Red Cloud: The Native American Leader Who Waged War Against The Gold Rush
Heyn Photo/Denver Public LibraryChief Red Cloud successfully resisted multiple developments of the Bozeman Trail in Montana territory.
Red Cloud was not only fierce in his confrontations with white settlers, but he was also resourceful in galvanizing Native American warriors against them. Uniting his Oglala Lakota people with the Northern Cheyenne and Arapaho, Red Cloud resisted white expansion into Wyoming and Montana so thoroughly that the effort became known as Red Cloud’s War.
Born Mahpíya-Lúta in 1822 in modern-day Nebraska, Red Cloud was named after an ominous weather event. He was raised by his mother Walks as She Thinks and his father Lone Man. The boy was just five years old when his father died and his mother’s uncle Smoke forged him into a warrior.
Red Cloud was determined to defend the Oglala Lakota against any threats, whether they came from white settlers or rival tribes. He distinguished himself as a young warrior in battles against the Pawnees, Crows, Utes, and Shoshones. But perhaps his most impressive feat was his ability to unite a diverse group of Indigenous people against white settlers.
With multiple victories to his name, Red Cloud displayed such strength and intelligence that his Oglala Lakota peers decided to make him a chief. Indeed, Red Cloud’s determination to protect their native lands from white settlers appeared virtually unmatched — and would soon be put to the test.
The Montana gold rush of the 1860s saw settlers build the Bozeman Trail. It spanned from Fort Laramie in Wyoming to the gold-rich fields of Montana and would also serve as a shortcut to the Oregon Trail. Enraged by this encroachment, Red Cloud took matters into his own hands in 1865.
By uniting tribes against the soldiers, miners, and settlers constructing forts along the Bozeman Trail, Red Cloud led a triumphant war against the controversial project. He got the U.S. to abandon the unfinished road and sign the Second Treaty of Fort Laramie — which also restored parts of South Dakota, Wyoming, and Montana back to Indigenous people.
Years later, Red Cloud aged into an elder statesman who routinely traveled to Washington, D.C. to lobby for Native American rights. He even met President Ulysses S. Grant in the 1870s and turned down $25,000 for his men to stop hunting near the Platte River in Dakota Territory. Considered honorable among his people until the end, he died in 1909 — at 88 years old.
