Red Cloud

Red Cloud (c. 1822–1909) was an Oglala Lakota leader who resisted U.S. expansion in the Powder River country and negotiated the 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie.

Oglala: The Oglala are a Lakota people whose historic homeland includes parts of the northern Great Plains. Red Cloud belonged to this Lakota division and drew authority from its communities.
Red Cloud's War: Red Cloud’s War was a conflict from 1866 to 1868 between Lakota, Cheyenne, and Arapaho forces and the United States. Red Cloud’s resistance centered on this campaign against forts and travel along the Bozeman Trail.
Spotted Tail: Spotted Tail was a Brulé Lakota leader who pursued diplomacy with the United States during the nineteenth century. His parallel leadership shows that Lakota diplomacy included strategies beyond Red Cloud’s resistance.
Great Sioux Reservation: The Great Sioux Reservation was a large reservation established by the 1868 treaty across much of present-day South Dakota. The treaty’s reservation provisions formalized a major part of Red Cloud’s diplomatic achievement.
Lakota people: The Lakota are an Indigenous people of the Great Plains, part of the larger Oceti Sakowin confederacy. Oglala identity and Red Cloud’s political world belong to this broader people.
Fetterman Fight: The Fetterman Fight was an 1866 battle near Fort Phil Kearny in which Indigenous forces killed 81 U.S. soldiers. This major Lakota victory demonstrated the cost of maintaining U.S. forts on the trail.
Crazy Horse: Crazy Horse was an Oglala Lakota war leader who fought U.S. expansion in the northern Plains. He belonged to the same community but became prominent in later resistance campaigns.
Black Hills: The Black Hills are a mountain region in present-day South Dakota sacred to the Lakota and other Indigenous peoples. Their later seizure violated treaty protections won during Red Cloud’s era.
Oceti Sakowin: The Oceti Sakowin, or Seven Council Fires, is a confederacy of Dakota, Nakota, and Lakota peoples. It situates the Lakota communities whose alliances shaped the region’s politics.
Fort Phil Kearny: Fort Phil Kearny was a U.S. Army post established in 1866 along the Bozeman Trail in present-day Wyoming. Its closure became a central condition of the settlement Red Cloud sought.

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