Red Cloud

Red Cloud, Maypiya Luta, Ogata Lakota Sioux chief (1821-1909).  

Great warrior, diplomat and articulate voice for his people.  

Born near the forks of the Platte river, close to where Pleasant Gray died of cholera.  Spent much of his youth as a warrior fighting neighboring Pawnee and Crow.  In 1866 he organized the most successful war against the United States by an indian nation.  This forced the United States to sign  the Fort Laramie Treaty which mandated that the United States abandon its forts and guarantee the Lakota possession of what is now the western half of South Dakota, along with most of Montana and Wyoming.  

What followed was a long struggle with Pine Ridge Indian Agent Valentine McGillycuddy over the distribution of governement food and supplies and the control of the Indian police force.  McGillycuddy was eventually dismissed.  Red Cloud continued to fight to preserve the autoonomy of his people and his authority as chief.  He opposed leasing Lakota lands to whites, and vainly fought allotment of Indian reservations into individual tracts under the 1887 Dawes Act.  He died in 1909, but his long and complex life endures as testimony to the variety of ways in which Indians resisted their conquest.

In this photo Red Cloud is 77, nearly blind, and wearing a Crow war shirt, rather than one of Sioux origin.

The little airplanes of the heart

with their brave little propellers

What can they do

against the winds of darkness

even as butterflies are beaten back

by hurricanes

yet do not die

They lie in wait wherever

they can hide and hang

their fine wings folded

and when the killer-wind dies

they flutter forth again

into the new-blown light

live as leaves

Lawrence Ferlinghetti