Chief Red Clouds War
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Tom went to all the historical societies and university libraries out west and found so many letters. Some of the documents were so fragile that we had to handle them with gloves. Reading these journals was like interviewing living people. It was an amazing discovery. Would the Plains Indians have survived without the trading posts and contact with whites? They probably would have survived much better! The trading posts were very destructive to them. They seduced the Indians from finding their own food and clothing, which they had always done.
It also introduced alcohol to them and brought diseases they had no immunity from, like smallpox and cholera. Once he retired as a military leader and after he could see the growing military power of the white people, he wanted to be sure that the Lakota Sioux and their children had education and medical care.
The United States named the war after Red Cloud, a prominent Oglala Lakota chief allied with the Cheyenne and Arapaho. The United States army had built. Red Cloud was a respected war leader of the Lakota Sioux Tribe. Gold was discovered in Montana in To reach Montana, gold prospectors began to use a.
He was an advocate in Washington for funds and other resources to come back to the reservation. The Lakota Sioux name for the Black Hills is paha sapa. The area straddles the border between Wyoming and Southwestern South Dakota. They considered it their sacred territory—where they came from. Tribal leaders have been descendants of Red Cloud, the leader of the Oglala Sioux, who was considered their leader until he died in His son, Lyman, was supposed to take over as leader, but died two weeks later.
I have heard there is now a vacuum in terms of their spiritual figurehead. Quite a few still do. Though some also attend school outside of the reservation and marry outside, there are still grandchildren and great-great- grandchildren living there. Well, there were so many things that surprised me.
For example, we have the Alamo, the Battle of Big Horn and the Fetterman fight, which somehow had gotten lost in the mists of time. Another was old Jim Bridger, the self-taught trapper and explorer. He and Red Cloud lived almost parallel lives on this vast continent. During this period mapmakers described the vast interior of the country as the great American desert.
The Heart of Everything That Is: Chief Red Cloud’s Untold Story, Revealed
But during their lifetimes we annexed Texas, fixed the Canadian boundary, defeated Santa Ana and took over many of the western and northwestern states. All of a sudden we were becoming a nation, and at the same time Red Cloud was in charge of what whites considered a nation. So it was inevitable that these two nations were going to clash. And this was witnessed by Jim Bridger and Crazy Horse, among others of the period.
I wonder to this day why he is not up there in the pantheon of Western pioneers. It still continues in the courts today, because we broke so many treaties. So why did two white guys think they could write about the history of American Indians? What drew you to the story of Red Cloud? Do they still live on the Pine Ridge reservation?
What surprised you the most in your research? The first major battle between the Sioux and American troops occurred in , near Fort Laramie. In the Grattan Massacre, Lieutenant J. Grattan and eighteen of his men were killed. Later that year, U.
In , Kansas and Nebraska were organized as territories and began the process for becoming states. Minnesota became a state in So many settlers had traveled across the Plains and Rockies to reach Oregon that it qualified for statehood in During the Civil War —65 , regular army troops were withdrawn from the Plains and replaced by state and territorial militia. When the state of Minnesota forced the Eastern Lakota out of the area in and , Red Cloud envisioned a similar fate for his people.
Army had begun to construct forts along the Bozeman Trail, which ran from the South Platte River in present-day Colorado through Wyoming and into Montana, where gold had been discovered.
Caravans of miners and settlers began to cross Sioux land. From to , while the U.
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But in Colorado, militia under Colonel John H. Chivington killed Cheyenne at Sand Creek in Under Red Cloud's leadership beginning in , the Sioux and their allies began a series of assaults on forts. Peace negotiations began in the spring of , but Red Cloud refused to participate after more American soldiers arrived in the region. Several tribes signed a treaty with the U. After engaging in a few assaults on forts, Red Cloud led a devastating attack in December just outside of Fort Phil Kearny in Wyoming that killed or scattered eighty men. Red Cloud informed the U.
Forts continued to be attacked and soldiers were kept on constant watch in what became known as Red Cloud's War. A peace commission was established and a treaty was negotiated and signed at Fort Laramie during the spring of Roads running from Wyoming into Montana and three forts built to protect them were to be closed. Red Cloud did not sign the treaty until U. By August , the forts along the Bozeman Trail were abandoned and Red Cloud agreed to stop fighting. He settled on a reservation called the Red Cloud Agency in Nebraska.
Red Cloud had signed the treaty after stating several objections, and the Sioux considered his objections part of the treaty. The treaty called for the government to provide building, medical, and other supplies to the Sioux, distributing them from Fort Randall on the Missouri River. Red Cloud objected and wanted Fort Laramie as the base for distribution.
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The conflict led Red Cloud on a journey to Washington, D. Grant —; served —77; see entry to negotiate for trading rights at Fort Laramie. While trading rights were granted, settlers continued to pour into the region and railroad lines were being constructed to bring more settlers to the frontier. When several new posts were built to protect the railroad and settlers, Red Cloud led the Teton Sioux in an alliance with the Cheyenne and part of the Arapaho in isolated acts of rebellion.
Meanwhile, in , General George Armstrong Custer — was ordered to the region.
Friends of the Little Bighorn. As a warrior and a statesman, Red Cloud's success in confrontations with the United States government marked him as one of the most important Lakota leaders of the nineteenth century. Carrington worried about his officers' tendency to blindly follow such Indian decoy parties. The treaty's remarkable provisions mandated that the United States abandon its forts along the Bozeman Trail and guarantee the Lakota their possession of what is now the Western half of South Dakota, including the Black Hills, along with much of Montana and Wyoming. Here are some words from his final speech. Thousands of people in all three of those tribes were not in the Powder River country with Red Cloud; others stayed aloof from warfare. I have heard there is now a vacuum in terms of their spiritual figurehead.
As hostilities continued, Custer explored the Black Hills of South Dakota and reported that gold was present. A new rush of miners came to the region. Towns were established in land guaranteed by treaty to the Sioux. Red Cloud again traveled to Washington, D. The offer was refused by Red Cloud and two other chiefs representing their people. In January , Custer began aggressive action against Native Americans found in lands outside the territorial boundaries defined by treaties.
He split his troops into three columns to encircle the camp, with just over two hundred men following him in. Custer and his men were quickly surrounded by well-armed Native Americans, who routed Custer's force—killing all of them. Red Cloud did not participate in the battle, but he was accused of supporting the campaign and was later arrested.
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Custer had been under orders to wait for additional troops. Those troops soon arrived and many battles were fought in and after the Battle of Little Big Horn, also known as Custer's Last Stand. It was the beginning of the end of Native American power on the Plains and in the far west. Representing his people, Red Cloud negotiated with government officials over relocation of agencies. Red Cloud refused to move his people to a location in Nebraska on the Missouri River and finally compromised in to a location in southwestern South Dakota named the Pine Ridge Agency.
Throughout the s, Red Cloud struggled for autonomy right to self-governance with Pine Ridge Indian agents government supervisors assigned to specific locales. He fought to preserve the authority of chiefs, opposed leasing Lakota lands to whites, and resisted the Dawes Act , which allotted plots of land on Native American reservations to individuals.
Much of the land ended up being sold, stolen, or swindled away from Native American control. The battle at Wounded Knee Creek commonly called the Wounded Knee Massacre on the Pine Ridge Agency, in which Lakotas were killed, was effectively the last battle of the frontier and the end of a unique way of life for the Sioux.
By the time of the Wounded Knee Massacre, Red Cloud had lost support for not backing what proved to be a final stand by the Sioux.
He lived the rest of his life at Pine Ridge, where he was occasionally visited by historians interested in his life and the events in which he participated. He told Warren K. Now I, who used to control warriors, must tell Washington when I am hungry. I must beg for that which I own. Red Cloud converted to Roman Catholicism late in life. He died December 10, , and was buried in the cemetery at Holy Rosary Mission with the full rites of the Catholic Church. A simple monument marks his grave. Warrior-Statesman of the Lakota Sioux.
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