Army Soldiers

Army Soldiers. Alcatraz Landing. , Military Outcasts and Prisoners of War , Prisoners were kept at the Pacific Branch, U.S. Military Prison/Disciplinary Barracks from 1861 to 1934. The U.S. Army sent its own troublesome soldiers – thieves, drunks, and deserters – to desolate Alcatraz Island for confinement and rehabilitation. During this time, alongside these military outcasts, the government also imprisoned enemies who ranged from Confederate spies to Native American rebels to Hindu-German conspirators. During World War I, conscientious objectors were kept on the island., Hard Labor , Army soldiers guarding the island did not permit idleness. They ordered Alcatraz prisoners to do backbreaking work like smashing rocks, building roads, and expanding the prison complex., In the early 1900s, the Army began to increase the size of the prison and replace many of the original fire-prone Alcatraz facilities with permanent concrete buildings. During periods of large prisoner populations, other army forts around the Bay were able to utilize the surplus labor., Prisoners of Culture , During the late 19th century, soldiers imprisoned aggressive American Indian leaders who contested the government’s policies of forcing them onto reservations, the seizure of their ancestral lands, and forced assimilation., The army also detained passive Indian resisters from the Paiute, Hopi, and other tribes. The military separated them from their families, brought them to Alcatraz, and tried to coerce them into conforming to white culture., ”The overseer in charge switched on the electric light and took me down a flight of stairs to the basement, hollowed out of the rock under the prison…in complete darkness.” , - Philip Grosser, Conscientious Objector, 1918