Annie Mae Aquash (1945 - 1975)
Tue Mar 27, 1945
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Annie Mae Aquash (Mi'kmaq name "Naguset Eask"), born on this day in 1945, was a First Nations activist and Mi'kmaq tribal member from Nova Scotia, Canada who played a prominent role in the American Indian Movement (AIM).
In the 1960s, she moved to Boston and joined other First Nations and indigenous Americans who were focused on education and organizing against police brutality against urban indigenous peoples. Aquash participated in several key events, including the 1973 occupation of Wounded Knee at the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, the 1972 Trail of Broken Treaties, and the occupation of the Department of Interior headquarters in Washington, DC.
On February 24th, Aquash's body was found in Wanblee on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, murdered by an execution-style gunshot. In his book "In the Spirit of Crazy Horse", Peter Matthiessen writes that the FBI and CIA had previously disseminated rumours that she had been an informant and that Aquash had claimed an FBI agent threatened her life.
On the matter of Aquash's death, Leonard Peltier stated, "I know that [the FBI's] behavior hasn't changed just as I know that Anna Mae was not an informant."
- Date: 1945-03-27
- Learn More: www.canadashistory.ca, en.wikipedia.org.
- Tags: #Birthdays, #Indigenous.
- Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org