By 1969 about 20,000 Indians had been relocated from reservations around the country to the San Francisco Bay Area, joining another 20,000 Indians who were part of the diverse community by other means. The US government had a three part plan for terminating American Indian Tribes. One part was taking children from native families and raising them in government sponsored often religiously run, boarding schools. A second part was relocating working age Indians to selected cities with promises of training, health care and jobs. The third part, with no children and few working age members, would be the systematic termination of the tribes as legal entities.

Indians in the Bay weren't going to have it. On Nov. 11th, 1969, a few hundred indians boarded the Sausalito Indian Navy which took them to Alcatraz Island which they occupied for the succeeding 19 months. The occupiers demanded ownership of the island for an Indian run university, ecology center, and public training center. Experiences on the Island brought a unity to the red power movement, especially for demands that the treaties be honored . Support for the occupation and for Indian's rights generally was very strong all over the country but especially in the Bay Area. The US Coast Guard was unable to maintain a blockade of the island.

On Christmas morning in 1970, President Richard Nixon signed the Taos Blue Lake Bill which returned 40,000 acres to the Taos Pueblo Tribe. He also announced "a new direction in Indian Affairs... from termination to self determination." Its the first land return in American history. Its also the first time the government forswear its genocidal policy of termination. Would it have happened without the occupation on Alcatraz?

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Nixon's key phrase
Fifteen second clip

Nixon and Chief
Pres. Nixon's speech and the Chief of the Taos Blue Lake Pueblo

VP Agnew's Public Address
Pres. Nixon gave an address to congress announcing his new "self determination policy" but no record of it is preserved in the Nixon Archives. A few days after the address to congress, Vice President Spiro Agnew gave this address to the public outlining the same policy.