Red Cloud
Encyclopedia
Red Cloud (1822 – December 10, 1909) was a war leader and the head Chief of the Oglala Lakota (Sioux
). His reign was from 1868 to 1909. One of the most capable Native American opponents the United States Army faced, he led a successful conflict in 1866–1868 known as Red Cloud's War
over control of the Powder River Country
in northeastern Wyoming
and southern Montana
. After the Treaty of Fort Laramie (1868)
, he led his people in the important transition to reservation
life. Some of his US opponents thought of him as overall chief of the Sioux, but this was mistaken. The large tribe had several major divisions and was highly decentralized. Bands among the Oglala and other divisions operated independently, even though some individual leaders such as Red Cloud were renowned as warriors.
, near the modern-day city of North Platte, Nebraska
. His mother, Walks As She Thinks was an Oglala Lakota
and his father was a Brulé
Lakota Chief Lone Man, two of the major seven Lakota divisions. As was traditional among the matrilineal Lakota, Red Cloud was raised by his maternal uncle, Old Chief Smoke
(1774–1864), who played a prominent and major role in his early-mid life and brought him in to the Smoke Household when his parents died around 1825. At a young age, he fought against neighboring Pawnee and Crow
, gaining much war experience.
and Montana
territories. The battles were waged between the Northern Cheyenne
, allied with Lakota and Arapaho
bands, against the United States Army
between 1866 and 1868. In December 1866, the Native American allies achieved what the whites would call the Fetterman Massacre (or the Battle of the Hundred Slain); it was the event on the Plains to that point with the highest US fatalities.
Captain William J. Fetterman
was sent from Fort Phil Kearny
with two civilians and 79 cavalry and infantrymen to chase away a small Indian war party that had attacked a wood party days before. Captain Frederick Brown accompanied Fetterman; the two were confident in their troops and anxious to go to battle with the Indians. They disobeyed orders to stay behind the Lodge Trail Ridge and pursued a small decoy band of warriors, led by an Indian on an apparently injured horse. The decoy was the prominent warrior Crazy Horse
. Fetterman and his troops followed the decoy into an ambush of over 2,000 Sioux, Cheyenne
, and Arapaho. Combined Indian forces suffered only 14 casualties, while they killed the entire 81-man US detachment.
Following this battle, a US peace commission toured the Plains in 1867 to gather information to help bring about peace among the tribes and with the US. Finding that much American Indian wrath had been provoked by white encroachment and competition for resources, the commission recommended assigning definite territories to the Plains tribes. The Northern Cheyenne, Lakota and Arapaho bands, and others settled for peace with the US under the Treaty of Fort Laramie
. The US agreed to abandon its forts and withdraw completely from Lakota territory.
(a Seneca
Iroquois and U.S. Army General) and President Ulysses S. Grant
. In 1871, the Red Cloud Agency
was established on the Platte River, downstream from Fort Laramie. As outlined in the Treaty of 1868, the agency staff were responsible for issuing weekly rations to the Oglala as well as providing the annually distributed supply of annuity goods. Red Cloud took his band to the agency (a predecessor of the Indian reservation
) and tried to help them in the transition to a different way of life. In the fall of 1873, the agency was removed to the upper White River in northwestern Nebraska.
In 1874, General George Armstrong Custer
led a reconnaissance mission into Sioux territory that reported gold in the Black Hills
, an area held sacred by the local Indians. Formerly, the Army tried to keep miners out but did not succeed; the threat of violence grew. In May 1875, Sioux delegations headed by Red Cloud, Spotted Tail
, and Lone Horn
traveled to Washington, D.C. in a last-ditch attempt to persuade President Grant to honor existing treaties and stem the flow of miners into their lands. The Indians met on various occasions with Grant, Secretary of the Interior Delano, and Commissioner of Indian Affairs Smith, who finally informed them on May 27 that Congress was ready to resolve the matter by giving the tribes $25,000 for their land and resettling them into Indian Territory
. The delegates refused to sign such a treaty, with Spotted Tail responding to the proposition by saying: “When I was here before, the President gave me my country, and I put my stake down in a good place, and there I want to stay.... You speak of another country, but it is not my country; it does not concern me, and I want nothing to do with it. I was not born there.... If it is such a good country, you ought to send the white men now in our country there and let us alone.”
Although Red Cloud was unsuccessful in finding a peaceful solution, he did not take part in the Lakota war of 1876-1877 led by Tȟašúŋke Witkó (Crazy Horse
) and Tȟatȟáŋka Íyotake (Sitting Bull
).
In the fall of 1877 the Red Cloud Agency was removed to the upper Missouri River
. The following year it was removed to the forks of the White River
, in present-day South Dakota, where it was renamed the Pine Ridge Reservation.
led government agents to obtain the necessary signatures for approval through subterfuge, such as obtaining the signatures of children. He negotiated strongly with Indian Agent
s such as Dr. Valentine McGillycuddy. In 1887 he opposed the Dawes Act
, which allocated plots of land to heads of families and broke up communal tribal holdings, generating "excess land" which the US government sold to emigrant settlers.
Red Cloud became an important leader of the Lakota as they transitioned from the freedom of the plains to the confinement of the reservation system. His trip to Washington, DC had convinced him of the number and power of European Americans, and he believed the Oglala had to seek peace.
He outlived all the other major Sioux leaders of the Indian Wars. He died in 1909 at the age of 87 on the Pine Ridge Reservation, where he was buried. Announcements of his death and recognition of his contributions were made in major newspapers across the country. As had been typical of the US perception during Red Cloud's prominence in war, the article in The New York Times mistakenly described him as leader of all the Sioux bands and tribes. While he was a prominent leader, the Lakota were highly decentralized and never had one overall leader, especially of the major divisions, such as Oglala and Brulé.
Red Cloud was among the Indians photographed by Edward S. Curtis
. In 2000, he was posthumously selected for induction into the Nebraska Hall of Fame
. He has been honored by the United States Postal Service
with a 10¢ Great Americans series
postage stamp
.
Note: Chief Red Cloud's reign; 1868–1909, Chief Jack Red Cloud's reign; 1909–1928, Chief James Red Cloud's reign; 1928–1960, (to his Brother, Charles) Chief Charles Red Cloud's reign; 1960–1979, Chief Oliver Red Cloud's reign; 1979–present.
Oliver Red Cloud (90 years old), is the fourth generation direct descendant of Chief Red Cloud (1822–1909). Oliver is the head Chief of the Oglala Lakota Sioux people and respected Spokesman for the Lakota Sioux Nation. He also is the Chairman of the Black Hills Sioux Nation Treaty Council of today.
Sioux
The Sioux are Native American and First Nations people in North America. The term can refer to any ethnic group within the Great Sioux Nation or any of the nation's many language dialects...
). His reign was from 1868 to 1909. One of the most capable Native American opponents the United States Army faced, he led a successful conflict in 1866–1868 known as Red Cloud's War
Red Cloud's War
Red Cloud's War was an armed conflict between the Lakota, Northern Cheyenne, and Arapaho and the United States in the Wyoming Territory and the Montana Territory from 1866 to 1868. The war was fought over control of the Powder River Country in north central present day Wyoming...
over control of the Powder River Country
Powder River Country
The Powder River Country refers to an area of the Great Plains in northeastern Wyoming in the United States. The area is loosely defined between the Bighorn Mountains and the Black Hills, in the upper drainage areas of the Powder, Tongue, and Little Bighorn rivers.During the late 1860s, the area...
in northeastern Wyoming
Wyoming
Wyoming is a state in the mountain region of the Western United States. The western two thirds of the state is covered mostly with the mountain ranges and rangelands in the foothills of the Eastern Rocky Mountains, while the eastern third of the state is high elevation prairie known as the High...
and southern Montana
Montana
Montana is a state in the Western United States. The western third of Montana contains numerous mountain ranges. Smaller, "island ranges" are found in the central third of the state, for a total of 77 named ranges of the Rocky Mountains. This geographical fact is reflected in the state's name,...
. After the Treaty of Fort Laramie (1868)
Treaty of Fort Laramie (1868)
The Treaty of Fort Laramie was an agreement between the United States and the Oglala, Miniconjou, and Brulé bands of Lakota people, Yanktonai Dakota, and Arapaho Nation signed in 1868 at Fort Laramie in the Wyoming Territory, guaranteeing to the Lakota ownership of the Black Hills, and further...
, he led his people in the important transition to reservation
Indian reservation
An American Indian reservation is an area of land managed by a Native American tribe under the United States Department of the Interior's Bureau of Indian Affairs...
life. Some of his US opponents thought of him as overall chief of the Sioux, but this was mistaken. The large tribe had several major divisions and was highly decentralized. Bands among the Oglala and other divisions operated independently, even though some individual leaders such as Red Cloud were renowned as warriors.
Early life
Red Cloud was born close to the forks of the Platte RiverPlatte River
The Platte River is a major river in the state of Nebraska and is about long. Measured to its farthest source via its tributary the North Platte River, it flows for over . The Platte River is a tributary of the Missouri River, which in turn is a tributary of the Mississippi River which flows to...
, near the modern-day city of North Platte, Nebraska
North Platte, Nebraska
North Platte is a city in and the county seat of Lincoln County, Nebraska, United States. It is located in the southwestern part of the state, along Interstate 80, at the confluence of the North and South Platte Rivers forming the Platte River...
. His mother, Walks As She Thinks was an Oglala Lakota
Oglala Lakota
The Oglala Lakota or Oglala Sioux are one of the seven subtribes of the Lakota people; along with the Nakota and Dakota, they make up the Great Sioux Nation. A majority of the Oglala live on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, the eighth-largest Native American reservation in the...
and his father was a Brulé
Brulé
The Brulé are one of the seven branches or bands of the Teton Lakota Sioux American Indian nation. They are known as Sičháŋǧu Oyáte , or "Burnt Thighs Nation," and so, were called Brulé by the French...
Lakota Chief Lone Man, two of the major seven Lakota divisions. As was traditional among the matrilineal Lakota, Red Cloud was raised by his maternal uncle, Old Chief Smoke
Old Chief Smoke
Old Chief Smoke , an original Oglala Sioux head chief.-Background:Smoke's mother Looking Walker Woman was Teton Oglala Lakota, and his father, Body Parts, was Teton Sihásapa Lakota. He was the brother to White Cow Woman and Walks As She Thinks...
(1774–1864), who played a prominent and major role in his early-mid life and brought him in to the Smoke Household when his parents died around 1825. At a young age, he fought against neighboring Pawnee and Crow
Crow Nation
The Crow, also called the Absaroka or Apsáalooke, are a Siouan people of Native Americans who historically lived in the Yellowstone River valley, which extends from present-day Wyoming, through Montana and into North Dakota. They now live on a reservation south of Billings, Montana and in several...
, gaining much war experience.
Red Cloud's War
Red Cloud's War was the name the US Army gave to a series of conflicts fought with American Indian Plains tribes in the WyomingWyoming Territory
The Territory of Wyoming was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from July 25, 1868, until July 10, 1890, when it was admitted to the Union as the State of Wyoming. Cheyenne was the territorial capital...
and Montana
Montana Territory
The Territory of Montana was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from May 28, 1864, until November 8, 1889, when it was admitted to the Union as the State of Montana.-History:...
territories. The battles were waged between the Northern Cheyenne
Cheyenne
Cheyenne are a Native American people of the Great Plains, who are of the Algonquian language family. The Cheyenne Nation is composed of two united tribes, the Só'taeo'o and the Tsétsêhéstâhese .The Cheyenne are thought to have branched off other tribes of Algonquian stock inhabiting lands...
, allied with Lakota and Arapaho
Arapaho
The Arapaho are a tribe of Native Americans historically living on the eastern plains of Colorado and Wyoming. They were close allies of the Cheyenne tribe and loosely aligned with the Sioux. Arapaho is an Algonquian language closely related to Gros Ventre, whose people are seen as an early...
bands, against the United States Army
United States Army
The United States Army is the main branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S. military, and is one of seven U.S. uniformed services...
between 1866 and 1868. In December 1866, the Native American allies achieved what the whites would call the Fetterman Massacre (or the Battle of the Hundred Slain); it was the event on the Plains to that point with the highest US fatalities.
Captain William J. Fetterman
William J. Fetterman
William Judd Fetterman was an officer in the United States Army during the American Civil War and the subsequent Red Cloud's War on the Great Plains. Fetterman and his immediate command were killed during the Fetterman massacre....
was sent from Fort Phil Kearny
Fort Phil Kearny
Fort Phil Kearny was an outpost of the United States Army that existed in the late 1860s in present-day northeastern Wyoming along the Bozeman Trail. Construction began Friday July 13, 1866 by Companies A, C, E and H of the 2nd Battalion, 18th Infantry, under the direction of the regimental...
with two civilians and 79 cavalry and infantrymen to chase away a small Indian war party that had attacked a wood party days before. Captain Frederick Brown accompanied Fetterman; the two were confident in their troops and anxious to go to battle with the Indians. They disobeyed orders to stay behind the Lodge Trail Ridge and pursued a small decoy band of warriors, led by an Indian on an apparently injured horse. The decoy was the prominent warrior Crazy Horse
Crazy Horse
Crazy Horse was a Native American war leader of the Oglala Lakota. He took up arms against the U.S...
. Fetterman and his troops followed the decoy into an ambush of over 2,000 Sioux, Cheyenne
Cheyenne
Cheyenne are a Native American people of the Great Plains, who are of the Algonquian language family. The Cheyenne Nation is composed of two united tribes, the Só'taeo'o and the Tsétsêhéstâhese .The Cheyenne are thought to have branched off other tribes of Algonquian stock inhabiting lands...
, and Arapaho. Combined Indian forces suffered only 14 casualties, while they killed the entire 81-man US detachment.
Following this battle, a US peace commission toured the Plains in 1867 to gather information to help bring about peace among the tribes and with the US. Finding that much American Indian wrath had been provoked by white encroachment and competition for resources, the commission recommended assigning definite territories to the Plains tribes. The Northern Cheyenne, Lakota and Arapaho bands, and others settled for peace with the US under the Treaty of Fort Laramie
Treaty of Fort Laramie (1868)
The Treaty of Fort Laramie was an agreement between the United States and the Oglala, Miniconjou, and Brulé bands of Lakota people, Yanktonai Dakota, and Arapaho Nation signed in 1868 at Fort Laramie in the Wyoming Territory, guaranteeing to the Lakota ownership of the Black Hills, and further...
. The US agreed to abandon its forts and withdraw completely from Lakota territory.
The Treaty of 1868
Uneasy relations between the expanding United States and the natives continued. In 1870, Red Cloud visited Washington D.C., and met with Commissioner of Indian Affairs Ely S. ParkerEly S. Parker
Ely Samuel Parker , was a Seneca attorney, engineer, and tribal diplomat. He was commissioned a lieutenant colonel during the American Civil War, when he served as adjutant to General Ulysses S. Grant. He wrote the final draft of the Confederate surrender terms at Appomattox...
(a Seneca
Seneca nation
The Seneca are a group of indigenous people native to North America. They were the nation located farthest to the west within the Six Nations or Iroquois League in New York before the American Revolution. While exact population figures are unknown, approximately 15,000 to 25,000 Seneca live in...
Iroquois and U.S. Army General) and President Ulysses S. Grant
Ulysses S. Grant
Ulysses S. Grant was the 18th President of the United States as well as military commander during the Civil War and post-war Reconstruction periods. Under Grant's command, the Union Army defeated the Confederate military and ended the Confederate States of America...
. In 1871, the Red Cloud Agency
Red Cloud Agency
The Red Cloud Agency was an Indian agency for the Oglala Lakota as well as the Northern Cheyenne and Arapaho, from 1871 to 1878. It was located at three different sites in Wyoming Territory , before being moved to South Dakota. It was then renamed the Pine Ridge Reservation.- Red Cloud Agency No...
was established on the Platte River, downstream from Fort Laramie. As outlined in the Treaty of 1868, the agency staff were responsible for issuing weekly rations to the Oglala as well as providing the annually distributed supply of annuity goods. Red Cloud took his band to the agency (a predecessor of the Indian reservation
Indian reservation
An American Indian reservation is an area of land managed by a Native American tribe under the United States Department of the Interior's Bureau of Indian Affairs...
) and tried to help them in the transition to a different way of life. In the fall of 1873, the agency was removed to the upper White River in northwestern Nebraska.
The Great Sioux War of 1876–1877
Red Cloud settled at the agency with his band by the fall of 1873. He soon became embroiled in a controversy with the new Indian agent, Dr. John J. Saville.In 1874, General George Armstrong Custer
George Armstrong Custer
George Armstrong Custer was a United States Army officer and cavalry commander in the American Civil War and the Indian Wars. Raised in Michigan and Ohio, Custer was admitted to West Point in 1858, where he graduated last in his class...
led a reconnaissance mission into Sioux territory that reported gold in the Black Hills
Black Hills
The Black Hills are a small, isolated mountain range rising from the Great Plains of North America in western South Dakota and extending into Wyoming, USA. Set off from the main body of the Rocky Mountains, the region is something of a geological anomaly—accurately described as an "island of...
, an area held sacred by the local Indians. Formerly, the Army tried to keep miners out but did not succeed; the threat of violence grew. In May 1875, Sioux delegations headed by Red Cloud, Spotted Tail
Spotted Tail
Siŋté Glešká was a Brulé Lakota tribal chief. Although a great warrior in his youth, and having taken part in the Grattan massacre, he declined to participate in Red Cloud's War, having become convinced of the pointlessness of opposing the white incursions into his homeland; he became a...
, and Lone Horn
Lone Horn
Lone Horn, , was chief to the Minneconjou Teton Lakota. He was father to Spotted Elk and uncle to Touch the Clouds, Roman Nose and Frog. He was uncle of Crazy Horse. He participated in the signing of the Treaty of Fort Laramie in 1868...
traveled to Washington, D.C. in a last-ditch attempt to persuade President Grant to honor existing treaties and stem the flow of miners into their lands. The Indians met on various occasions with Grant, Secretary of the Interior Delano, and Commissioner of Indian Affairs Smith, who finally informed them on May 27 that Congress was ready to resolve the matter by giving the tribes $25,000 for their land and resettling them into Indian Territory
Indian Territory
The Indian Territory, also known as the Indian Territories and the Indian Country, was land set aside within the United States for the settlement of American Indians...
. The delegates refused to sign such a treaty, with Spotted Tail responding to the proposition by saying: “When I was here before, the President gave me my country, and I put my stake down in a good place, and there I want to stay.... You speak of another country, but it is not my country; it does not concern me, and I want nothing to do with it. I was not born there.... If it is such a good country, you ought to send the white men now in our country there and let us alone.”
Although Red Cloud was unsuccessful in finding a peaceful solution, he did not take part in the Lakota war of 1876-1877 led by Tȟašúŋke Witkó (Crazy Horse
Crazy Horse
Crazy Horse was a Native American war leader of the Oglala Lakota. He took up arms against the U.S...
) and Tȟatȟáŋka Íyotake (Sitting Bull
Sitting Bull
Sitting Bull Sitting Bull Sitting Bull (Lakota: Tȟatȟáŋka Íyotake (in Standard Lakota Orthography), also nicknamed Slon-he or "Slow"; (c. 1831 – December 15, 1890) was a Hunkpapa Lakota Sioux holy man who led his people as a tribal chief during years of resistance to United States government policies...
).
In the fall of 1877 the Red Cloud Agency was removed to the upper Missouri River
Missouri River
The Missouri River flows through the central United States, and is a tributary of the Mississippi River. It is the longest river in North America and drains the third largest area, though only the thirteenth largest by discharge. The Missouri's watershed encompasses most of the American Great...
. The following year it was removed to the forks of the White River
White River (South Dakota)
The White River is a Missouri River tributary that flows through the U.S. states of Nebraska and South Dakota. The name stems from the water's white-gray color, a function of eroded sand, clay, and volcanic ash carried by the river...
, in present-day South Dakota, where it was renamed the Pine Ridge Reservation.
His last days
Red Cloud continued fighting for his people, even after being forced onto the reservation. In 1889 he opposed a treaty to sell more of the Sioux land. His steadfastness and that of Sitting BullSitting Bull
Sitting Bull Sitting Bull Sitting Bull (Lakota: Tȟatȟáŋka Íyotake (in Standard Lakota Orthography), also nicknamed Slon-he or "Slow"; (c. 1831 – December 15, 1890) was a Hunkpapa Lakota Sioux holy man who led his people as a tribal chief during years of resistance to United States government policies...
led government agents to obtain the necessary signatures for approval through subterfuge, such as obtaining the signatures of children. He negotiated strongly with Indian Agent
Indian agent
In United States history, an Indian agent was an individual authorized to interact with Native American tribes on behalf of the U.S. government.-Indian agents:*Leander Clark was agent for the Sac and Fox in Iowa beginning in 1866....
s such as Dr. Valentine McGillycuddy. In 1887 he opposed the Dawes Act
Dawes Act
The Dawes Act, adopted by Congress in 1887, authorized the President of the United States to survey Indian tribal land and divide the land into allotments for individual Indians. The Act was named for its sponsor, Senator Henry L. Dawes of Massachusetts. The Dawes Act was amended in 1891 and again...
, which allocated plots of land to heads of families and broke up communal tribal holdings, generating "excess land" which the US government sold to emigrant settlers.
Red Cloud became an important leader of the Lakota as they transitioned from the freedom of the plains to the confinement of the reservation system. His trip to Washington, DC had convinced him of the number and power of European Americans, and he believed the Oglala had to seek peace.
He outlived all the other major Sioux leaders of the Indian Wars. He died in 1909 at the age of 87 on the Pine Ridge Reservation, where he was buried. Announcements of his death and recognition of his contributions were made in major newspapers across the country. As had been typical of the US perception during Red Cloud's prominence in war, the article in The New York Times mistakenly described him as leader of all the Sioux bands and tribes. While he was a prominent leader, the Lakota were highly decentralized and never had one overall leader, especially of the major divisions, such as Oglala and Brulé.
Red Cloud was among the Indians photographed by Edward S. Curtis
Edward S. Curtis
Edward Sheriff Curtis was a photographer of the American West and of Native American peoples.-Early life:...
. In 2000, he was posthumously selected for induction into the Nebraska Hall of Fame
Nebraska Hall of Fame
Nebraska Hall of Fame is an official list of prominent Nebraskans compiled in accordance to state law. Members include:*Grace Abbott -- social reformer and social worker....
. He has been honored by the United States Postal Service
United States Postal Service
The United States Postal Service is an independent agency of the United States government responsible for providing postal service in the United States...
with a 10¢ Great Americans series
Great Americans series
The Great Americans series is a set of definitive stamps issued by the United States Postal Service, starting on December 27, 1980 with the 19¢ stamp depicting Sequoyah, and continuing through 2002, the final stamp being the 78¢ Alice Paul self-adhesive stamp. The series, noted for its simplicity...
postage stamp
Postage stamp
A postage stamp is a small piece of paper that is purchased and displayed on an item of mail as evidence of payment of postage. Typically, stamps are made from special paper, with a national designation and denomination on the face, and a gum adhesive on the reverse side...
.
Note: Chief Red Cloud's reign; 1868–1909, Chief Jack Red Cloud's reign; 1909–1928, Chief James Red Cloud's reign; 1928–1960, (to his Brother, Charles) Chief Charles Red Cloud's reign; 1960–1979, Chief Oliver Red Cloud's reign; 1979–present.
Oliver Red Cloud (90 years old), is the fourth generation direct descendant of Chief Red Cloud (1822–1909). Oliver is the head Chief of the Oglala Lakota Sioux people and respected Spokesman for the Lakota Sioux Nation. He also is the Chairman of the Black Hills Sioux Nation Treaty Council of today.
External links
- "Red Cloud", New Perspectives on The West, PBS, 2001
- Red Cloud - bronze sculpture
- Chief Red Cloud's Great-Great Grandson on Native American Issues - video interview by Democracy Now!Democracy Now!Democracy Now! and its staff have received several journalism awards, including the Gracie Award from American Women in Radio & Television; the George Polk Award for its 1998 radio documentary Drilling and Killing: Chevron and Nigeria's Oil Dictatorship, on the Chevron Corporation and the deaths of...