Wounded Knee II, Leonard Peltier, and Native American Rights

Conditions Leading to Wounded Knee II and the Trial of Leonard Peltier

Leonard Peltier has been in prison since 1979, after being convicted of the murder of two FBI agents at the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation four years earlier. He was an activist with the American Indian Movement (AIM) and has been regarded, at least on the left, as a political prisoner — convicted for a crime he probably did not commit and for which two of his other alleged accomplices were acquitted at a federal trial in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. This acquittal occurred before his own conviction, but because Peltier was not extradited from Canada in time for that trial, the federal government tried him separately and obtained a sentence of life imprisonment. His next parole hearing will not be for thirteen years, and despite many years of protests and petitions on his behalf, no U.S. president has shown meaningful interest in granting him a pardon or clemency. Peltier has always maintained that he did not shoot the FBI agents, although he admitted firing at them in self-defense.

When Peltier arrived at the Pine Ridge Reservation in 1975, it had been under a semi-military occupation for two years, and AIM members were being targeted by what appeared to be an assassination program or a counterinsurgency campaign. During the 1960s and 1970s, the FBI was actively attempting to suppress AIM and similar militant minority groups such as the Black Panthers. Until 1971, this effort fell under the auspices of the Counterintelligence Program (COINTELPRO). Under Richard Nixon and J. Edgar Hoover, COINTELPRO essentially carried out a covert war against the New Left and countercultural organizations.

In 1972, Richard Wilson became head of the reservation and aligned himself with the FBI and various white investors and corporations that were exploiting reservation resources. His vigilante organization, the Guardians of the Oglala Nation (GOONs), killed dozens of AIM members over the years. AIM had originally come to Pine Ridge in 1972 to protect traditionalist Indians against Wilson and the GOONs, as well as the police and FBI agents allied with them. In February 1973, AIM occupied Wounded Knee for 71 days to protest Wilson's leadership and draw international attention to indigenous rights. Several AIM members were killed in shootouts with the GOONs and U.S. government forces during that occupation. In U.S. history, Wounded Knee is infamous as the site of an 1890 massacre in which 300 Sioux who had fled the Pine Ridge Reservation and attempted to reach Canada were hunted down and killed by the U.S. Seventh Cavalry. Their mass grave lies near where the 1973 siege occurred — which soon became known as Wounded Knee II.

Peltier was indeed part of the guerrilla warfare being waged against the GOONs and the FBI at this time, but given that the situation amounted to near-warfare, his actions must be understood in that general context. Neither he nor his AIM associates would have regarded the FBI as a neutral investigative agency; rather, they saw it as an organization that was trying to destroy AIM and was complicit in the killing of their supporters, such as Anna Mae Aquash, a teacher and AIM activist at Pine Ridge. FBI agents Ronald Williams and Jack Coler claimed to be pursuing an AIM member wanted on petty theft charges when they encountered Peltier and his associates. Both agents were wounded and then shot execution-style at close range, but Peltier denied firing these fatal shots. He fled to Canada and was extradited in 1976. Had he stood trial alongside the two AIM members who were acquitted, he very likely would never have gone to prison.