The protesters left under threat that they would be charged with felony.

Cottier also stated that the federal government would be allowed to maintain use of the Coast Guard lighthouse located on the island. The protesters were publicly offering the federal government the same amount for the land that the government had initially offered them at 47 cents per acre, this amounted to $9.40 for the entire rocky island (equivalent to $88.69 in 2022), or $5.64 for the twelve usable acres. Cottier acted as spokesman for the demonstration, stating that it was 'peaceful and in accordance with Sioux treaty rights'. The Sioux activists were led by Richard McKenzie, Mark Martinez, Garfield Spotted Elk, Virgil Standing-Elk, Walter Means, and Allen Cottier. According to Adam Fortunate Eagle, this demonstration was an extension of already prevalent Bay Area street theater used to raise awareness. The entire party consisted of about 40 people, including photographers, reporters and Elliot Leighton, the lawyer representing those claiming land stakes. On March 8, 1964, a small group of Sioux demonstrated by occupying the island for four hours. She planned and organized an occupation and a court action to obtain title to the island. Remembering the 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie, she and her cousin, Richard McKenzie, located a copy of the treaty and proposed that if the property was surplus land of the government, Sioux could claim it. In 1963, Belva Cottier, a Rosebud Sioux social worker living in the San Francisco Bay Area, read an article that the Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary was to be closed and the property given to the City of San Francisco. Oakes was shot to death in 1972, and the American Indian Movement was later targeted by the federal government and the FBI in COINTELPRO operations. The Occupation of Alcatraz had a brief effect on federal Indian Termination policies and established a precedent for Indian activism. As Alcatraz penitentiary had been closed on March 21, 1963, and the island had been declared surplus federal property in 1964, a number of Red Power activists felt that the island qualified for a reclamation by Indians. and the Lakota tribe, all retired, abandoned, or out-of-use federal land was to be returned to the Indigenous peoples who once occupied it.

IAT claimed that, under the Treaty of Fort Laramie between the U.S. The protest group chose the name Indians of All Tribes (IAT) for themselves.

The group lived on the island together until the protest was forcibly ended by the U.S. The protest was led by Richard Oakes, LaNada Means, and others, while John Trudell served as spokesman. The Occupation of Alcatraz (Novem– June 11, 1971) was a 19-month long protest when 89 Native Americans and their supporters occupied Alcatraz Island.

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