Anna Mae Aquash (also Anna Mae Pictou Aquash or Anna Mae Pictou; first name also spelled Annie Mae; Indian name Naguset Eask) (b. near Shubenacadie, Nova Scotia, Canada, March 27, 1945; d. late 1975 or early 1976) was a Mi'kmaq activist from Nova Scotia, Canada who became the most active and prominent female member of the American Indian Movement (AIM) during the early 1970s. She was found murdered in 1976 on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation and became a martyr for American Indian civil rights. Shubenacadie is a community located in Hants County, in central Nova Scotia, Canada. ... Motto: Munit Haec et Altera Vincit (Latin: One defends and the other conquers) Official languages None (English,French,Gaelic) Capital Halifax Largest city Halifax Lieutenant-Governor Myra Freeman Premier Rodney MacDonald (PC) Parliamentary representation  - House seat  - Senate seats 11 10 Area Total  â€¢ Land  â€¢ Water    (% of total)  Ranked 12th 55,283... March 27 is the 86th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (87th in Leap years). ... 1945 (MCMXLV) was a common year starting on Monday (the link is to a full 1945 calendar). ... 1975 (MCMLXXV) was a common year starting on Wednesday (the link is to a full 1975 calendar). ... 1976 (MCMLXXVI) was a leap year starting on Thursday (the link is to a full 1976 calendar). ... The Mikmaq (also Míkmaq, Micmac, Migmaq) are a First Nations people indigenous to northeastern New England, Canadas Maritimes, and the Gaspé Peninsula of Quebec. ... Motto: Munit Haec et Altera Vincit (Latin: One defends and the other conquers) Official languages None (English,French,Gaelic) Capital Halifax Largest city Halifax Lieutenant-Governor Myra Freeman Premier Rodney MacDonald (PC) Parliamentary representation  - House seat  - Senate seats 11 10 Area Total  â€¢ Land  â€¢ Water    (% of total)  Ranked 12th 55,283... The American Indian Movement (AIM), is a Native American activist organization in the United States that burst on the international scene with its seizure of the Bureau of Indian Affairs headquarters in Washington, D.C., in 1972 and the 1973 standoff at Wounded Knee, South Dakota, on the Pine Ridge... The 1970s decade refers to the years from 1971 to 1980, inclusive. ... 1976 (MCMLXXVI) was a leap year starting on Thursday (the link is to a full 1976 calendar). ... Oglala Sioux tribal flag Pine Ridge Indian Reservation is an Oglala, Lakota Native American reservation located in the U.S. state of South Dakota. ... Historically, a martyr is a person who dies for their convictions or religious faith, such as during the persecution of early Christians in the Roman Empire. ... A Sioux in traditional dress including war bonnet, circa 1908. ... Civil rights or positive rights are those legal rights retained by citizens and protected by the government. ...

Activism

In Bar Harbor, Maine, Aquash became involved in the Teaching and Research in Bicultural Education School Project (TRIBES), a program designed to teach young Indians about their history. She soon moved to Boston, where she met members of the American Indian Movement (AIM), who protested the Mayflower celebration at Boston Harbor, at that time. Anna Mae was active in creating an Indian Center in Boston (the center remains active as of January 2006). This article or section should be merged with Bar Harbor (town), Maine Categories: Articles to be merged | Stub ... Official language(s) None Capital Augusta Largest city Portland Area  - Total   - Width   - Length    - % water  - Latitude  - Longitude Ranked 39th 33,414 sq mi  86,542 km² 190 miles  305 km 320 miles  515 km 13. ... Mayflower in Plymouth Harbor by William Halsall (1882) The Mayflower was the ship which transported the Pilgrims from Plymouth, England to North Virginia (which later became part of the United States of America) in 1620, leaving Plymouth on September 6 and dropping anchor near Cape Cod on November 11 (both...

It was also at that time that she met her second husband, Nogeeshik Aquash, from Walpole Island, Canada. They travelled to Pine Ridge together in 1973 to join AIM in the siege of Wounded Knee, South Dakota, which is where they were married by Wallace Black Elk (see a photo of her marriage in "Voices From Wounded Knee by Akwesasne Notes). Walpole Island is an island in southwestern Ontario, Canada on the border between Ontario and Michigan in the United States. ... 1973 (MCMLXXIII) was a common year starting on Monday. ... Wounded Knee is a census-designated place located in Shannon County, South Dakota. ...

She was also involved in the 1972 Trail of Broken Treaties march on Washington, D.C. and worked until her death for the Elders and People of Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, South Dakota. Though she was wrongly accused of "working for the Feds" during an AIM convention in Farmington, New Mexico the summer of 1975, many of AIM realized this was not true. She was confronted by AIM at that convention and according to Robert Robideau, one of the men who questioned Anna Mae in New Mexico, "We believed Anna Mae was NOT a federal agent after talking with her then. She joined our group just before the September 5, 1975 FBI raid on Crow Dog's land." 1972 (MCMLXXII) was a leap year starting on Saturday (the link is to a full 1972 calendar). ... Nickname: the District Motto: Justitia Omnibus (Justice for All) Official website: http://www. ... Official language(s) English Capital Pierre Largest city Sioux Falls Area  Ranked 17th  - Total 77,163 sq. ... Farmington (Navajo Tótaʼ) is a city located in San Juan County, New Mexico. ... Official language(s) None; English and Spanish de facto Capital Largest city Santa Fe Albuquerque Area  Ranked 5th  - Total 121,665 sq. ... 1975 (MCMLXXV) was a common year starting on Wednesday (the link is to a full 1975 calendar). ...

Often approached by members of the FBI COINTELPRO and asked to assist their efforts to destroy AIM (as was common in that era, i.e. Black Panthers, SDS, etc), Anna Mae always refused to cooperate with the FBI. Still, FBI agents and collaborators spread rumours about her, and her death may have been consequence of paranoia (cointelpro)instilled in many during that turbulent era by the FBI. COINTELPRO (Counter Intelligence Program) is a program of the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation aimed at investigating and disrupting dissident political organizations within the United States. ... The Black Panther Party (originally called the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense) was a revolutionary Black nationalist organization in the United States that formed in the late 1960s and grew to national prominence before falling apart due to factional rivalries stirred up by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. ... The initialism SDS can abbreviate: Satellite Data System Scientific Data Systems Secondary database server Serb Democratic Party Sodium dodecyl sulfate SDS-PAGE Students for a Democratic Society Slovenian Democratic Party Solstice Disksuite Sozialistischer Deutscher Studentenbund (Socialist German Student Union) A drill bit fixing system - see Chuck (engineering) Subdivision surface System...

Murder

On February 24, 1976, Aquash was found dead by the side of State Road 73 on the far northeast corner of the Pine Ridge Reservation, about 10 miles from Wanblee, South Dakota, close to Kadoka. Her body was found during an unusually warm spell in late February, 1976 by a rancher (see Rolling Stone archives for more detail). The first autopsy (reports are now public information) states: "it appears she had been dead for about 10 days." The Bureau of Indian Affairs's medical practionar, W. O. Brown, missing the bullet wound on her skull, stated that "she had died of exposure." ("The Life and Death of Anna Mae Aquash by Johanna Brand.) February 24 is the 55th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 1976 (MCMLXXVI) was a leap year starting on Thursday (the link is to a full 1976 calendar). ... Pine Ridge Indian Reservation is a Lakota-Sioux Native American reservation located in the U.S. state of South Dakota. ... Wanblee is a census-designated place located in Jackson County, South Dakota. ... Official language(s) English Capital Pierre Largest city Sioux Falls Area  Ranked 17th  - Total 77,163 sq. ... Kadoka is a city located in Jackson County, South Dakota. ...

Subsequently, her hands were cut off and sent to the Federal Bureau of Investigation headquarters in Washington, D.C. for fingerprinting. Though federal agents were present who knew Anna Mae, she was not identified, and her body was buried as a Jane Doe. Official FBI Seal The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is a Federal criminal investigative and intelligence agency which is the principal investigative arm of the United States Department of Justice (DOJ). ... Nickname: the District Motto: Justitia Omnibus (Justice for All) Official website: http://www. ... This article is about human fingerprints. ... For the musician and actor, see John Doe (musician) For the television series, see John Doe (Television series) For the childrens book by L. Frank Baum, see John Dough and the Cherub In English-speaking common-law jurisdiction, the name John Doe is used for a defendant or victim...

At the request of her family and AIM supporters her body was exhumed about 10 days later and a second autopsy was conducted on March 11, 1976. This autopsy revealed that she had been shot by a .32 caliber bullet in the back of the head, execution style. March 11 is the 70th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (71st in Leap year). ... 1976 (MCMLXXVI) was a leap year starting on Thursday (the link is to a full 1976 calendar). ... .303 in. ...

Who killed Anna Mae?

In 2003, Arlo Looking Cloud, a Lakota man who is alleged to be an AIM member at the time of the murder, and John Graham (aka John Boy), a Southern Tutchone Athabascan man from Whitehorse, Yukon, Canada, were indicted for Aquash's murder. Although Looking Cloud was convicted of aiding and abetting no evidence was presented against Looking Cloud linking him to the crime. 2003 (MMIII) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Eddie Plenty Holes, a Sioux Indian photographed about 1899. ... Tutchone, an Athabaskan language spoken in Yukon. ... Athabaskan or Athabascan (also Athapascan or Athapaskan) is the name of a large group of distantly related Native American peoples, also known as the Athabasca Indians or Athapaskes, and of their language family. ... Template:Hide = Motto: Template:Unhide = Our People, Our Strength Location City Information Established: {{{Established}}} Area: 416. ... At law, an accomplice is a person who actively participates in the commission of a crime, even though they take no part in the actual criminal offence. ...

Graham was released on bail by the Canadian government while he fights extradition to the United States. Graham insists on his innocence despite a video taped testiomony from Looking Cloud, claiming Graham murdered Anna Mae Aquash.

Graham's story is quite different. He claims the U.S. government threatened to name him as the murderer of Anna Mae if he "didn't co-operate". Claiming he last saw Annie Mae on a drive which took them from Denver to Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, where he left her at "safe house", in his own words, in an interview with antoinette claypoole, Graham explains why he believes he is being charged as her murderer:

"...in the mid-80s or sometime about there.

The FBI showed up at my home in the Yukon, and asked me all kinds of questions about Anna Mae and the death. They were trying to say I was there, or I knew about it, or I was aware of it. And I had to tell them I wasn’t aware, I wasn’t around there and I wasn’t involved in her killing at all.

And they wanted me to name leadership that would have given the order to that effect, to kill Anna Mae. And they were trying to tell me they would put me in the witness protection program, they would change my identity, they would relocate me if I would go to testify in front of the federal Grand Jury in South Dakota against the AIM leadership.

So I told them I couldn’t do that because it never happened.

I never, ever received orders of any kind like that from any of the AIM leadership. And so I wouldn’t do it; I wouldn’t cooperate with them.

And they left. Then they came back a year or so later and said.... if I didn’t cooperate with them to put this information on the AIM leadership, then I would be facing all these charges myself."

The question of Graham's innocence has divided AIM and AIM leadership, with some (including John Trudell and Russell Means) arguing that he was, in fact, the triggerman and others arguing that he is merely a scapegoat. John Trudell (born February 15, 1946 in Omaha, Nebraska) is an American author, a poet, musician and a former political activist. ... Russell Means (born November 10, 1939) is one of contemporary Americas best-known and prolific activists for the rights of American Indians. ... The scapegoat was a goat that was driven off into the wilderness as part of the ceremonies of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, in Judaism during the times of the Temple in Jerusalem. ...

Notably, Leonard Peltier, America's most well known American Indian prisoner, has made five statements on the U.S. government's case against Looking Cloud and Graham. In his first public writing on the case, in 1999, he stated: Leonard Peltier behind bars. ...

"I have not said anything up until now because I do not want to be involved in an investigation carried out in part, by Robert Ecoffey and the RCMP. Ecoffey was responsible for much of the terror and corruption that existed on Pine Ridge in the early 70's. The RCMP, working with the FBI, submitted a fabricated statement against me over a year after I was arrested by them in Canada. This statement has been used to justify my continued incarceration. Who would trust such sources to carry out an investigation into one of the many, many, people who were murdered in conjunction with the FBI on Pine Ridge during that era? I did not want to be involved in this, but now it looks like I must submit a public statement documenting my stance because I very much fear that innocent people will be railroaded as I have, into prison, and the governments of Canada and the U.S. will be happy to have given AIM the image of a vicious and corrupt terrorist organization which we absolutely were not."[1]

Bob Robideau, co-director of the Leonard Peltier Defense Committee, who has written several statements and articles on this case, later issued a statement that Peltier had dissasociated "himself and the Leonard Peltier Defense Committee from John Graham and the John Graham Defense Committee" as a result of "compelling evidence."^[2] That statement has never been verified as coming from Leonard Peltier himself.

Graham has refused to take a polygraph test.^[3], something neither requested by the courts, his attornies or the Canadian government. An independent group of women known as the Indigenous Women for Justice, convinced of Graham's guilt, demanded that he "take a test". A polygraph or lie detector is a device which measures and records several physiological variables such as blood pressure, heart rate, respiration and skin conductivity while a series of questions is being asked, in an attempt to detect lies. ...

One of Aquash's two daughters, Debbie Pictou Maloney, is a Constable with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police [4] which engaged in surveillance against AIM members in the 1970s, provided intelligence regarding AIM to U.S. security forces, and arrested Leonard Peltier in Alberta, leading to his extradition to the United States and ongoing imprisonment. Royal Canadian Mounted Police heraldic badge. ...

Aquash's other daughter, Denise Maloney Pictou, has recently worked closely with media and groups who insist on Graham's guilt. She stated that she believes her mother was killed by AIM members who "thought she knew too much. She knew what was happening in California, she knew where the money was coming from to pay for the guns, she knew the plans, but more than any of that, she knew about the killings."^[5]

Denise Maloney claims that Paul DeMain arranged (through Richard Two Elk) for Arlo Looking Cloud to call her at home. She claims that Arlo confessed to her the story that has become known as "The FBI story." Neither Debbie nor Denise personally knew Arlo Looking Cloud at the time and can not verify that the caller was indeed Arlo.

The case is rife with rumour. Paul DeMain stated that Anna Mae was killed in part because, she knew that Leonard Peltier actually killed the agents. Peltier sued in an attempt to force DeMain and News From Indian Country to reveal the confidential sources upon which this statement was based upon. Shortly after the trial of Arlo Looking Cloud, during which KaMook Nichols testified that Peltier had bragged to her, her sister and Annie Mae about shooting the agents, Bob Robideau on behalf of Leonard Peltier entered into negotiations with DeMain in order to have the lawsuit dismissed. (see testimony of KaMook Nichols: www.jfamr.org)

The current investigation into Anna Mae's murder and original research from which Pictou bases some of her conjecture came from the efforts of Anna Mae's second cousin, Robert Pictou-Branscombe. Branscombe originally began his efforts in the early 1990s, receiving at least some of his "ground-breaking information" from a Denver detective named Abe Alonzo.

There are many theories about who murdered Anna Mae. John Trudell fingers Dennis Banks, stating in both the 1976 Butler and Robideau trial and the Looking Cloud trial that Banks told him about the killing before the body had been identified. In Dennis Banks autobiography, "Ojibwa Warrior", he states that he was informed by John Trudell that the found body was "Annie Mae." Banks states that he did not know until that time that Aquash had been killed.

Though Arlo Looking Cloud did testify in a video that John Graham is her killer, Looking Cloud was admittedly drunk at the time, and later retracted that statement. In his recent appeal, spearheaded by attorney Terry Gilbert, Looking Cloud stated that his "confession" was false. If Looking Cloud's confession is not true, this would render some comments made by certain Native journalists and some of the Pictou/Maloney family questionable.

There was no evidence presented at Arlo Looking Cloud's trial that proved his complicity or his guilt in the death of Anna Mae Aquash. Robert Ecoffey and Abe Alonzo did not test the level of alcohol and drugs in Arlo's system before interrogating him on tape. Rights were read to him and documents were given him to sign while he was interrogated.

Though some are alleged to have believed Annie Mae to be a federal agent, she did not work for the federal government (COINTELPRO).^{[citation needed]}

Notes

1. ↑  Anna Mae Aquash, Letter from jail (1975) [6]
2. ↑  Michael Donnelly, Getting Away with Murder. (2006) [7]
3. ↑  Pacifica Radio, Interview with John Graham, Southern Tutchone. (2004) [8]
4. ↑  Robert Robideau, There is compelling evidence.... (2005) [9]
5. ↑  Indigenous Women for Justice, Man Indicted for Anna Mae's Murder Refuses to take Lie-Detector Test. (2004) [10]
6. ↑  Paul DeMain, An interview with Denise Pictou-Maloney on the death of her mother, Annie Mae Aquash. (2004) [11]

antoinette nora claypoole: an interview with John Graham "in his own words" www.johngrahaminterview.blogspot.com http://www.jfamr.org/doc/arlo.html http://www.jfamr.org/doc/arlo.html

References

• Brand, Johanna (1993). "The Life and Death of Anna Mae Aquash." Toronto: J. Lorimer.
• Claypoole, Antoinette Nora (1999). Who Would Unbraid Her Hair: The Legend of Annie Mae. Anam Cara Press. ISBN 096738530X.[12] www.antoinettewritings.blogspot.com

External links

• Anna Mae Justice Awareness Fund
• The Execution of Anna Mae Aquash by Ward Churchill
• Anna Mae Pictou Aquash on NativeMetisWomensCouncil. Com
• Anna Mae Pictou Aquash archive from First Nations/Issues of Consequence site
• Indigenous Women for Justice
• Letter written by Anna Mae Aquash from a jail cell in November 1975
• John Graham Defense Committee
• John Graham fights extradition to the U.S. : details of his continued efforts
• US Renews War on the American Indian Movement