Leonard Peltier Case essays

Leonard Peltier Case essays One of the modern Native Americans' most prominent leaders, Leonard Peltier, was arrested in the summer of 1975 and eventually sentenced to two life terms for a crime many believe he did not commit. The conviction and imprisonment of Leonard Peltier is an injustice. His prosecution by the United States government represents yet another attempt to snuff out American Indian culture and leaders. The outspokenness of Peltier and other AIM members may be the only reason why Leonard Peltier has sat in prison for the last 24 years. Leonard Peltier is a Native American of mixed blood, being approximately 75 percent Sioux blood. His early life could be there story of almost any Native American growing up in the 1960's. Born in Grand Forks, ND, he was raised in poverty on "the res,"" as Peltier says in his book, My Life Is My Sundance, "My Grandfather used to come home from the store with our rations, and I would always ask him why he couldn't bring more" (24). Peltier was later removed by the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) to a boarding school after his grandfather passed away. This unsanctioned removal was Leonard's first taste of the intrusion of the US Government into Native American life. At the school, the BIA attempted to strip all Indian qualities, including cutting the boy's long hair. The school was ruled by a strict superintendent, which meant frequent and excessive punishments. "The sound of a child being struck and the screaming and crying that follows still haunts me today. I can't bear t o see a child spanked" (Peltier, 26). A few years later, a teenaged Peltier was allowed to call home and go back living with his family on the Turtle Ridge Reservation in North Dakota. He soon received his first taste of racism when a group of white boys began throwing rocks at him. As Leonard relates in Peter Matthiessen's In The Spirit Of Crazy Horse, "One of the older ones said, He's a dirty...