and a leader of the "Trail of Broken Treaties" caravan, told a U.S. marshal who came to serve him with eviction papers.
Expecting an assault by U.S. marshals and police Friday night, to force them out of the building, the Indians barricaded the building for the second successive night. Huge piles of desks, chairs and copying machines were stacked against all entrances; electric typewriters and anything on wheels were placed at every level of the central staircase to throw at advancing police--who never came.
The Indians occupied the monolithic four-story marble building early Thursday. They evicted Federal Protective Service guards at about 5 p.m. when most BIA employees had left for the day, put up barricades at the doors and hung American flags from the building's windows.
A misunderstanding with guards at once exit ended with a scuffle in which several Indians were clubbed and two arrested. Those clubbed ran through the building, their faces streaming blood from scalp wounds, calling to other Indians to arm themselves and defend the building against a police "attack."
The sight of blood and news of the brief violence frightened and angered Indians who earlier had told a press conference they had come "in peace" for a week of peaceful protests. The history of the white man's injustice to Indians, and this fresh though minor bloodletting appeared to strengthen their determination to hold the building.
"We will not leave. We will fight . . . we will die here if we have to," Dennis Banks, a national director of the organized American Indian Movement and a coordinator of the caravan, exhorted other Indians in the halls of the building Friday night.
About 100 young children and the elderly, who had been removed to the fourth floor, were evacuated--taken to the YMCA for the night. Teen-agers carrying molotov cocktails, trash cans of hot water and one 50 pound carved pumpkin sat at upper windows ready to drop them on anyone attempting to enter the building.
While tribal drums reverberated through the long halls of the building, the Indians prepared again to battle the white man. There was so much joking but also anger and disbelief that this could be happening. It seemed out of the story books. There was much talk of Chief Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, Chief Big Foot and Wounded Knee.
"What did you use?" one youth asked as he admired the red stripes on his friend's face.
"Lipstick. I forgot to bring my paint."
Many young men stripped to the waist and painted their chests, bedecked themselves in armbands and necklaces. A few even had leather leggings and moccasins. The older men wore fewer markings, whooped less, but also carried pieces of pipes and broken chair legs.
A girl who had taped a letter-opening to the end of a broom handle to make a lethal-looking spear was told "You don't want to do that," by a sombre-faced Indian boy.
"I guess not," she said, and untaped the letter opener.
The threat of violence appeared real not only to the Indians but to some Bureau of Indian Affairs' officials, including Commissioner Louis R. Bruce, of Mohawk descent, who spent until about 4 a.m. yesterday inside the building, hoping his presence would help prevent a government assault.
"I feel a responsibility to be here . . . in the hope it will be a peaceful affair," he told a group of English journalists who spent much of the night inside the barricaded building.
LaDonna Harris, a Comanche, president of the Americans for Indian Opportunity and the wife of Sen. Fred. R. Harris (D-Okla.), also spent the night inside "because the commissioner is here and I hoped I could help." In addition, Marion Barry, D.C. school board president, Charles Cassell, D.C. delegate candidates, and others joined the Indians inside.
But, as it had Friday morning, dawn came yesterday with no attack from the white man.
One exhausted Indian leader sighed about 4 a.m. Saturday and said, "I hope we can now get on with the reasons for being here."