Military Prisoners were the First Inmates
The Gold Rush of the 1840s turned San Francisco into a prosperous place, and Alcatraz was dedicated to military use. The U.S. Army would incarcerate military prisoners inside what was the new fortress in the late 1850s. During the Civil War, prisoners were “Union deserters” and “Confederate sympathizers.”
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The prison also held Native Americans who had land disagreements with the government, American soldiers who deserted to the Filipino cause during the Spanish-American War, and Chinese civilians who resisted the Army during the Boxer Rebellion.