Date of Award

4-1-1995

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Department

History

Abstract

In the early 1980s five northern Minnesota men were arrested and convicted of an assortment of criminal offenses including possession of illegal or unregistered firearms, conspiring to rob the bank in Dunseith, North Dakota, and threatening the life of an Internal Revenue Service employee. These men were the core of a right-wing militant tax protest and anti-government movement in the Bemidji, Minnesota area.This study, drawn from personal and telephone interviews, court and other public records, and the literature written and disseminated by the men themselves, helps clarify the ideological, political, financial, and religious motivations of the protesters, and explains how and why the group carried on their activities when, where, and in the manner that they did.The study concludes that the group's efforts were initiated and orchestrated primarily by one man, Wilhelm Schmitt, who extracted a core group of followers from the politically and religiously conservative factions in the Bemidji area. Schmitt received a twenty-six year prison term for his part in the matter.

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