Auction highlights takeover of 'The Rock'
By Gabriel Cordero - Correspondent
Adam Fortunate Eagle Nordwall [with pipe] is shown here Thanksgiving Day 1969 on Alcatraz with (left to right) Joe Seaboy, a Sioux, Ed Castillo and Richard Oakes, both Mohawks.
The FBI calls him the “principal organizer” of an event that caught national attention in 1963 when a group of American Indians took over Alcatraz Island to keep the government from selling it.
Now, 76 year-old Adam Nordwall just wants to invest in what he jokingly refers to as his “401k” -- two ceremonial pipes, a headdress, a hand drum and other artifacts that were with him on the island during the occupation. These and more than 130 of Adam “Fortunate Eagle” Nordwall's collections of artifacts go up for sale Wednesday morning at 10 a.m. at 660 Third St. in San Francisco with Greg Martin Auctions in charge.
The auction also happens to take place on the anniversary of the time Nordwall and 80 other American Indians took over “The Rock,” as the former prison was once called, as a political statement 36 years ago.
Nordwall and the others landed on the rock Nov. 9, 1969, and
Adam 'Fortunate Eagle' Nordwall
they stayed for 19 months. Their goal, he says, was to get the government to pay attention to the needs of American Indians. The previous year, the government had called Alcatraz surplus property.
Alcatraz's condition changed but not necessarily as Nordwall would have wished. In 1973 Alcatraz received status as a national park. Nordwall believes if he and the other members of the United Bay Area Council of American Indians had not taken action, the tourist attraction and historic site known as Alcatraz Island and included in the Golden Gate National Recreation Area might not have come to be.
Nordwall said the 1950s and 1960s were horrible times for American Indians, leading to the formation in 1962 of the United Bay Area Council of American Indians. Nordwall chaired the organization and, he said, together they “changed the course of history.”
Nordwall joked that “When I die I will be a dead legend. And I say that modestly,” before turning sober as he called the items up for bid “living history. If (museums or national parks) don't get the items tomorrow they could be lost forever.”
“For me, it's a way of cashing in bonds I have been saving for all these years. And although it's not everything there were a lot of really hard things I had to part with,” especially the pipes, drums and other ceremonial items from the occupation. “The collectors are going to eat it up,” Nordwall said.
Gabriel Cordero can be reached at Gabriel Cordero or 415 668-6221
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Special thanks to Bea Woodward for forwarding this on!
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Last updated on November 22, 2005