“The moment that the judge at the lower level issued that order, Dennis Banks said to George Mitchell [a leader of the American Indian Movement] from Minneapolis, ‘Well, let’s go back and tear that place apart,’ or ‘let’s go back and destroy it,’ or something like that. And they did. They broke the toilets all up and did all the plumbing damage. As one of the [news] writers said, ‘What level of rage would involve someone to sit down and twist each key of a typewriter?’”
Billy remembers crawling out windows. “That was the big-time takeover. We got surrounded by all the park people. And Nixon wouldn’t let them come in on us, until we finally negotiated out of that.”
During the occupation, Billy got lost on the streets of Washington, D.C.—first on foot, and then in a car.
“I never knew D.C. for Christ’s sake. I really was lost. But I’d find my way back.”
Bureau occupants had threatened to burn the entire building unless the Nixon administration met their demands that included, among other things, ousting Harrison Loesch, assistant Interior secretary. “I really believe there would have been up to hundreds of people killed if they had tried to force us out,” Adams said.
The takeover ended after a week when the Nixon administration promised to protect activists from prosecution and provided travel money home for those taking part. Damage was estimated at two million dollars.
During their stay, Indians discovered “incriminating evidence” against the bureau. They packaged the documents in question at night, and then transported them out of the building—straight under the nose of authorities—during a forty-car Indian caravan escorted by police.
Adams was later arrested while attempting to return documents to the BIA. His soft-spoken negotiations earned accolades from the media and Native Americans who took exception to the backlash against him. “For nearly a month Hank Adams called, begged and pleaded with the scattered groups of Indians to return the records that are of vital importance to the tribes. For his concern he was vilified by the elected tribal officials and cursed by White House assistants,” wrote Vine Deloria Jr. “Arrest the man. But arrest him for the crime of responsible citizenship of which he is surely guilty. Or for the crime of humanity in which he has surely participated.”
The case against Adams and seven other Indians was ultimately tossed out. The U.S. Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Louis Bruce, resigned. The department ousted Assistant Secretary Harrison Loesch and Deputy Commissioner John O. Crowe. Native Americans still criticized the BIA for failing to address their issues and for its paternalistic nature.
While in Washington, D.C., Adams planned a meeting with a retired judge from Washington State named Judge George Boldt, who would become one of the most important players in the fishing rights struggle. At the time, Boldt headed President Nixon’s Pay Board. “I want to get his feelings on changes to the federal structure,” Adams told reporters, referring to “a number of matters affecting the Indians.”
Mid-afternoon in January 1973, the window pane of a door at the Department of Game in Olympia shattered. Filing cabinets blocked back entrances. A stuffed pheasant lost its tail feathers. The intruders, a hundred or so of whom seized the building, festered with anger. The day before, three men were arrested on fishing charges, and two women were taken in for obstructing an officer. The state advanced on them in speedboats, armed, they charged, with rifles and pistols. More of their gear was confiscated. The fishermen had had enough. “You fish, and wait—wait and worry,” explained one fed-up angler. During the next day’s occupation, the anglers opened the office door of Director Carl Crouse, and picked up the phone.
“First, we called Hank Adams,” Billy recalls. “But Adams was back in Washington [D.C.].” So Sid Mills dialed Crouse at home.
“You stole all of our boats and we want a meeting with you,” Mills accused.
“If you all want to talk to me, come down to my office Monday morning,” Crouse replied. “Well, maybe you ought to come down to your office now, because that’s where we’re at,” Mills retorted.
“So then we heard the sirens and they surrounded us again,” Billy says. After two hours, as authorities surrounded the building, the protesters evacuated peacefully, once the Game Department agreed to meet with them. But they had discovered notebooks filled with files on Puyallup and Nisqually Indians, including Billy.
Also taken—charged attorney Larry Coniff later—were files on a court case involving the Puyallup Tribe’s right to fish exclusively a seven-mile stretch of the Puyallup River.
