Early Life:Anna Mae Aquash was born March 27th, 1945 in a small Indian village in Nova Scotia, Canada. Her parents were Mary Ellen Pictou and Francis Thomas Levi, they were both Micmac Indians. Francis Levi left the family before she was born. Mary Ellen Pictou only obtained a third grade education and was unable to provide a stable life for her children. Aquash’s home life as a result was very poor. Life improved slightly when her mother remarried a man named Stephen Noel Sapier, who was a Micmac cultural and religion traditionalist. He moved the family to Pictou’s Landing and tried to make a living doing seasonal farmhand jobs and making traditional craftwork. The family was not well off but Aquash learned a great deal about her heritage. This early exposure to her cultural background sparked her interest.
Because of the poor standard of living that Aquash grew up in, she was subject to recurring eye infections that turned out to be the result of tuberculosis that eventually spread to her lungs. She did recover but her body did not fully strengthen for quite some time.
Then in 1956, when Aquash was eleven, Sapier passed away due to cancer. Aquash was also attending a school off of the reserve. There she encountered material that was far above what she had learned previously and most importantly a shocking amount of bullying she was subjected to due to her race. Aquash had encountered racism before this when she ventured off of the reserve, but now she faced it every day from her own peers. According to Dill, this struggle caused her school work to decline, however she remained in school despite the challenges she faced. (A Warrior born...)
Unfortunately, in that same year her mother eloped to another reserve to marry Wilford Barlov. Aquash and the rest of her siblings were abandoned. Aquash had to drop out of school to work as a potato and berry harvester.
When Aquash was 17, she and Jake Maloney(who was also a Micmac) moved to Boston to join a group of Micmacs who had been resettled in that area. In 1964 she had a child, and another in 1965. Aquash married Maloney in New Brunswick, Canada but they separated by 1968.
Because of the poor standard of living that Aquash grew up in, she was subject to recurring eye infections that turned out to be the result of tuberculosis that eventually spread to her lungs. She did recover but her body did not fully strengthen for quite some time.
Then in 1956, when Aquash was eleven, Sapier passed away due to cancer. Aquash was also attending a school off of the reserve. There she encountered material that was far above what she had learned previously and most importantly a shocking amount of bullying she was subjected to due to her race. Aquash had encountered racism before this when she ventured off of the reserve, but now she faced it every day from her own peers. According to Dill, this struggle caused her school work to decline, however she remained in school despite the challenges she faced. (A Warrior born...)
Unfortunately, in that same year her mother eloped to another reserve to marry Wilford Barlov. Aquash and the rest of her siblings were abandoned. Aquash had to drop out of school to work as a potato and berry harvester.
When Aquash was 17, she and Jake Maloney(who was also a Micmac) moved to Boston to join a group of Micmacs who had been resettled in that area. In 1964 she had a child, and another in 1965. Aquash married Maloney in New Brunswick, Canada but they separated by 1968.
Mid-Life: Anna Mae Pictou was an activist for Indian rights. After facing much racism in her early life, she then began to partake in learning about the Micmac traditions. She worked at a factory in Boston while volunteering at a council for Native Americans in Boston. She participated in a protest against people who celebrated the Mayflower on Thanksgiving. The protest tried to give light on the atrocities that actually did occur instead of what they celebrate. She then moved to Maine briefly, then back to Boston again around 1972. Anna loved working in the community that she even turned down a scholarship at Brandeis University. She then started another relationship with a Chippewaean named Nogeeshik Aguash. They participated in the Trail of Broken Treaties, a march that occurred in DC. This made the government look at some issues that AIM came up with. After that march, they then moved on to a protest at the site where the Wounded Knee Massacre took place. They camped just outside of it and smuggled goods inside to the people occupying the site. Anna and Nogeeshik got married around this time in April 12, 1973. The site was occupied for about three months until the leaders were eventually taken in while Anna and her now husband went back to Boston.
End Life:On February 24th, 1976 the body of Anna Mae Aquash was discovered in South Dakota on the property of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, further investigation later proved that she had died two months prior to the initial discovery of her body at the age of thirty and that the cause of death was from a single gunshot at the base of her skull.
When her body was found locals were not in shock, considering that Pine Ridge had the highest murder rate in the nation at the time, but soon enough suspicions began to arise around Aquash's death. Questions began to cirrculate, wondering who killed her and if it was the government to warn members of AIM or if it indeed was an inside job from one of her fellow AIM members. Certain information later surfaced that proved that it was an inside job due to the fact that other committed members to the community believed her to be collaborating with the F.B.I. and because of this assumption Anna Mae ended up dead with no trail of who the culprit could've been due to the sworn secrecy amongst the AIM organization.
It was not until years later that someone finally decided to come forward and comply with the local authorities. Her name was Darlene (Ka-Mook) Nichols, her relation to the victim was strengthened when they were bunked together in jail after being pulled over in their RV that was filled with guns and explosives. At the time of their arrest Nichols was unaware of Anna's affair with her husband and it wasn't until a few months before the murder that she found out the extent of the relationship between her husband and one of her close friends. This confrontation did not stop the two from confiding in each other, just before Aquash's release Darlene noticed how terrified she seemed to be leaving the confined space of jail and later told her that it was because she was aware that other members from AIM believed her to an F.B.I informant and that she feared for her life. This encounter was the last time they spoke before Aquash's death, which was a month before her death.
While cooperating with the F.B.I Darlene agreed to wear a wire and throughout one year she recorded many conversations with 10 people that could've possibly been involved in Aquash's murder. One of which caused a major break in the case at the time with a lengthy recorded conversation with Arlo Looking Cloud an associate of AIM at a rather low-level. He had admitted to friends that he was involved in the abduction and the murder of Anna Mae and was later convinced by Nichols to cooperate with the police and agreed to testify against John Graham who he claimed to be the gunman in Aquash's murder. The two men were convicted for the crime but Oswald, the prosecutor on the case, was not satisfied with verdict. He was convinced that there were more accomplices involved in the shooting of Anna Mae Aquash.
He continued to dig further into the case and had reason to believe that Thunder Hawk and Lorelei Decora had interrogated Anna just hours before her death because they had the feeling that she was a "snitch". This lead soon died after the lack of evidence incriminating the two women and the lack of motivation to make them cooperate with the F.B.I. Oswald later had another break in the case from another unrelated murder on the Pine Ridge Reservation but despite his wishes he was urged to close the case in 2011 and was forced to come to terms with the first and only verdict that would be given concerning the murder case of Anna Mae Aquash.
When her body was found locals were not in shock, considering that Pine Ridge had the highest murder rate in the nation at the time, but soon enough suspicions began to arise around Aquash's death. Questions began to cirrculate, wondering who killed her and if it was the government to warn members of AIM or if it indeed was an inside job from one of her fellow AIM members. Certain information later surfaced that proved that it was an inside job due to the fact that other committed members to the community believed her to be collaborating with the F.B.I. and because of this assumption Anna Mae ended up dead with no trail of who the culprit could've been due to the sworn secrecy amongst the AIM organization.
It was not until years later that someone finally decided to come forward and comply with the local authorities. Her name was Darlene (Ka-Mook) Nichols, her relation to the victim was strengthened when they were bunked together in jail after being pulled over in their RV that was filled with guns and explosives. At the time of their arrest Nichols was unaware of Anna's affair with her husband and it wasn't until a few months before the murder that she found out the extent of the relationship between her husband and one of her close friends. This confrontation did not stop the two from confiding in each other, just before Aquash's release Darlene noticed how terrified she seemed to be leaving the confined space of jail and later told her that it was because she was aware that other members from AIM believed her to an F.B.I informant and that she feared for her life. This encounter was the last time they spoke before Aquash's death, which was a month before her death.
While cooperating with the F.B.I Darlene agreed to wear a wire and throughout one year she recorded many conversations with 10 people that could've possibly been involved in Aquash's murder. One of which caused a major break in the case at the time with a lengthy recorded conversation with Arlo Looking Cloud an associate of AIM at a rather low-level. He had admitted to friends that he was involved in the abduction and the murder of Anna Mae and was later convinced by Nichols to cooperate with the police and agreed to testify against John Graham who he claimed to be the gunman in Aquash's murder. The two men were convicted for the crime but Oswald, the prosecutor on the case, was not satisfied with verdict. He was convinced that there were more accomplices involved in the shooting of Anna Mae Aquash.
He continued to dig further into the case and had reason to believe that Thunder Hawk and Lorelei Decora had interrogated Anna just hours before her death because they had the feeling that she was a "snitch". This lead soon died after the lack of evidence incriminating the two women and the lack of motivation to make them cooperate with the F.B.I. Oswald later had another break in the case from another unrelated murder on the Pine Ridge Reservation but despite his wishes he was urged to close the case in 2011 and was forced to come to terms with the first and only verdict that would be given concerning the murder case of Anna Mae Aquash.