Location(Click Photo) |
Alcatraz for almost 150 years, the name has given the innocent chills
and the guilty cold sweats. Over the years it’s been the nation’s first
military prison, a forbidding maximum security penitentiary and disputed
territory between Native American activists and the FBI. No wonder that
first step you take off the ferry and onto ‘the Rock’ seems to cue
ominous music: dunh-dunh-dunnnnh! It all started innocently enough back
in 1775, when Spanish lieutenant Juan Manuel de Ayala sailed the San
Carlos past the 12 acre island he called Isla de Alcatraces (Isle of the
Pelicans). In 1859 a new post on Alcatraz became the first US West
Coast fort, and soon proved handy as a holding pen for Civil War
deserters, insubordinates and those who had been court martial ed. Among
the prisoners were Native American scouts and ‘unfriendlies,’ including
19 Hopis who refused to send their children to government boarding
schools where speaking Hopi and practicing their religion were
punishable by beatings. By 1902 the four cell blocks of wooden cages
were rotting, unsanitary and otherwise ill equipped for the influx of US
soldiers convicted of war crimes in the Philippines. The army began
building a new concrete military prison in 1909, but upkeep was
expensive and the US soon had other things to worry about: WWI,
financial ruin and flappers. When the 18th Amendment to the Constitution
declared selling liquor a crime in 1922, rebellious Jazz Agers weren’t
prepared to give up their tipple – and gangsters kept the booze coming.
Alcatraz Sky View |
Authorities were determined to make a public example of criminal
ringleaders, and in 1934 the Federal Bureau of Prisons took over
Alcatraz as a prominent showcase for its crime fighting efforts. ‘The
Rock’ averaged only 264 inmates, but its roster read like an America’s
Most Wanted list. A list criminals doing time on Alcatraz included
Chicago crime boss Al ‘Scarface’ Capone, dapper kidnapper George
‘Machine Gun’ Kelly, hot headed Harlem mafioso and sometime poet ‘Bumpy’
Johnson, and Morton Sobell, the military contractor found guilty of
Soviet espionage along with Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. Today,
first person accounts of daily life in the Alcatraz lockup are included
on the award winning audio tour provided by Alcatraz Cruises. But take
your headphones off for just a moment, and notice the sound of carefree
city life traveling across the water: this is the torment that made
perilous escapes into rip tides worth the risk. Though Alcatraz was
considered escape proof, in 1962 the Anglin brothers and Frank Morris
floated away on a makeshift raft and were never seen again. Security and
up keep proved prohibitively expensive, and finally the island prison
was abandoned to the birds in 1963.
Alcatraz |
Native Americans claimed sovereignty
over the island in the ’60s, noting that Alcatraz had long been used by
the Ohlone as a spiritual retreat, yet federal authorities refused
their proposal to turn Alcatraz into a Native American study center.
Then on the eve of Thanksgiving, 1969, 79 Native American activists
broke a Coast Guard blockade to enforce their claim. Over the next 19
months, some 5600 Native Americans would visit the occupied island.
Public support eventually pressured President Richard Nixon to restore
Native territory and strengthen self rule for Native nations in 1970.
Each Thanksgiving Day since 1975, an ‘Un Thanksgiving’ ceremony has been
held at dawn on Alcatraz, with Native leaders and supporters showing
their determination to reverse the course of colonial history. After the
government regained control of the island, it became a national park,
and by 1973 had already become a major draw. Today the cell blocks,
‘This Is Indian Land’ water tower graffiti and rare wildlife are all
part of the attraction. Tickets should be booked two weeks or more in
advance especially for the popular night tour so plan your escape
now.
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