CHAPTER 1 The Ohlone and Evil Spirits Imagine a time when the San Francisco Bay was not filled with water It was dry land During that geologic period the islands that now dot the bay were mountain peaks Indigenous people called the Ohlone roamed the area searching for food and firewood As time passed glaciers melted and the sea level began to rise Water filled the area and tribes moved to the mainland but the Ohlone maintained their connection to two special mountains that had become islands It’s impossible to know exactly how the tribes used the islands but legend says the Ohlone made the island into a fishing base Legend also says they were the first to use the land as an early prison The Ohlone sent people who committed crimes there to keep them away from the rest of the tribe Since the only way on or off the island was by boat they could isolate anyone who broke tribal law As more prisoners were sent to the island the fishermen began to avoid it They claimed there was evil lurking there and the criminals were attracting the ghosts of unhappy ancestors And then the island became even creepier The most respected position in the tribe was the shaman The shaman was thought to have supernatural powers It was the shaman’s responsibility to heal the sick lead the tribe in rites and rituals and keep everyone safe from evil spirits and enemies As rumors of ghosts swirled a shaman decided he needed to look for sorcerers and witches hiding among the tribe on the mainland If he believed someone had unusual powers he had two choices either send them to live in isolation on the island or kill them
Some people were forced to stay in isolation until they died naturally Sometimes the shaman also sent dead bodies to the island In time the spirit population there grew Rumors spread that the island’s spirits wanted revenge on the shamans who had sent them there to die If they couldn’t get to the shamans they’d go after the fishermen or anyone who came too close The spirits didn’t only want to scare the living they wanted them to suffer just as they had In 1775 the first Spanish ship entered the bay and the Spaniards gave names to the two islands they saw They called the larger one La Isla de los Ángeles Angel Island The smaller island was home to a large number of seabirds so they named it La Isla de los Alcatraces Alcatraz is the Spanish word for pelican The name was eventually shortened to Alcatraz The Spanish set up a missionary system along the coast to spread the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church This system was the end of the Ohlone’s way of life The Ohlone were forced to convert to Catholicism or face death The Spanish also brought new diseases with them By 1830 there were fewer than two thousand Ohlone left Some Ohlone tried to escape the Spaniards They went to the one place they knew the Spanish wouldn’t go The Spanish were afraid of Alcatraz Island because they also believed ghosts lived there That’s what made Alcatraz the perfect place to hide out the Spanish would never set foot on the island The Ohlone who dared to go to Alcatraz Island built small villages and their tiny community survived for many years
By 1834 the Spanish mission system ended but there were hardly any Ohlone left As more and more settlers came to America and moved westward with the Gold Rush the situation for any remaining Ohlone and other indigenous populations worsened Lands were stolen forced slavery continued and many people were killed Alcatraz was no longer a safe place to hide When the United States bought California as part of the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo they made plans to convert Alcatraz Island into a military fort to protect the bay from invaders This meant the end of the Indigenous peoples ownership of the island The military fort was converted to a maximum-security prison in the 1930s And when the federal government shut down the prison in 1963 and abandoned the island a group made up of Indigenous peoples saw it as an opportunity to take control of Alcatraz once again In 1969 seventy-nine Native Americans landed on Alcatraz and claimed the island A standoff between the occupiers and the U S government finally ended eighteen months later on June 10 1971 when U S Marshals the FBI and local police arrested the people on Alcatraz The protest didn’t work the way the occupiers had hoped but it did bring attention to the long history of Indigenous peoples on the island Around the country the government began to take a fresh look at the rights of indigenous tribes Some say the occupation on Alcatraz was the spark for the modern Native American Civil Rights Movement Today signs of the island’s indigenous history can still be found around Alcatraz but only the wandering spirits know the whole truth of what happened there That is the spirits and the others According to legend there are other creatures on Alcatraz who protected the Ohlone from harm Creatures who also know the history of the island because they’ve been there all along One creature as the Spanish learned was even out for blood
