Biography
Mike Sturdevant was arrested on February 1, 1975.
Menominee Warrior Society leader who, with his brothers, led the 1975 armed occupation of the abandoned Alexian Brothers novitiate at Gresham, Wisconsin to reclaim Menominee land. Sentenced to six years in prison for his role in the 34-day takeover. Documented in PFOC Breakthrough magazine.
Michael Sturdevant was a member of the Menominee Warrior Society and one of the leaders prosecuted after its 1975 takeover of the Alexian Brothers Novitiate. Nicknamed "the General," he led the occupation. The Wisconsin Supreme Court affirmed his conviction for aiding and abetting burglary (Sturdevant v. State, 1977), rejecting his argument that the state lacked jurisdiction to try an enrolled Menominee; he was sentenced to eight years and was one of only three of the charged leaders to serve prison time. He had earlier been a federal defendant from the 1973 Wounded Knee occupation and was acquitted in that case. He later worked as a Menominee tribal tax commissioner and a reporter for the Menominee Tribal News, and died in 2005. In the early hours of January 1, 1975, members of the Menominee Warrior Society — an armed group of younger Menominee men inspired by the American Indian Movement's actions at Alcatraz and Wounded Knee — seized the vacant Alexian Brothers Novitiate, a former Catholic monastery near Gresham, Wisconsin. Coming barely a year after the Menominee Restoration Act reversed the tribe's 1950s "termination," they demanded the unused estate be deeded to the impoverished tribe for use as a hospital or school, citing treaty and reversion rights. The 34-day standoff drew some 800–2,200 Wisconsin National Guard troops (deployed by Governor Patrick Lucey, who refused to order an assault) and the support of actor Marlon Brando, who called the occupiers "prisoners of war." About 39 Warriors surrendered on February 3, 1975 after the Alexian Brothers agreed to transfer the property for $1; the tribe never gained lasting possession of it.
Sturdevant represented himself when his Alexian Brothers Abbey trial began in Dodge County in April 1976. Judge Gergen refused the proposed treaty-rights hearing. By July, Sturdevant had been convicted and sentenced to eight years and was imprisoned at Waupun while preparing an appeal.
New American Movement, volume V number 9, May 1976, PDF page 10; New American Movement, volume V number 11, July–August 1976, PDF page 6.
Separate Wounded Knee prosecution
United States v. Jaramillo names Michael Eugene Sturdevant as a defendant prosecuted over an alleged March 9, 1973 attempt to enter Wounded Knee. Chief Judge Urbom entered an acquittal after a bench trial on August 14, 1974; Duane L. Nelson appeared as special prosecutor. The government had not proved beyond a reasonable doubt the required lawfulness of officers’ performance. The court expressly declined to find that the officers violated the Posse Comitatus Act. This federal proceeding is separate from Sturdevant’s later Alexian Brothers cases and supplies no additional measured custody interval.
United States v. Jaramillo, 380 F. Supp. 1375 (D. Neb. 1974), printed pages 1376, 1381.
