Biography on anna mae aquash

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Until then, she had encountered racism mostly during trips to nearby towns. The family returned to Boston, where Aquash enrolled in the New Careers program at Wheelock College. Within a year, she was involved in the Menominee Indian takeover of an abandoned Alexian Brothers Catholic Monastery in protest of the termination of their federal Indian status.

Although the project was successful, it was closed in 1972, when funding was cut. Aquash was thirtyyears old at the time of her death.

After decades of investigation and the hearing of testimony by threefederalgrand juries, in March 2003, Arlo LookingCloud and John Graham were indicted for the murder of Aquash.

Her cause of death was listed as exposure, and since no one was able to identify her, she was buried as a "Jane Doe"--an anonymous corpse. In Oregon, just one mile short of the Idaho border, state troopers stopped the group and Aquash was again arrested. Although they were still very poor, Aquash learned a great deal about the richness of her people's culture at this time.

Poverty often breeds disease, and conditions were very poor at Pictou's Landing.

In 1953, Aquash was plagued with recurrent eye infections. Just after Deborah's birth, the couple married in New Brunswick and moved to another Micmac reserve. The curriculum there consisted of traditional subjects as well as Indian history, values, and beliefs to foster pride in the students. When word of the occupation and resulting siege by federal troops reached Boston, Pictou and Nogeeshik left for South Dakota.

Her body's deteriorated condition indicated that she had been dead for some time. In later years, she would often talk about how the constant jeers, racial slurs, and lewd comments had ruined her school years. Aquash was not alone; most of her Micmac tribespeople followed the same pattern of failure when they enrolled in off-reserve schools.

Aquash's difficulties with verbal and sometimes physical threats from classmates continued in high school.

This program included both classroom instruction and community work. In 2008 Vine Richard "Dick" Marshall was charged with aiding the murder, but was acquitted of providing the gun.