Native American Activist Russell Means Dies at 72, Known for Stand-off with Government at Wounded Knee

By Eileen Elliott

Oct 22 2012, 16:02 PM EDT

Lakota Sioux activist Russell Charles Means died Monday of esophageal cancer at his ranch on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, according to a statement released by his family. He was 72.

Means was the charismatic leader of the American Indian Movement (AIM), perhaps best known for leading a 72-day standoff with the U.S. government in the village of Wounded Knee, on Pine Ridge, in 1973.

Wounded Knee II, as it came to be known in the national media, was held on the site where 350 Sioux men women and children were massacred by the U.S. Calvary in December of 1890. Means and his supporters were demanding adherence to the original treaty signed between the Sioux and the government. He was shot by a Bureau of Indian Affairs officer before his arrest there.

Over the course of the following six years, Means survived four other shootings and was stabbed while serving a term in South Dakota's prison, according to the Gale Encyclopedia of Biography.

Means was born on November 10, 1939 on the Pine Ridge reservation. He moved to San Francisco at age three and attended California high schools where he "drifted into delinquency drugs, alcoholism and street fights," as reported by The New York Times. He travelled and worked odd jobs until 1969 when he took a job with the Rosebud Sioux tribal council in South Dakota.

Means later met Dennis Banks in Cleveland, co-founder of the American Indian Movement, and became the organization's national director in 1970.

In addition to Wounded Knee, Means' career is studded with what The Times referred to as "guerilla-tactic" protests calling attention to the U.S. government's mistreatment of Native Americans.

In 1987, Means lost a bid for the Libertarian Party nomination for U.S. President to Ron Paul, at the Democratic National Convention.

Means also had a presence on the screen. In 1992 he appeared in "The Last of the Mohicans" with Daniel Day-Lewis, and in 1994, "Natural Born Killers." More recently, he was the voice of Pocahontas's father in the popular Disney film by the same name, Reuters reported.

Means is survived by his fifth wife, Pearl Daniels, whom he married in 1999, as reported by The Times.