Red Cloud

Red Cloud (Lakota: Maȟpíya Lúta; c. 1822 – December 10, 1909) was a leader of the Oglala Lakota from 1865 to 1909.[1] He was one of the most capable Native American opponents whom the United States Army faced in the western territories. He led the La

Red Cloud was born close to the forks of the Platte River, near the modern-day city of North Platte, Nebraska.[3] His mother, Walks as She Thinks, was an Oglala Lakota and his father, Lone Man, was a Brulé Lakota leader.[4] They came from two of the seven major Lakota divisions. As was traditional among the matrilineal Lakota, in which the children belonged to the mother's clan and people, Red Cloud was mentored as a boy by his maternal uncle, Chief Old Smoke (1774–1864). Chief Old Smoke played a major role in the boy's childhood, as the leader of the Bad Faces.[4] He brought Red Cloud into the Smoke household when the boy's parents died around 1825. At a young age, Red Cloud fought against neighboring Pawnee and Crow bands, gaining much war experience. Warriorship Red Cloud's War Main article: Red Cloud's War Red Cloud's War was the name the U.S. Army gave to a series of conflicts fought with Native American Plains tribes in the Wyoming and Montana Territories. The battles were waged between the Northern Cheyenne, allied with Lakota and Arapaho bands, against the Army from 1866 to 1868. In December 1866, the Native American allies attacked and defeated a United States unit in what they would call the Fetterman Massacre (or the Battle of the Hundred Slain), which resulted in the most U.S. casualties of any Plains battle up to that point.[5] Red Cloud Captain William J. Fetterman was sent from Fort Phil Kearny with two civilians and 79 cavalry and infantrymen to chase away a small Native American war party that had attacked a wood-gathering party days before. Captain Frederick Brown accompanied Fetterman; the two were confident in their troops and anxious to go to battle with the Native Americans. They disobeyed orders to stay behind the Lodge Trail Ridge and pursued a small decoy band of warriors led by a Native American on an injured horse. The decoy was the prominent warrior Crazy Horse. Fetterman and his troops followed the decoy into an ambush by more than 2,000 Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapaho. Combined Native American forces suffered only 14 casualties, while they killed the entire 81-man U.S. detachment. Following this battle, a U.S. peace commission toured the Plains in 1867 to gather information to help bring about peace among the tribes and with the U.S. Finding that the Native Americans had been provoked by white encroachment and competition for resources, the commission recommended assigning definite territories to the Plains tribes. The Lakota, Northern Cheyenne, Arapaho, and other bands settled for peace with the U.S. under the Treaty of Fort Laramie. The U.S. agreed to abandon its forts and withdraw from Lakota territory. Treaty of 1868 Original caption: “Red Cloud, in the Great Hall of the Cooper Institute, surrounded by the Indian delegation of braves and squaws [sic], addressing a New York audience on the wrongs done to his people” The treaty established the Great Sioux Reservation, covering the territory of West River, west of the Missouri River in present-day Nebraska (which had been admitted as a state in 1867), and including parts of South Dakota. 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. Parker (a Seneca and U.S. Army General), and President Ulysses S. Grant. In 1871, the government established the Red Cloud Agency on the Platte River, downstream from Fort Laramie. By 1874 it had been moved to Nebraska, with Fort Robinson located nearby. Red Cloud took his band to the agency (a predecessor of the Native American reservation), ready to receive government aid. Yet that aid was usually less than stipulated, and usually inferior in quality.[6] According to Charles A. Eastman (Ohiyesa) Red Cloud was the last to sign "..having refused to do so until all of the forts within their territory should be vacated. All of his demands were acceded to, the new road abandoned, the garrisons withdrawn, and the new treaty distinctly stated that the Black Hills and the Big Horn were Indian countries, set apart for their perpetual occupancy and that no white man should enter that region without the consent of the Sioux. ... Scarcely was this treaty signed, however, when gold was discovered in the Black Hills, and the popular cry was: "Remove the Indians!"... The government, at first, entered some small protest, just enough to "save its face"... but there was no serious attempt to prevent the wholesale violation of the treaty and the loss of the Black Hills."[7]