Under Scrutiny | Investigation 002 | Part 02
By the time Anna Mae Aquash was accused of being an informant in 1975, distrust of the federal government was not new inside the American Indian Movement.
Neither was surveillance.
Neither was violence.
To understand how suspicion surrounding one woman could eventually become part of a murder case, it is necessary to understand what had happened during the seven years before her death—and particularly what was happening on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota.
The story involves the American Indian Movement, the FBI, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, a deeply divided tribal government, an armed occupation at Wounded Knee, a controversial reservation security force, dozens of violent incidents and, eventually, the killing of two FBI agents.
None of that proves who killed Anna Mae Aquash.
But it helps explain the world in which she was killed.
1968: The American Indian Movement Is Born
The American Indian Movement was founded in Minneapolis in July 1968 by Native activists including Dennis Banks and Clyde Bellecourt.
Its earliest work was largely urban. Native people living in Minneapolis were dealing with poverty, inadequate housing, unemployment and repeated complaints of discriminatory policing. AIM organized patrols to monitor interactions between police and Native residents and increasingly became involved in broader questions of Indigenous rights and sovereignty.
The movement did not remain a Minneapolis organization for long. As Native activism expanded across the United States, AIM became part of a larger movement challenging federal Indian policy, treaty violations and the role of the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
The National Park Service describes the movement that emerged during this period as increasingly embracing direct action—occupations, demonstrations and other forms of what activists themselves called “confrontation politics.”
Why it matters to this case: Many of the people who later appear in the Anna Mae Aquash investigation—including Dennis Banks, Leonard Peltier and Aquash herself—became connected through this movement. Understanding AIM’s origins also matters because it was not created as an armed organization devoted to violence; it evolved during a period of escalating confrontation with government authorities.
1969–1971: Direct Action and Growing Federal Attention
Native activism intensified nationally after the 1969 occupation of Alcatraz Island, which lasted nineteen months and drew attention to treaty rights, sovereignty and federal policy.
AIM increasingly participated in demonstrations beyond Minneapolis.
At the same time, the FBI was watching political organizations across the United States. The Bureau’s controversial Counterintelligence Program, known as COINTELPRO, had formally ended in April 1971 after its methods began becoming public, but federal investigations of political movements did not simply disappear.
The distinction matters. There is sometimes a tendency to describe every later FBI investigation of AIM as “COINTELPRO.” That is not technically accurate. COINTELPRO itself had ended, but AIM was nevertheless the subject of federal intelligence and investigative attention.
Why it matters to this case: By 1975, AIM members knew that federal authorities investigated the organization and that informants and intelligence gathering were real—not imagined concepts. That fact does not validate every later accusation of informing, but it helps explain why the accusation carried such power.
1972: The Trail of Broken Treaties
In October 1972, Native activists from across the United States organized the Trail of Broken Treaties, a cross-country caravan that culminated in Washington, D.C.
The participants carried a Twenty-Point Position Paper calling for recognition of treaty rights, Indigenous sovereignty, restoration of lands and fundamental changes in the federal government’s relationship with Native nations.
When the caravan arrived in Washington on November 2, planned meetings with government officials fell apart. Demonstrators eventually occupied the Bureau of Indian Affairs headquarters.
What began as a demand for assistance and negotiations turned into a week-long occupation involving more than 1,000 demonstrators. The building was barricaded and damaged, and activists searched through BIA records they believed demonstrated mismanagement of Native resources.
The Nixon administration ultimately negotiated an end to the occupation and provided money for participants to return home.
The confrontation intensified AIM’s already difficult relationship with the BIA.
Why it matters to this case: The BIA occupation helped establish AIM as a national political force—and as an organization federal authorities increasingly viewed through a law-enforcement and intelligence lens. Several figures who later appear in the Aquash story were active within that environment.
1972: Dick Wilson Takes Power at Pine Ridge
At roughly the same time, a separate political struggle was developing on the Pine Ridge Reservation.
Richard “Dick” Wilson had been elected chairman of the Oglala Sioux Tribe in 1972.
His administration quickly became deeply controversial.
Traditional Oglala leaders and political opponents accused Wilson of nepotism, favoritism, financial abuses and using tribal government to suppress opposition. A later U.S. Commission on Civil Rights publication described traditional leaders as organizing to remove Wilson and reported that he was accused by many residents of imposing “one-man rule” and oppressing political opponents.
Wilson and his supporters viewed the situation differently. They regarded AIM as an outside militant organization that threatened the elected tribal government and public order.
That division—between Wilson supporters on one side and traditionalists and AIM supporters on the other—would dominate Pine Ridge politics over the next several years.
Why it matters to this case: Pine Ridge was not simply experiencing a conflict between “Native activists” and “the government.” There was also an intense internal political struggle among Oglala residents themselves. That distinction becomes important when later witnesses describe who supported AIM, who supported Wilson and who could safely move through particular areas of the reservation.
Late 1972–1973: The GOONs
Wilson’s administration created an auxiliary security organization that became known as the Guardians of the Oglala Nation, or GOONs.
The group remains one of the most controversial features of this period.
Historical scholarship describes Wilson’s opponents accusing the GOONs of intimidation and violence directed against political opposition. One academic history reports that federal BIA funding helped establish a tribal ranger group that evolved into the GOON organization.
The degree of cooperation between the GOONs, the BIA and federal law enforcement has remained disputed. Claims that the FBI itself directly controlled or armed the GOONs go considerably further than the evidence necessary for this article establishes and should be examined separately.
What is clear is that the GOONs operated during an already bitter political conflict, and Wilson’s opponents viewed them not as neutral law enforcement but as an armed extension of his administration.
Why it matters to this case: The violence at Pine Ridge did not occur in a vacuum. AIM supporters believed people associated with Wilson’s government could attack them, while Wilson’s supporters believed AIM itself represented an armed threat. By the time Aquash became a suspected informant, distrust existed in virtually every direction.
February 1973: Attempts to Remove Wilson
Wilson’s political opponents attempted repeatedly to remove him.
In February 1973, three tribal council members brought impeachment proceedings against him. A U.S. Commission on Civil Rights publication later reported that this was the fourth attempt to remove Wilson during his first ten months in office.
Federal marshals and FBI agents arrived at Pine Ridge before the impeachment proceedings.
The effort failed.
Wilson’s opponents believed the hearing had been manipulated and concluded that normal political channels had failed them.
That frustration became the immediate backdrop to one of the defining events in modern Native American political history.
February 27–May 8, 1973: Wounded Knee
On February 27, 1973, AIM members and Oglala traditionalists occupied the community of Wounded Knee.
The location carried enormous historical significance. It was near the site where the U.S. Seventh Cavalry killed hundreds of Lakota people in 1890.
The 1973 occupation lasted 71 days.
Federal marshals, FBI agents and other law-enforcement personnel surrounded the community. Gunfire was exchanged repeatedly. Two Native men were killed, federal officers were wounded and thousands of rounds were fired during the standoff.
The occupation ended on May 8 after negotiations with federal authorities.
There are very different narratives of Wounded Knee.
Supporters saw it as resistance against an oppressive tribal administration and a federal system that had repeatedly failed Native communities. Federal authorities viewed the occupation as an armed seizure involving weapons, hostages and serious violations of federal law.
Both realities are relevant to what followed.
Why it matters to this case: Wounded Knee fundamentally changed the relationship between AIM and federal law enforcement. Many people who later appear in the Aquash case were living in the aftermath of an armed confrontation in which both sides had reason to regard the other as dangerous.
1973–1975: Pine Ridge After Wounded Knee
The occupation ended.
The violence did not.
Pine Ridge remained bitterly divided between supporters of Wilson’s administration and people aligned with traditional Oglala leadership or AIM.
The period has often been called the Pine Ridge “Reign of Terror,” particularly by Wilson’s opponents and AIM supporters. Because that phrase carries a particular interpretation of who was responsible, it is more useful to examine the documented conditions than simply adopt the label.
Those conditions were extraordinary.
A later U.S. Commission on Civil Rights examination reported that during the five months immediately preceding the June 1975 deaths of two FBI agents, more violent incidents were reported on the Pine Ridge Reservation than in the remainder of South Dakota combined.
The Commission also recorded widespread perceptions among Sioux residents that the FBI was not adequately investigating violence against tribal people and noted that it received numerous complaints concerning weak investigative efforts by the Bureau.
Federal authorities disputed many broader accusations concerning their conduct on Pine Ridge, and later FBI reviews challenged claims that numerous deaths routinely attributed to political violence had actually been murders connected to AIM politics. Those competing records will matter as this investigation continues.
Why it matters to this case: This period helps explain why AIM members could simultaneously believe they were being watched by the FBI and believe the FBI was failing to protect them. That combination—fear of government surveillance and distrust of government protection—created fertile ground for suspicion of anyone thought to be cooperating with authorities.
1974: The Conflict Continues
Wilson remained chairman following another deeply contentious election in 1974.
Challenges to his administration continued, as did accusations concerning political intimidation, federal support and the use of reservation resources.
AIM supporters increasingly viewed Pine Ridge as a frontline struggle. Wilson’s supporters continued to view AIM as a destabilizing and sometimes violent outside force.
The reservation was becoming not simply politically divided, but physically dangerous.
For people associated with AIM, questions about who could be trusted were no longer abstract political disagreements.
They could be matters of personal survival.
Why it matters to this case: When witnesses later describe AIM members asking whether Aquash was an informant, those conversations occurred after years of political conflict, federal investigations and violence—not in an otherwise peaceful organization suddenly seized by irrational suspicion.
Early 1975: Violence Reaches a Breaking Point
By early 1975, Pine Ridge was experiencing an exceptional level of violence.
The Civil Rights Commission’s later review emphasized the scale of the problem: more violent incidents were recorded on Pine Ridge during the five months before June 26 than throughout the rest of South Dakota.
Traditional residents again sought assistance from AIM members, some of whom began returning to or staying around the reservation.
Among those moving through that environment were Leonard Peltier and other AIM members.
The FBI was also actively investigating crimes on the reservation.
Those two worlds were moving toward another confrontation.
June 26, 1975: Oglala
On the morning of June 26, FBI Special Agents Jack Coler and Ronald Williams drove onto the Pine Ridge Reservation near Oglala while pursuing a man wanted in connection with robbery and assault allegations.
A firefight erupted near the Jumping Bull property.
By the time it ended, Coler and Williams were dead.
So was AIM member Joe Stuntz.
The FBI launched what became one of the largest investigations in its history.
Four Native men were eventually indicted in connection with the agents’ deaths. Charges against one were dismissed. Robert Robideau and Dino Butler were acquitted in 1976 after their jury heard evidence supporting a self-defence theory. Leonard Peltier was later extradited from Canada, tried separately and convicted in 1977.
The killing of the agents dramatically escalated the federal investigation of AIM members connected to Pine Ridge.
Why it matters to this case: This event is one of the most important pieces of background to Anna Mae Aquash’s death. Aquash was associated with people who were present during this period, and prosecutors would later rely on testimony that she had heard statements concerning the agents’ killings. If AIM members believed she possessed information capable of sending people to prison, suspicion that she was cooperating with the FBI took on an entirely different significance.
Summer and Fall 1975: The Search for Informants
After the Oglala shootout, federal investigators searched aggressively for Peltier and others associated with the events of June 26.
Inside AIM, fear of informants intensified.
That fear did not arise entirely from imagination. AIM was genuinely under investigation. National Archives records establish that federal intelligence files existed on the organization, and federal agencies were actively investigating its members.
But knowing that informants existed did not mean every person accused of being one actually was.
That distinction would become deadly important.
Anna Mae Aquash had already been questioned about whether she was cooperating with authorities. Later testimony would describe increasingly serious accusations against her during 1975.
The historical context helps explain why people might have believed an informant represented a threat.
It does not establish that Aquash was one.
And it does not justify what happened to her.
By Late 1975, the Lines Had Blurred
By the final months of 1975, Pine Ridge was the product of several overlapping conflicts.
There was AIM versus federal law enforcement.
There were traditional Oglala residents versus Wilson’s administration.
There were allegations of violence involving Wilson supporters and AIM supporters.
There were unresolved murders and assaults.
There was an enormous FBI investigation into the deaths of two agents.
There were fugitives.
There were informants.
And there were people who believed—sometimes correctly and sometimes without evidence—that someone close to them might be talking to the government.
Anna Mae Aquash entered the final months of her life inside that environment.
When she was accused of being an informant, the accusation carried consequences that are difficult to understand without knowing what had happened at Pine Ridge during the years before her death.
That history explains the fear.
It does not explain away the murder.
In the next part of this investigation, I will look more closely at Anna Mae Aquash herself: how a Mi’kmaq woman from Nova Scotia became deeply involved with AIM, the relationships she formed within the movement, and when suspicion began to turn toward her.
Stay curious. Look closer. Keep the conversation going.
— Laurie