Word: aims
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Unknown to Wilson, or the Federal government, AIM had set its sights on Wounded Knee long before it took over the village on February 27. Justice Department "intelligence reports" on AIM's next move indicated that the militants would seize the reservation's BIA office in Pine Ridge, 17 miles southwest of Wounded Knee...
...anticipation of a takeover, Federal marshals sandbagged BIA headquarters. While the marshals busied themselves fortifying the building, AIM strolled past them into Wounded Knee...
Carter Camp, one of the top AIM leaders, recalled the takeover with a smile. "I led three cars past 'Fort Wilson' [the fortified BIA building]," Camp, a tall, big-boned Oklahoma Cherokee, said. "We arrived about 45 minutes before the caravan. We took a pickup truck that belonged to Jack Czywczynski, the operator of the museum, and placed it in the road for a roadblock...
When it entered the tiny hamlet, AIM seized the trading post and the museum, and took 11 hostages. The hostages included Czywcznski, his family, and the Gildersleeves, owners of the trading post...
...AIM released the hostages two days after the occupation began. The militants armed themselves with guns from the trading post, adding to the weapons they had brought with them. Although the next few weeks would be tense, and Means would declare himself ready to die, AIM found itself in control of little more than a symbolic plot of ground...