Dick Wilson (politician)

Richard A. "Dick" Wilson (born April 29, 1934 , † January 31, 1990 ) was a US politician and Oglala Indian. During his controversial tenure as tribal chief on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota from 1972 to 1976 there were incidents and acts of violence in one of the poorest areas of the United States that were widely noticed.

Ascent

Before being elected to the reservations board, he was the mayor of Pine Ridge on the Oglala Sioux Tribal Council and was there on the working committee. Wilson was originally a plumber by trade.

Wilson won the 1972 tribal election against incumbent Gerald One Feather. He also had the support of representatives of the American Indian Movement (AIM) and had supported their protests against the murder of Raymond Yellow Thunder in Gordon, Nebraska . Wilson won 5 of the reservation's 9 counties and a clear majority in Pine Ridge.

Administration

His administration was very authoritarian from the start. In the first week he questioned the mandate of individual council members. He ruled primarily through a five-member central committee and only rarely and belatedly convened the general assembly.

In late 1972, Wilson built a vigilante group, the Guardians of the Oglala Nation (GOON, popularly abbreviated to " goon " - "thugs"), using a council resolution that gave the chairman executive powers. The Goons were soon rumored to have used violence against political opponents.

Wilson worked with the AIM until the storming of the Bureau of Indian Affairs in Washington, DC in 1972. After the storm, which caused considerable property damage and destroyed a large number of Native American property documents, there was a conflict between Wilson and the AIM under the leadership of Russell Means . Wilson received death threats and was temporarily detained in 1973.

Conflicts: From impeachment to withdrawal

In 1973, motions from Long, Kills Straight, and C. Hobart Keith led to an impeachment motion at the council meeting. Wilson was accused of favoritism, poor housekeeping, embezzlement and violation of the tribal statutes, as well as illegal imprisonment of Keith. When the hearing on the case began, Wilson turned down the usual waiting period of several weeks and asked for the trial to begin immediately. Vincent Thunder Bull was elected head of proceedings in a turbulent meeting. The applicants had prepared themselves completely inadequately, the procedure was broken off by the council with fourteen votes to zero.

On February 27, four days later, the Wounded Knee was cast , and Wilson's removal was a central demand. The ensuing occupation lasted 71 days, cost three lives and caused a stir around the world.

In 1975, a shooting took place at Jumping Bull Ranch on the Pine Ridge Reservation, in which two FBI agents, Ronald A. Williams and Jack R. Coler, and AIM activist Joe Stuntz were shot dead. Of the four AIM members arrested for the shooting, two were acquitted, one dropped, and the fourth, Leonard Peltier , sentenced to life imprisonment in a separate trial. The process had a lot of media coverage, the incidents were filmed several times.

In 1976, Dick Wilson was voted out of office and replaced by Al Trimble. He moved away from Pine Ridge at first, but came back a few years later. In 1990, the year he died, he tried to be re-elected to the tribal council. Wilson died of heart and kidney failure, leaving ten children.

backgrounds

The Pine Ridge Reservation is one of the poorest areas in the United States. During Wilson's tenure, there were a number of violent and civil war-like clashes between Wilson and his supporters, the FBI and the newly formed American Indian Movement (AIM), whose activists mostly did not live in the classic reservations.

In the 1992 documentary Incident at Oglala by Michael Apted , Wilson is portrayed as deeply corrupt; he had embezzled funds to a considerable extent. Wilson is also accused of having enforced his claim to power with the Guardians Of the Oglala Nation , among others. Around 50 Pine Ridge residents were murdered during his tenure. A member of the Goon, Duane Brewer, claims in the film that the FBI supported the company. Caroline Woidat, on the other hand, cited the deep anchoring of the corrupt structures in the reservations and a deep-seated fear of conspiracy as the main reasons.

Literature and media

Michael Apted (Director): Incident at Oglala . Documentary. Narrator Robert Redford. Miramax, USA, 1992.
Paul Chaat Smith and Robert Allen Warrior. Like a Hurricane: The Indian Movement from Alcatraz to Wounded Knee . New York: New P, 1997.
Joseph H. Trimbach: American Indian Mafia: An FBI Agent's True Story about Wounded Knee, Leonard Peltier, and the American Indian Movement (Aim) Outskirts Press 2007, ISBN 0-9795855-0-3

Web links

Individual evidence

↑ Akim D. Reihardt: Ruling Pine Ridge . Texas Tech University Press, Lubbock 2007, p. 131.
↑ Lisa W. Foderaro: Obituary: Richard Wilson, 55, Tribal Head in Occupation of Wounded Knee . In: New York Times , Feb. 4, 1990, p. 36.
↑ Akim D. Reihardt: Ruling Pine Ridge . Texas Tech University Press, Lubbock 2007, pp. 131-132.
↑ Akim D. Reihardt: Ruling Pine Ridge . Texas Tech University Press, Lubbock 2007, pp. 134-137, 151-152.
↑ Akim D. Reihardt: Ruling Pine Ridge . Texas Tech University Press, Lubbock 2007, pp. 157-159, 171.
↑ Akim D. Reihardt: Ruling Pine Ridge . Texas Tech University Press, Lubbock 2007, pp. 180-183.
^ Stanley David Lyman: Wounded Knee 1973: A Personal Account . University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln 1991, pp. 6-12.
↑ Grace Lichtenstein: Tribal Leader Is Defeated in Election on Troubled Pine Ridge Reservation . In: New York Times , Jan 29, 1976, p. 48.
↑ Joe Starita: The Dull Knives of Pine Ridge . GP Putnam's Sons, New York 1995, p. 312.
↑ Woidat, Caroline M. "The Truth Is on the Reservation: American Indians and Conspiracy Culture", The Journal of American Culture 29 (4), 2006. pp 454-467.

personal data
SURNAME	Wilson, Dick
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Wilson, Richard A. (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	American politician, chief of the Oglala Lakota Indians
DATE OF BIRTH	April 29, 1934
DATE OF DEATH	January 31, 1990

[1] Akim D. Reihardt: Ruling Pine Ridge . Texas Tech University Press, Lubbock 2007, p. 131.

[2] Lisa W. Foderaro: Obituary: Richard Wilson, 55, Tribal Head in Occupation of Wounded Knee . In: New York Times , Feb. 4, 1990, p. 36.

[3] Akim D. Reihardt: Ruling Pine Ridge . Texas Tech University Press, Lubbock 2007, pp. 131-132.

[4] Akim D. Reihardt: Ruling Pine Ridge . Texas Tech University Press, Lubbock 2007, pp. 134-137, 151-152.

[5] Akim D. Reihardt: Ruling Pine Ridge . Texas Tech University Press, Lubbock 2007, pp. 157-159, 171.

[6] Akim D. Reihardt: Ruling Pine Ridge . Texas Tech University Press, Lubbock 2007, pp. 180-183.

[7] Stanley David Lyman: Wounded Knee 1973: A Personal Account . University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln 1991, pp. 6-12.

[8] Grace Lichtenstein: Tribal Leader Is Defeated in Election on Troubled Pine Ridge Reservation . In: New York Times , Jan 29, 1976, p. 48.

[9] Joe Starita: The Dull Knives of Pine Ridge . GP Putnam's Sons, New York 1995, p. 312.

[10] Woidat, Caroline M. "The Truth Is on the Reservation: American Indians and Conspiracy Culture", The Journal of American Culture 29 (4), 2006. pp 454-467.