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The Alcatraz Proclamation
As evident from Alcatraz Island’s illegal seizure, the course of history is determined by the conquerors. Alcatraz’s isle caused major strife and an eventual standoff between the Native American people and the Anglo-Saxon invaders. The English imperialists had tended to seize other territories; therefore, the Native Americans sought to address their island’s seizure through a letter. “To the Great White Father and his People” is a letter written in 1969 that emphasized Alcatraz Island’s ownership. The occupants were diversely mixed, having all natives reside together and therefore embark on stating their grievances as a collective nation comprised of all the Indian tribes. Contents of the letter were seen to unequivocally proclaim their right to the land straightforwardly, employing ethos, logos, and an exemplary diction choice that adequately supplemented their argument. In essence, the letter used a distinctive and authoritative tone that demanded that their grievances be attended to without disrespecting their American audience. The natives’ discourse was in the line of trying to buy back their land from the American government but was shut down promptly following a teenager’s death. To date, evidence shows that the Native Americans were mistreated, and the letter used several rhetorical strategies to prove that equality needed to have been practiced to find justice for them. In this essay, I will rhetorically analyze the author’s rhetorical strategies to reveal the argument’s overall persuasiveness.
First, the proclamation employed legal fronts and formalities that would address the American government directly and primarily, America’s lawmakers. The letter addressed several issues, including having their cultural boundaries respected and retaining Alcatraz as the remaining refuge for the diverse Indian populace (Biggs et al. 08). Throughout the letter, the author is never mentioned. However, the essay’s wording helps the reader assume that they may have been just one of the community’s trusted members and show its intended audience. “The Great White Father” can also be considered referring to the President at the time of the letter’s formulation, who was Richard Nixon. The letter expounds on the Natives’ intention for the island and why they had to take over the land. Alcatraz was to act as a reservation camp, and the plaintiffs were even ready to pay for their continued uninhibited stay on the island through monetary reparations like glass beads and red cloth. The letter also showed reasons why they were willing to compromise on the land matter.
Furthermore, the author’s diction to pursue the matter was a helpful strategy in allowing the Native Americans to impact the land ownership decision-making process meaningfully. The author uses a respective tone that calls for an understanding of why the Indians were discontented and why the land in question had to be reclaimed (Biggs et al. 18). The proclamation signified an embarking of the revolution towards breaking the yoke of the white American colonialism and racism. The declaration symbolized the rising of activism in the Indigenous setting, their resistance towards the Anglo-Saxon takeover. The choice of words in referring to the American President as “Great White Father” was, in essence, to show how they respected and instead acknowledged the white man’s “superiority.” The letter’s respectful nature showed their willingness to have a peaceful negotiation in the Alcatraz land dispute. In their bargain, they used the white man’s monetary balances to come up with the value they thought would adequately compensate the land. The proclamation reads, “We will give to the inhabitants of this island a portion of that land for their own, to be held in trust by the American Indian Affairs…” (Bertaud-Gandar 132). The aura maintained throughout the letter was one of acknowledging the authority in charge that was supposed to help them parley the land.
The proclamation also employed logical reasoning, logos, as a strategy to appeal to the American government on why the land should be released to the Native Americans. First, their monetary compensation was well thought out, giving higher financial rates for the land. The letter reads, “We will purchase Alcatraz Island for Twenty four dollars… We know that $24 in trade goods for these 16 acres is more than what was paid…but we know that land values have risen over the years” (Bertaud-Gandar 126). The author uses persuasive logic in their bid to repossess the land, giving the Americans what seems a lucrative offer. The Natives also point out that the land in question is purely non-beneficial to the American people as it does not interfere or horde the government’s needs. The Island somewhat resembled most of the Native reserves, which would have been perfect for both sides. The letter points out these semblances to the existing reservations like lack of infrastructure, essential amenities, and no mining or oil rights. There would be no employment sources as there were no industries. The proclamation continues to show how Alcatraz was well suited as a form of the boot prison camp where the soil was terrible and unproductive and having a populace that exceeded the land. These grievances all alluded to the already sufferance that the Natives were going through without directly saying it. The letter seemed to show that they would occupy the disputed land by maintaining the two nations’ status quo. The Natives did not need to settle any occupied land but sought to start afresh on the Island. The letter, therefore, showed the negotiation as a win-win for both parties.
The proclamation also employs ethos as a strategy that appeals to Americans’ sense of culture and character to keep their word. The author says, “for as long as the sun shall rise and the rivers go down to the sea,” (Bertaud-Gandar 128)as an imploration for the American government to trust their word. Theirs is a promise that is bent on things that they know will never change, therefore equating their oaths to an eternal bond. The ethos used is an imploration for the American government to consider the character of the Native Indians. The letter is thus used as a credibility check of the people’s trustworthiness. For all intents and purposes, the swearing used means reassuring the Americans that the Indians would never go against laws that they have made themselves for their community. The ethos used is also keen to show that justice is achievable if the Natives show that they can be trusted in keeping their word. The author’s use of ethos is also utilized to create an aesthetic distance between the reader and the Natives’ culture. The letter’s credibility heavily relies on the audience’s ability to believe that the Natives would stick to their word.
The letter also uses exemplification as a weapon that exploits the guilt of America’s beliefs and previous handling of the Indigenous people. By providing the reasons why Alcatraz is exquisitely suitable to cater to the Native Americans’ needs, the letter also exposes the atrocities that have been done to the Indians (Biggs et al. 12). The lack of social amenities and extreme poverty and seclusion cases, not to mention being imprisoned in places underdeveloped and inhabitable to the Anglo-Saxon citizens. These grievances were some of the reasons why Alcatraz seemed to suit the Natives as they were already used to such living conditions. Also, the letter continues to point out that, their history is almost lost, “Further it would be fitting and symbolic that ships from all over the world… would first see Indian land, and thus be reminded of the true history of this nation. This tiny island would be a symbol of the great lands once ruled by free and noble Indians.” This part of the letter shows that history had been morphed up with the Americans’ invasion and that the Natives’ history needed to be preserved as it truly happened. Alcatraz’s reclamation was only a small step in the re-establishing of the Native people’s culture and preservation. The guilt would then pressure the American government to release the land rights to the Natives.
There are several assumptions that the author makes concerning his audience and the nature of the letter’s reception. First, the proclamation assumes that the recipient of the message will automatically be male, or even the President himself would be the one accepting it. This assumption relies on the fact that the letter addresses only the President, who would relay the message to his people. Besides, the letter assumes that everyone knows that Alcatraz first belonged to American Indians and that it is within their right to reclaim it. Another assumption made by the Natives argument is on the way they think that the value for the money offered on the land would be sufficient to enable the whole community to have access to the land. The assumption is based on using the same terms of exchange of belongings to the issue at hand of the Alcatraz land dispute used in acquiring the land in the first place.
The most significant assumption made is the reliance on the guilt-tripping strategy that would have trapped the Americans in nudging them to do the right thing and give up their hold on the land. The proclamation seems to base its whole argument on why they deserve having access to the ground, making it seem like it’s the least the Americans can do considering the number of atrocities the Natives had to endure from them. On the contrary, this argument should have been removed because it only weakened their position. It is clear from the letter that the American government was already capable of so much harm; calling this out would not have helped their situation but should have served to show what they were going to do. The assumption that everyone else knew of the cruelties that were happening in the reservations choked their plea rather than aiding them to hold their argument. Finally, there lies the assumption that the American people would act right because the proclamation nudged them to do so. This assumption weakened their argument, failing to show why Americans ought to have just acted on their conscience.
Overall, the proclamation was persuasive to some extent, imploring the people to act right based on their guilt. The author used a great choice of diction, employing logos ethos and exemplification to make their point of attempting to reclaim Alcatraz Island. However, in my opinion, the argument presented by the Natives was sufficiently lacking, as they still lost the land. By assuming several things like knowledge of the audience and their living conditions, the letter did not adequately contextualize their position. The assumptions were only spelled out to guilt-trip the American government to show mercy on the Native people and have them automatically retrench their hold on their land. The letter could have been made more persuasive by including reasons why the Native Americans’ independence would have been beneficial to the Anglo-Saxon people. Also, the proclamation could have been made more effective had it read in the lines of suggesting ways to improve their lives without seemingly imposing on the American government. Finally, the letter would have been more persuasive had the people shown more resilience in their methods, finding ways of threatening the government if they should fail to release the land to the rightful owners.
Conclusively, the Alcatraz proclamation was a rhetorical measure that begged the American government to act rightly out of their own accord and transact a business transaction that would see the Native Americans remunerated for their ordeals they had gone through, albeit in a small degree. The proclamation represented the Indigenous way of legally presenting their case to the American government and hoping that their grievances would be taken into consideration. The strategies used in the American government’s persuasion to look into the Alcatraz issue were ethos, logos, diction, and exemplification. The letter’s context was very persuasive and convincing in reiterating their claims to the Alcatraz Island because it used a respective tone to address the American government in addition to the choice of words that entreated the colonizers to show why they should return the land. The letter is significant in establishing the position of Native Americans and the American government concerning Alcatraz Island. It represents the evidence shown in how the Indian lives were affected during President Nixon’s era and the presidents’ reign before him. The American government’s actions are unacceptable even based on modern timelines, and its effect can be seen to date. Racism existing currently resulted from the decisions that were made or ignored that led to the current almost inexistence of Native Americans. The minority’s needs are still ignored, and the government often seeks to suit itself rather than its people.
Works Cited
Biggs, Lois, et al. “WE HOLD THE ROCK: PLACE, PROTEST, AND AESTHETICS ON ALCATRAZ.” (2018).
Bertaud-Gandar, Rhiannon. “Laying Claim: Framing the Occupation of Alcatraz in the Indians of” All Tribes Alcatraz Newsletter.”” Australasian Journal of American Studies (2016): 125-142.