Post by Moon Seeker on Jul 23, 2009 19:56:28 GMT -5
Alison Gottfriedson: Woman known for passion to protect culture
ROB CARSON; The News Tribune
Published: 07/23/09 12:05 am | Updated: 07/23/09 11:26 am
Native American activists from around the country will gather at Frank’s Landing today to pay final respects to Alison Bridges Gottfriedson, a passionate Indian rights activist and protector of Native culture who died unexpectedly last Saturday.
Gottfriedson, 57, is recognized throughout Indian Country for her political activism and determination to preserve traditional customs and values.
“Alison has been the stone to hold us together,” said Billy Frank Jr., Gottfriedson’s uncle and the chairman of the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission. “All of us are just shocked by her death.
“We’re all gathered together this week to cry and laugh and celebrate Alison’s life.”
At Gottfriedson’s wake Wednesday, drummers led a procession of about 200 family, friends and tribal members to Wa He Lut Indian School, where her casket was carried into the gym.
“She’s going to be making this journey,” said Frank Eaglespeaker, one of those leading the group offering the prayer travel song for Gottfriedson.
“We’re going to help her out.”
Her funeral and interment will take place today.
Gottfriedson’s strong opinions put her at odds not only with federal and state authorities, but also occasionally with members of other South Sound tribes.
She served for several years on the Puyallup Tribal Council during emotional negotiations on a tribal land-claims settlement and again during the tribe’s transition to a gambling economy.
She was a Puyallup tribal member for most of her life but in 2008 quit the Puyallups and joined the Squaxin Island Tribe, part of a complicated legal maneuver to keep a Frank’s Landing smokeshop operating.
The struggle for Native American rights consumed Gottfriedson’s life, from the time she was a baby until the day she died, friends said. Gottfriedson was just 21/2 the first time she saw her father arrested for fishing at Frank’s Landing, near the mouth of the Nisqually River.
“She started out as young girl, watching us all go to jail,” Frank said. “Then pretty soon, as she got older, she was going to jail. We never got out of that fighting for our rights.”
The fight for fishing rights promised to Northwest tribes in their treaties with the federal government boiled over in the 1960s and, with her classic Indian looks, Gottfriedson literally became a poster child for the movement.
A photo taken of her in 1970, face contorted in pain as helmeted officers twisted her arms behind her back, drew national attention to the Northwest fishing rights struggle and has been widely used in national publications and television.
Gottfriedson grew up at Frank’s Landing, one of three daughters of Puyallup tribal matriarch Maiselle McCloud Bridges. Bridges and her three daughters – Alison, Suzette and Valerie – are regarded as heroes in Indian Country, where they sometimes are referred to as “warrior women.”
Valerie Bridges, an outspoken Indian rights advocate, drowned in the Nisqually River in 1970, when Alison was 19.
After Valerie Bridges’ death, her mother started a school for Indian children at the Landing in her honor. Gottfriedson was the chairwoman of the Wa He Lut school board when she died.
SHE ‘NEVER BACKED DOWN’
Ramona Bennett, a radical Indian rights advocate who drew national attention for protests in the 1960s and 1970s, remembered Gottfriedson as a staunch compatriot.
“I got to eat tear gas with Alison, and we both got dragged around by our hair,” Bennett said. “She never flinched. She never backed down.”
Bennett remembered when Puyallup tribal members seized the old Cascadia Hospital building from the state in 1976.
Bennett, Gottfriedson and another young Indian woman went to the building together, Bennett said, carrying an audacious eviction notice that order the state employees to leave the building.
“It was just a really scary situation,” Bennett said. “Alison wasn’t very tall. I don’t think the three of us together weighed over 300 pounds. The security guards were big men.”
To their amazement, the guards backed down, Bennett said.
Another time, Bennett remembered, during the Puyallup land claims struggle, Gottfriedson and other activists made a symbolic stand at a railroad bridge near the heavily industrialized mouth of the Puyallup.
“We were standing together on the railroad tracks looking across the river on that bridge,” Bennett said.
In the distance, they saw a group of men with rifles, kneeling in shooting position. As she and Gottfriedson watched, Bennett said, the men started firing in their direction.
“You could see their rifles kicking when they shot,” she said. “Alison and I were standing there with bullets flying around us. We agreed we knew how bowling pins feel.”
“Alison didn’t flinch,” Bennett said. “In so many of those situations, we didn’t expect to come out alive. She didn’t hesitate and she always kept her dignity.”
SMOKESHOP TROUBLES
In recent years, Gottfriedson’s struggles with authorities involved cigarette sales on Indian land.
Gottfriedson and her husband, Henry, were the primary operators of a profitable smokeshop at Frank’s Landing, which undersold non-Indian retailers by selling untaxed tobacco products.
Because the Frank’s Landing Community is not a recognized Indian tribe, it was unable to negotiate a cigarette-selling compact with Washington state, as other tribes have done.
When negotiations with state failed, the smokeshop remained open, generating millions of dollars in revenue between 2001 and 2007.
State and federal regulators saw that as felony crime; Gottfriedson and other Frank’s Landing community members tended to see it as political protest.
Government officials raided the smokeshop on May 15, 2007, bursting in on the Gottfriedsons early in the morning and seizing 701,075 cartons of contraband cigarettes and more than $1 million in cash.
Alison and Henry pleaded guilty to felony charges of selling contraband cigarettes last August. They narrowly avoided jail terms and were ordered to start making payments on more than $9 million the state said it owed in unpaid taxes.
In the courtroom, federal prosecutors portrayed the Gottfriedsons as profiteers. Friends and associates say that was not the case.
The smokeshop was a community resource, they say, providing money not only for the Wa He Lut school but also for social services and national Indian political causes from Wounded Knee to Alcatraz and the Trail of Broken Treaties.
“They were in debt on their mortgage and doing things for other people,” said Henry Adams, an Indian historian and political strategist who belongs to the Frank’s Landing Community. “Any money we could save was all community money, committed to community plans that had been put in place.”
STRESS ON HER SHOULDERS
Gottfriedson’s death came as a shock even to those closest to her. She had health issues, friends said, but most assumed they were minor.
“She hid a lot of her pain, even from her mom and her sister and all of us,” her uncle, Frank, said.
As friends and family gather for today’s services, some speculate that the stress of the smokeshop raid and the federal prosecution that followed contributed to Gottfriedson’s death.
Frank said that probably was the case.
“She had that stuff all on her shoulders when she left,” he said.
Adams was more direct: “May 15, 2007, killed her,” he said.
In Adams’ view, Gottfriedson’s decision not to fight the federal charges was an act of self sacrifice.
“She and Hank were told that if they didn’t plead, there would be no limit to the number of people they would try to prosecute,” he said.
“She would have liked to have fought it all the way.”
Rob Carson: 253-597-8693
rob.carson@thenewstribune.com
www.thenewstribune.com/news/local/story/819367.html?source=rss
ROB CARSON; The News Tribune
Published: 07/23/09 12:05 am | Updated: 07/23/09 11:26 am
Native American activists from around the country will gather at Frank’s Landing today to pay final respects to Alison Bridges Gottfriedson, a passionate Indian rights activist and protector of Native culture who died unexpectedly last Saturday.
Gottfriedson, 57, is recognized throughout Indian Country for her political activism and determination to preserve traditional customs and values.
“Alison has been the stone to hold us together,” said Billy Frank Jr., Gottfriedson’s uncle and the chairman of the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission. “All of us are just shocked by her death.
“We’re all gathered together this week to cry and laugh and celebrate Alison’s life.”
At Gottfriedson’s wake Wednesday, drummers led a procession of about 200 family, friends and tribal members to Wa He Lut Indian School, where her casket was carried into the gym.
“She’s going to be making this journey,” said Frank Eaglespeaker, one of those leading the group offering the prayer travel song for Gottfriedson.
“We’re going to help her out.”
Her funeral and interment will take place today.
Gottfriedson’s strong opinions put her at odds not only with federal and state authorities, but also occasionally with members of other South Sound tribes.
She served for several years on the Puyallup Tribal Council during emotional negotiations on a tribal land-claims settlement and again during the tribe’s transition to a gambling economy.
She was a Puyallup tribal member for most of her life but in 2008 quit the Puyallups and joined the Squaxin Island Tribe, part of a complicated legal maneuver to keep a Frank’s Landing smokeshop operating.
The struggle for Native American rights consumed Gottfriedson’s life, from the time she was a baby until the day she died, friends said. Gottfriedson was just 21/2 the first time she saw her father arrested for fishing at Frank’s Landing, near the mouth of the Nisqually River.
“She started out as young girl, watching us all go to jail,” Frank said. “Then pretty soon, as she got older, she was going to jail. We never got out of that fighting for our rights.”
The fight for fishing rights promised to Northwest tribes in their treaties with the federal government boiled over in the 1960s and, with her classic Indian looks, Gottfriedson literally became a poster child for the movement.
A photo taken of her in 1970, face contorted in pain as helmeted officers twisted her arms behind her back, drew national attention to the Northwest fishing rights struggle and has been widely used in national publications and television.
Gottfriedson grew up at Frank’s Landing, one of three daughters of Puyallup tribal matriarch Maiselle McCloud Bridges. Bridges and her three daughters – Alison, Suzette and Valerie – are regarded as heroes in Indian Country, where they sometimes are referred to as “warrior women.”
Valerie Bridges, an outspoken Indian rights advocate, drowned in the Nisqually River in 1970, when Alison was 19.
After Valerie Bridges’ death, her mother started a school for Indian children at the Landing in her honor. Gottfriedson was the chairwoman of the Wa He Lut school board when she died.
SHE ‘NEVER BACKED DOWN’
Ramona Bennett, a radical Indian rights advocate who drew national attention for protests in the 1960s and 1970s, remembered Gottfriedson as a staunch compatriot.
“I got to eat tear gas with Alison, and we both got dragged around by our hair,” Bennett said. “She never flinched. She never backed down.”
Bennett remembered when Puyallup tribal members seized the old Cascadia Hospital building from the state in 1976.
Bennett, Gottfriedson and another young Indian woman went to the building together, Bennett said, carrying an audacious eviction notice that order the state employees to leave the building.
“It was just a really scary situation,” Bennett said. “Alison wasn’t very tall. I don’t think the three of us together weighed over 300 pounds. The security guards were big men.”
To their amazement, the guards backed down, Bennett said.
Another time, Bennett remembered, during the Puyallup land claims struggle, Gottfriedson and other activists made a symbolic stand at a railroad bridge near the heavily industrialized mouth of the Puyallup.
“We were standing together on the railroad tracks looking across the river on that bridge,” Bennett said.
In the distance, they saw a group of men with rifles, kneeling in shooting position. As she and Gottfriedson watched, Bennett said, the men started firing in their direction.
“You could see their rifles kicking when they shot,” she said. “Alison and I were standing there with bullets flying around us. We agreed we knew how bowling pins feel.”
“Alison didn’t flinch,” Bennett said. “In so many of those situations, we didn’t expect to come out alive. She didn’t hesitate and she always kept her dignity.”
SMOKESHOP TROUBLES
In recent years, Gottfriedson’s struggles with authorities involved cigarette sales on Indian land.
Gottfriedson and her husband, Henry, were the primary operators of a profitable smokeshop at Frank’s Landing, which undersold non-Indian retailers by selling untaxed tobacco products.
Because the Frank’s Landing Community is not a recognized Indian tribe, it was unable to negotiate a cigarette-selling compact with Washington state, as other tribes have done.
When negotiations with state failed, the smokeshop remained open, generating millions of dollars in revenue between 2001 and 2007.
State and federal regulators saw that as felony crime; Gottfriedson and other Frank’s Landing community members tended to see it as political protest.
Government officials raided the smokeshop on May 15, 2007, bursting in on the Gottfriedsons early in the morning and seizing 701,075 cartons of contraband cigarettes and more than $1 million in cash.
Alison and Henry pleaded guilty to felony charges of selling contraband cigarettes last August. They narrowly avoided jail terms and were ordered to start making payments on more than $9 million the state said it owed in unpaid taxes.
In the courtroom, federal prosecutors portrayed the Gottfriedsons as profiteers. Friends and associates say that was not the case.
The smokeshop was a community resource, they say, providing money not only for the Wa He Lut school but also for social services and national Indian political causes from Wounded Knee to Alcatraz and the Trail of Broken Treaties.
“They were in debt on their mortgage and doing things for other people,” said Henry Adams, an Indian historian and political strategist who belongs to the Frank’s Landing Community. “Any money we could save was all community money, committed to community plans that had been put in place.”
STRESS ON HER SHOULDERS
Gottfriedson’s death came as a shock even to those closest to her. She had health issues, friends said, but most assumed they were minor.
“She hid a lot of her pain, even from her mom and her sister and all of us,” her uncle, Frank, said.
As friends and family gather for today’s services, some speculate that the stress of the smokeshop raid and the federal prosecution that followed contributed to Gottfriedson’s death.
Frank said that probably was the case.
“She had that stuff all on her shoulders when she left,” he said.
Adams was more direct: “May 15, 2007, killed her,” he said.
In Adams’ view, Gottfriedson’s decision not to fight the federal charges was an act of self sacrifice.
“She and Hank were told that if they didn’t plead, there would be no limit to the number of people they would try to prosecute,” he said.
“She would have liked to have fought it all the way.”
Rob Carson: 253-597-8693
rob.carson@thenewstribune.com
www.thenewstribune.com/news/local/story/819367.html?source=rss