Red cloud sioux biography
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Red Cloud
Leader of the Oglala Lakota (1822–1909)
For other uses, see Red Cloud (disambiguation).
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 Lakota to victory over the United States during Red Cloud's War, establishing the Lakota as the only nation to defeat the United States on American soil.[2] The largest action of the war was the 1866 Fetterman Fight, with 81 US soldiers killed; it was the worst military defeat suffered by the US Army on the Great Plains until the Battle of the Little Bighorn 10 years later.
After signing the Treaty of Fort Laramie (1868), Red Cloud led his people in the transition to reservation life. Some of his opponents mistakenly thought of him as the overall leader of the Sioux groups (Dakota, Lakota, and Nakota), but
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Red Cloud
Perhaps no Indian leader of the mid-nineteenth century was as well known in his time as the great Lakota Sioux Red Cloud. Although his fame later was eclipsed by that of the legendary heroes who crushed Custer's Seventh Cavalry at the Battle of the Little Bighorn-Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse-Red Cloud's active leadership of his people, and his representation of the Sioux in vital negotiations with the U.S. government, survived the demise of the other leaders by many years.
Red Cloud was not born to leadership. He earned it. In his early years he gained a reputation for fierceness as a warrior and as a tactician against both whites and other Indian tribes. And in his middle years, his leadership against the U.S. Army in the Powder River country, his forcing the closure of the Bozeman Trail, and his strong pressure to negotiate the favorable outcome of the Treaty of Fort Laramie in 1868 made him the preeminent chief among the Sioux.
In his later years, Red Cloud was an in
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Chief Red Cloud and His Trips to Washington, D.C. in the 1870s
In the early 1870s Red Cloud, or Mahpíya Lúta, was a well-known Sioux warrior-statesman in Anglo-Indian politics and featured frequently in the news media. A review of The Evening Star for 1872 shows that Red Cloud was the most frequently mentioned individual Indian in this D.C. newspaper for that year. He was mentioned no less than 18 times and other Indians such as Spotted Tail were compared to him. He came to Washington, D.C. for the first time as part of a delegation in June 1870. Although he was persuaded to sit for Matthew B. Brady to be photographed, his reluctance resulted in a blurred image that was considered unusable and has never been located. When he returned to Washington for a second visit (May 25-June 3, 1872), three photographs were made of him by Alexander Gardner and at least one was also made by Matthew Brady's studio. One of the Gardner images was with William Blackmore, a wealthy