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Pawnee language test of Wikipedia at Wikimedia Incubator

Pawnee
Spoken in	United States
Region	North-central Oklahoma
Native speakers	4  (date missing)
Language family	Caddoan languages Northern Pawnee–Kitsai Pawnee languages Pawnee
Language codes
ISO 639-3	paw
Pre-contact distribution of Pawnee
This page contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters.

The Pawnee language is a Caddoan language spoken by some Pawnee Native Americans now located in north central Oklahoma. Their traditional historic lands were along the Platte River in what is now Nebraska. Once the language of thousands of Pawnees, today Pawnee is spoken by a shrinking number of elderly speakers. As more young people learn English as their first language, the status of Pawnee declines towards extinction.

Dialects[link]

Two important dialect divisions are evident in Pawnee: South Band and Skiri. The distinction between the two dialects rests on differences in their respective phonetic inventory and lexicon.

Sounds[link]

The sounds described in this section belong to the South Band dialect of Pawnee.

Consonants[link]

Pawnee has eight consonant phonemes, and according to one analysis of medial- and final-position glottal stops, one may posit a ninth consonant phoneme.

• /ʔ/ is predictable when it occurs in the middle of words. However, since /ʔ/ is not completely predictable at the ends of words, it may also need to be considered as a (phonemic) consonant.

Vowels[link]

Pawnee has four short vowel phonemes and four long counterparts (also phonemic).

Alphabet[link]

The Pawnee alphabet consists of 9 consonants and 8 vowels. The letters are relatively similar in pronunciation to their English counterparts.

Consonants[link]

Vowels[link]

Grammar[link]

Pawnee is a polysynthetic language and displays ergativity between nouns and verbs.

References[link]

• American Indian Studies Research Institute. (2008). Dictionary Database: Pawnee (Skiri and Southband dialects).
• American Indian Studies Research Institute. (2001). Pawnee Alphabet Book.
• Mithun, Marianne. (1999). The languages of Native North America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-23228-7 (hbk); ISBN 0-521-29875-X.
• Parks, Douglas R. (1976). A grammar of Pawnee. New York: Garland.
• Taylor, Allan R. (1978). [Review of A grammar of Pawnee by D. Parks]. Language, 54 (4), 969-972.

External links[link]

• Ethnologue report for Language
• Rosetta Project Archive

v t e Languages of Oklahoma Alabama Arapaho Caddo Cayuga Cherokee Cheyenne Chickasaw Chiwere (Iowa and Otoe) Choctaw Comanche Delaware English German Hitchiti-Mikasuki Kansa Koasati Mescalero-Chiricahua Apache Mesquakie (Fox, Kickapoo, and Sauk) Muscogee Osage Ottawa Pawnee Plains Apache Ponca Potawatomi Quapaw Seneca Shawnee Spanish Tonkawa Vietnamese Wichita Wyandot Yuchi Italics indicate extinct languages

Natalie Curtis Burlin

Natalie Curtis (also cited by her married name, Natalie Curtis Burlin) (born April 26, 1875, in New York City; died October 23, 1921, in Paris, France) was an American ethnomusicologist. Curtis, along with Alice Cunningham Fletcher and Frances Densmore, was one of a small group of women doing important ethnological studies in North America at the beginning of the 20th century. She is remembered for her transcriptions and publication of traditional music of Native American tribes as well as for having published a four-volume collection of African-American music.

Work[link]

Curtis studied music at the National Conservatory of Music of America in New York City as well as in France and Germany. In Europe, she studied with prominent musicians, including Italian composer Busoni. After a trip to Arizona in 1900, she became fascinated with Native American music and devoted herself to the collection and transcription of such music.

Starting in 1903 she worked from the Hopi reservation in Arizona and produced transcriptions using both an Edison cylinder recorder and pencil and paper. At the time, such work with native music and language was in conflict with the policies of the Federal Bureau of Indian Affairs, which discouraged natives on reservations from speaking their language, singing their music, dressing in native garb, etc. It was only after the personal intervention of her friend, President Theodore Roosevelt, that she could continue her work unhindered. Roosevelt, himself, visited the Hopi reservation in 1913 for the Hopi flute and snake ceremonies, which visit was detailed by Curtis in "Theodore Roosevelt in Hopi Land," an article Curtis wrote for Outlook magazine in 1919.^[1]

In 1905, Curtis published The Songs of Ancient America, three Pueblo corn-grinding songs with piano accompaniment. Characterizing her own task as a transcriber, she wrote, “I have in nowise changed the melodies, nor have I sought to harmonize them in the usual sense, nor to make of them musical compositions…My one desire has been to let the Indian songs be heard as the Indians themselves sing them..."^[2]

Curtis published The Indians’ Book in 1907, a collection of songs and stories from 18 tribes, illustrated with handwritten transcriptions of songs as well as with artwork and photography. Most of the 200 songs are presented only in manuscript notation with no piano accompaniment at all. The book served as source for her former teacher Busoni’s Indian Fantasy, a work for piano and orchestra, first performed in 1915 by the Philadelphia Orchestra under Leopold Stokowski.

Around 1910, Curtis broadened her research to include transcription and collection of African American music, working at the Hampton Institute in Hampton, Virginia, a college established in 1868 to educate former slaves. The work was funded by philanthropist, George Foster Peabody. In 1911, she and David Mannes founded the Colored Music Settlement School in New York, and in 1912 she helped sponsor the first concert featuring black musicians at Carnegie Hall, a concert that featured the Clef Club orchestra, directed by James Reese Europe.

In 1918 and 1919 Curtis (now, Curtis Burlin) published four volumes entitled Negro Folk-Songs; the volumes included spirituals, and “work-and play-songs." She published the songs in four-part harmony, a task that brought praise from composer Percy Grainger in 1918. ^[3] Proceeds from the volumes went to the Hampton Institute. As well, she began to study the music of African tribes and in 1920 published Songs and Tales from the Dark Continent, in which she notated the written example of what is known as the standard pattern in ethnomusicology, and triple-pulse son clave in Afro-Latin music (1920: 98). In 1917 she had married artist Paul Burlin; they moved to France, where she died in a traffic accident in 1921.

Her published work often did not appear in “scholary journals” of anthropology or folklore. She published, for example, in Southern Workman, The Craftsman, and The Outlook, as well as in general musical publications such as Musical America. Reviews of her work appeared in such magazines as well as in standard scholarly journals of the day.^[4]

Original compositions[link]

Curtis Burlin may be considered among a small group of US American composers who used native American material in her own compositions. Others are Charles Wakefield Cadman, Arthur Nevin, and Thurlow Lieurance. She composed about 15 short, original works, many based on native American or African American themes.

References[link]

External links[link]

• "Natalie Curtis Burlin"

Sitting Bull
Sitting Bull in 1882
Tribe	Hunkpapa Lakota
Born	c. 1831[1] Grand River, South Dakota
Died	December 15, 1890(1890-12-15) (aged 58-59) Grand River, South Dakota, Standing Rock Indian Reservation
Native name	Tȟatȟaŋka Iyotȟaŋka (born Hoka Psice)
Known for	Battle of Little Big Horn, resistance to USA
Cause of death	Shot by Indian Police
Resting place	South Dakota
Religious beliefs	Lakota, Roman Catholic (later in life)
Spouse(s)	Light Hair Four Robes Snow-on-Her Seen-by-her-Nation Scarlet Woman
Children	One Bull (adopted son) Crow Foot (son) Many Horses (daughter) Walks Looking (daughter) (adopted daughter)
Parents	Jumping Bull (father) Her-Holy-Door (mother)
Relatives	Big Foot (half brother) White Bull (nephew)
Signature

Sitting Bull (Lakota: Tȟatȟáŋka Íyotake in Standard Lakota Orthography,^[2] also nicknamed Slon-he or "Slow"; c. 1831 – December 15, 1890) was a Hunkpapa Lakota Sioux holy man who led his people as a tribal chief during years of resistance to United States government policies. Born near the Grand River in Dakota Territory, he was killed by Indian agency police on the Standing Rock Indian Reservation during an attempt to arrest him and prevent him from supporting the Ghost Dance movement.

He had a premonition of defeating the cavalry, which motivated his Native American people to a major victory at the Battle of the Little Bighorn against Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer and the 7th Cavalry on June 25, 1876. Months after the battle, Sitting Bull and his group left the United States to Wood Mountain, Saskatchewan, where he remained until 1881, at which time he surrendered to U.S. forces. A small remnant of his band under Chief Waŋblí Ǧí decided to stay at Wood Mountain. After his return to the United States, he briefly toured as a performer in Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show, earning $50 a week.

After working as a performer, Sitting Bull returned to the Standing Rock Agency in South Dakota. Because of fears that he would use his influence to support the Ghost Dance movement, Indian Service agent James McLaughlin at Fort Yates ordered his arrest. During an ensuing struggle between Sitting Bull's followers and the agency police, Sitting Bull was shot in the side and head by Standing Rock policemen Lieutenant Bull Head (Tatankapah) and Red Tomahawk (Marcelus Chankpidutah) after the police were fired upon by Sitting Bull's supporters. His body was taken to nearby Fort Yates for burial, but in 1953, his remains were possibly exhumed and reburied near Mobridge, South Dakota, by his Lakota family, who wanted his body to be nearer to his birthplace.

Early life[link]

Sitting Bull

By many accounts, Sitting Bull was born in a teepee and was raised to be a warrior near the Standing Rock Indian Reservation in Dakota Territory. His great-grandson Ernie LaPointe contends that family tradition says he was born at the Yellowstone River near present-day Miles City, Montana.^[3] He was named Jumping Badger at birth.^[4] In traditional Lakota fashion, he was later given one of his father's names, Tȟatȟaŋka Iyotȟaŋka, translated as "Sitting Bull", due to a leadership role in a battle between the Lakota and Crow people.

In the Dakota War of 1862, several bands of the Sioux killed 600 settlers and soldiers in south-central Minnesota in response to poor treatment by the government and in an effort to drive the whites away. Despite being embroiled in the American Civil War, the United States Army retaliated in 1863 and 1864, even against bands which had not been involved in the hostilities.^[5] In 1864, two brigades of about 2200 soldiers under Brigadier General Alfred Sully attacked a village. The defenders were led by Sitting Bull, Gall and Inkpaduta.^[5] The Sioux were driven out, but skirmishing continued into August.

In September, Sitting Bull and about 100 Hunkpapa Sioux came across a small party near what is now Marmarth, North Dakota. They had been left behind by a wagon train commanded by Captain James L. Fisk to effect some repairs to an overturned wagon. When he led an attack, Sitting Bull was shot in the left hip by a soldier.^[5] The bullet exited out through the small of his back, and the wound was not too serious.^[6]

Red Cloud's War[link]

Sitting Bull led numerous war parties against Fort Berthold, Fort Stevenson, and Fort Buford and their environs from 1865 through 1868.^[7] Although Red Cloud was a leader of the Oglala Sioux, his leadership and attacks against forts in the Powder River Country of Montana were supported by Sitting Bull's guerrilla attacks on emigrant parties and smaller forts throughout the upper Missouri River region.

By early 1868, the U.S. government desired a peaceful settlement to Red Cloud's War. It agreed to Red Cloud's demands that Forts Phil Kearny and C.F. Smith be abandoned. Chief Gall of the Hunkpapas (among other representatives of the Hunkpapas, Blackfeet, and Yankton Sioux) signed a form of the Treaty of Fort Laramie on July 2, 1868 at Fort Rice (near Bismarck, North Dakota).^[8] Sitting Bull did not agree to the treaty. He continued his hit-and-run attacks on forts in the upper Missouri area throughout the late 1860s and early 1870s.^[9]

The events of 1867–1868 mark a historically debated period of Sitting Bull's life. According to historian Stanley Vestal, who conducted interviews with surviving Hunkpapa in 1930, Sitting Bull was made "Supreme Chief of the whole Sioux Nation" at this time. Later historians and ethnologists have refuted this concept of authority, as the Lakota society was highly decentralised. Lakota bands and their chiefs made individual decisions.

The Great Sioux War of 1876[link]

Sitting Bull's band of Hunkpapa continued to attack migrating parties and forts in the late 1860s. When in 1871 the Northern Pacific Railway conducted a survey for a route across the northern plains directly through Hunkpapa lands, it encountered stiff Sioux resistance.^[10] The same railway people returned the following year accompanied by federal troops. Sitting Bull and the Hunkpapa attacked the survey party, which was forced to turn back.^[11] In 1873, the military accompaniment for the surveyors was increased again, but Sitting Bull's forces resisted the survey "most vigorously."^[12]

The Panic of 1873 forced the Northern Pacific Railway's backers (such as Jay Cooke) into bankruptcy. This halted construction of the railroad through Sioux territory. After the discovery and new wealth from gold in California, other men became interested in the potential for gold mining in the Black Hills. In 1874, Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer led a military expedition from Fort Abraham Lincoln near Bismarck, to explore the Black Hills for gold and to determine a suitable location for a military fort in the Hills.^[13] Custer's announcement of gold in the Black Hills triggered the Black Hills Gold Rush. Tensions increased between the Sioux and European Americans' seeking to move into the Black Hills.^[14]

Although Sitting Bull did not attack Custer's expedition in 1874, the US government was increasingly pressured to open the Black Hills to mining and settlement. It was alarmed at reports of Sioux depredations (encouraged by Sitting Bull). In November 1875, the government ordered all Sioux bands outside the Great Sioux Reservation to move onto the reservation, knowing full well that not all would comply. As of February 1, 1876, the Interior Department certified as "hostile" those bands who continued to live off the reservation.^[15] This certification allowed the military to pursue Sitting Bull and Lakota bands as "hostiles".

According to the historian Margot Liberty, many Lakota bands allied with the Cheyenne during the Plains Wars because they thought the other nation was under attack by the US. Given this connection, she suggests the major war should have been called "The Great Cheyenne War". Since 1860, the Northern Cheyenne had led several battles among the Plains Indians. Before 1876, the US Army had destroyed seven Cheyenne camps, more than those of any other nation.^[16]

However, other historians such as Robert Utley^[17] and Jerome Greene^[18][19] also use Lakota oral testimony as the basis for their conclusions that the Lakota coalition, of which Sitting Bull was the ostensible head, was the primary target of the federal government's pacification campaign.

Battle of the Little Bighorn[link]

Little Bighorn battlefield

During the period 1868–1876, Sitting Bull developed into the most important of Native American chiefs. After the Laramie Treaty of 1868 and the creation of the Great Sioux Reservation, many traditional Sioux warriors, such as Red Cloud of the Oglala and Spotted Tail of the Brulé, moved to reside permanently on the reservations. They were largely dependent for subsistence on the US Indian agencies. Many other chiefs, including members of Sitting Bull's Hunkpapa band such as Gall, at times lived temporarily at the agencies. They needed the supplies at a time when white encroachment and the depletion of buffalo herds reduced their resources and challenged Native American independence.

In 1875, the Northern Cheyenne, Hunkpapa, Oglala, Sans Arc, and Minneconjou camped together for a Sun Dance, with both the Cheyenne medicine man White Bull or Ice and Sitting Bull in association. This ceremonial alliance preceded their fighting together in 1876.^[16] Sitting Bull had a major revelation.

At the climactic moment, "Sitting Bull intoned, 'The Great Spirit has given our enemies to us. We are to destroy them. We do not know who they are. They may be soldiers.' Ice too observed, 'No one then knew who the enemy were – of what tribe.'...They were soon to find out."(Utley 1992: 122–24)

Sitting Bull's refusal to adopt any dependence on the white man meant that at times he and his small band of warriors lived isolated on the Plains. When Native Americans were threatened by the United States, numerous members from various Sioux bands and other tribes, such as the North Cheyenne, came to Sitting Bull's camp. His reputation for "strong medicine" developed as he continued to evade the European Americans.

After the January 1st ultimatum of 1876, when the US Army began to track down Sioux and others living off the reservation as hostiles, Native Americans gathered at Sitting Bull's camp. The chief took an active role in encouraging this "unity camp". He sent scouts to the reservations to recruit warriors, and told the Hunkpapa to share supplies with those Native Americans who joined them. An example of his generosity was Sitting Bull's taking care of Wooden Leg's Northern Cheyenne tribe. They had been impoverished by Captain Reynold's March 17, 1876 attack and fled to Sitting Bull's camp for safety.^[16]

The Hunkpapa chief provided resources to sustain the new recruits. Over the course of the first half of 1876, Sitting Bull's camp continually expanded, as natives joined him for safety in numbers. His leadership had attracted the warriors and families of an extensive village, estimated at more than 10,000 people. General Custer came across this large camp on June 25, 1876. Sitting Bull did not take a direct military role in the ensuing battle; as a head chief, he was charged with defensive responsibilities.

Custer’s 7th Cavalry advance party of General Alfred Howe Terry’s column attacked Cheyenne and Lakota tribes at their camp on the Little Big Horn River on June 25, 1876. The U.S. Army did not realize how large the camp was. More than 2,000 Native Americans had left their reservations to follow Sitting Bull. Inspired by a vision of Sitting Bull’s, in which he saw U.S. soldiers being killed as they entered the tribe’s camp, the Cheyenne and Lakota fought back. Custer's badly outnumbered troops lost ground quickly and were forced to retreat. The tribes led a counter-attack against the soldiers on a nearby ridge, ultimately annihilating most of them.

The Native Americans' victory celebrations were short-lived. Public shock and outrage at Custer's death and defeat, and the government's knowledge about the remaining Sioux, led them to assign thousands more soldiers to the area. Over the next year, the new American military forces pursued the Lakota, forcing many of the Native Americans to surrender. Sitting Bull refused to surrender and in May 1877 led his band across the border into Saskatchewan, Canada. He remained in exile for many years near Wood Mountain, refusing a pardon and the chance to return.^[20]

Surrender[link]

Hunger and cold eventually forced Sitting Bull, his family, and nearly 200 other Sioux in his band to return to the United States and surrender on July 19, 1881. Sitting Bull had his young son Crow Foot surrender his rifle to the commanding officer of Fort Buford. He told the soldiers that he wished to regard them and the white race as friends. Two weeks later, the Army transferred Sitting Bull and his band to Fort Yates, the military post located adjacent to the Standing Rock Agency, which straddles the present-day boundary of North and South Dakota.

Sitting Bull and his band of 185 people were kept separate from the other Hunkpapa gathered at the agency. Army officials were concerned that the famed chief would stir up trouble among the recently surrendered northern bands. On August 26, 1881, he was visited by the census taker William T. Selwyn, who counted twelve people in the Hunkpapa leader's immediate family. Forty-one families, totaling 195 people, were recorded in Sitting Bull's band.^[21]

The military decided to transfer him and his band to Fort Randall, to be held as prisoners of war. Loaded onto a steamboat, the band of 172 people was sent down the Missouri River to Fort Randall (near present-day Pickstown, South Dakota on the southern border of the state). There they spent the next 20 months. They were allowed to return north to the Standing Rock Agency in May 1883.

Wild West Show participation[link]

In 1884, Sitting Bull was allowed to leave the reservation to join Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West show as a Show Indian. He earned about $50 a week for riding once around the arena, where he was a popular attraction. Although it is rumored that he cursed his audiences in his native tongue during the show, the historian Utley contends that he did not.^[22] Historians have reported that Sitting Bull gave speeches about his desire for education for the young, and reconciling relations between the Sioux and whites.^[23] The historian Edward Lazarus wrote that Sitting Bull reportedly cursed his audience in Lakota in 1884, during an opening address celebrating the completion of the Northern Pacific Railway.^[24]

Sitting Bull stayed with the show for four months before returning home. During that time, audiences began to consider him a celebrity and a romanticized warrior. He earned a small fortune by charging for his autograph and picture, although he often gave his money away to the homeless and beggars.^[25] In 1883, Sitting Bull embraced the Roman Catholic faith and was baptized by a French-speaking Jesuit priest.^[26][27]

Death and burial[link]

"Wild scene", "Squaws death chant heard in every direction"

Monument at Sitting Bull's grave, Mobridge, South Dakota, 2003

Sitting Bull returned to the Standing Rock Agency after working in Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show. In 1890, James McLaughlin, the U.S. Indian Agent at Fort Yates on Standing Rock Agency, feared that the Lakota leader was about to flee the reservation with the Ghost Dancers, so he ordered the police to arrest him.^[28] On 14 December 1890, McLaughlin drafted a letter to Lt. Bullhead that included instructions and a plan to capture the chief. The plan called for the arrest to take place at dawn on December 15, and advised the use of a light spring wagon to facilitate the chief's removal before his followers could rally. Bullhead decided against using the wagon. He intended to have the police officers force Sitting Bull to mount a horse immediately after the arrest.^[29]

Around 5:30 a.m. on December 15, 39 police officers and four volunteers approached Sitting Bull's house. They surrounded the house, knocked and entered. Bullhead told Sitting Bull that he was under arrest and led him outside.^[30] The camp awakened and men converged at the house of their chief. As Bullhead ordered Sitting Bull to mount a horse, he explained that the Indian Affairs agent needed to see him and then he could return to his house. Sitting Bull refused to comply and the police used force on him. The Sioux in the village were enraged. A Sioux known as Catch-the-Bear shouldered his rifle and shot Bullhead who, in return, fired his revolver into the chest of Sitting Bull.^[31] Another police officer, Red Tomahawk, shot Sitting Bull in the head, and the chief dropped to the ground. He died between 12 and 1 p.m.

A close-quarters fight erupted, and within minutes several men were dead. Six policemen were killed immediately and two more died shortly after the fight. Sitting Bull and seven of his supporters lay dead, along with two horses.^[32]

Sitting Bull's body was taken to Fort Yates to be placed in a coffin (made by the Army carpenter)^[33] and for burial. In 1953 Lakota family members exhumed what they believed to be his remains, to be reinterred near Mobridge, South Dakota, his birthplace.^[34][35]

Legacy[link]

Sitting Bull, 1882

Following Sitting Bull's death, his cabin on the Grand River was taken to Chicago to become part of the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition. The cabin was exhibited along with Native American dances.^[36]

Sitting Bull was the subject of, or a featured character in, many Hollywood motion pictures and documentaries. Among them are:

• Sitting Bull: The Hostile Sioux Indian Chief (1914),
• Sitting Bull at the Spirit Lake Massacre (1927),
• Sitting Bull (1954),
• Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull's History Lesson (1976), and
• Into the West (2005)
• Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee (2007).

As time passed, Sitting Bull became a symbol and archetype of Native American resistance movements as well as a figure celebrated by his former enemies:

• On September 14, 1989, the United States Postal Service released a Great Americans series 28¢ postage stamp featuring a likeness of Sitting Bull.^[37]
• On March 6, 1996, Standing Rock College was renamed Sitting Bull College in his honor. Sitting Bull College serves as an institution of higher education on Sitting Bull's home of Standing Rock in North Dakota and South Dakota.
• The American historian Gary Clayton Anderson of the University of Oklahoma published Sitting Bull and the Paradox of Lakota Nationhood a revisionist examination of the Lakota medicine man. Anderson stresses the Little Big Horn not so much as a mishap by Custer but in light of past succeses the Lakota Nation and the merits of Sitting Bull himself.^[38]
• Legoland Billund, the first Legoland park, contains a Lego sculpture of Sitting Bull, the largest sculpture in the park.
• Sitting Bull is featured as the leader for the Native American Civilization in the computer game Civilization IV.^[39]
• Sitting Bull is lionized as one of 13 great Americans in President Barack Obama's children's book, Of Thee I Sing: A Letter to My Daughters.^[40]
• In August 2011, a research team led by Eske Willerslev, an ancient DNA expert at the University of Copenhagen, announced their intention to sequence the genome of Sitting Bull, with the approval of his descendents using a hair sample obtained during his lifetime.^[41]

Gallery[link]

• 

  Sitting Bull's grave at Fort Yates, ca. 1906

• 

  Sitting Bull and Buffalo Bill in 1885

• 

  Sitting Bull in Pierre, South Dakota on his way to Standing Rock Agency from Fort Randall

• 

  Sitting Bull (Tatonka-I-Yatanka), a Hunkpapa Sioux, 1885

See also[link]

• Black Elk
• Henry Mabb
• Catherine Weldon

Footnotes[link]

References[link]

Further reading[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Sitting Bull

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Sitting Bull

Wikisource has the text of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article Sitting Bull.

• Sitting Bull's ledger drawings, Smithsonian Institution
• American Public Media Speaking of Faith interview of Ernie LaPointe entitled "Tatanaka Iyotake: Reimagining Sitting Bull"
• PBS The West article on Sitting Bull
• The Sitting Bull Monument Foundation in Mobridge, South Dakota
• "Sitting Bull: A Stone in My Heart", feature length documentary film on the life of Sitting Bull
• Historica’s Heritage Minute video docudrama about Sitting Bull. (Adobe Flash Player)
• Kuzriel Meir (Jan 01, 2001). "Sitting Bull". Sioux Indian Leader. Find a Grave. http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=955. Retrieved Aug 18, 2011. 
•  "Sitting Bull". Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography. 1900. 

Red Cloud (Lakota: Maȟpíya Lúta), (1822 – December 10, 1909) was a war leader and a chief of the Oglala Lakota (Sioux). He led as a chief from 1868 to 1909. One of the most capable Native American opponents the United States Army faced, he led a successful campaign in 1866–1868 known as Red Cloud's War over control of the Powder River Country in northeastern Wyoming and southern Montana.

After signing the Treaty of Fort Laramie (1868), he led his people in the important transition to reservation life. Some of his US opponents mistakenly thought of him as overall chief of the Sioux. The large tribe had several major divisions and was highly decentralized. Bands among the Oglala and other divisions operated independently, even though some individual leaders such as Red Cloud were renowned as warriors and highly respected as leaders.

Early life[link]

Red Cloud was born close to the forks of the Platte River, near the modern-day city of North Platte, Nebraska. His mother, Walks As She Thinks, was an Oglala Lakota and his father, Lone Man, was a Brulé Lakota chief. These were two of the major seven Lakota divisions.

As was traditional among the matrilineal Lakota, in which the children belonged to the mother's clan and people, Red Cloud was mentored as a boy by his maternal uncle, Old Chief Smoke (1774–1864). Old Chief Smoke played a prominent, major role in the boy's early-mid life and brought him in to the Smoke household when his parents died around 1825. At a young age, Red Cloud fought against neighboring Pawnee and Crow, gaining much war experience.

Red Cloud's War[link]

Red Cloud's War was the name the US Army gave to a series of conflicts fought with American Indian Plains tribes in the Wyoming and Montana territories. The battles were waged between the Northern Cheyenne, allied with Lakota and Arapaho bands, against the United States Army between 1866 and 1868. In December 1866, the Native American allies attacked and defeated a United States unit in what the whites would call the Fetterman Massacre (or the Battle of the Hundred Slain); it was the event on the Plains to that point with the highest US fatalities.^[1]

Red Cloud

Captain William J. Fetterman was sent from Fort Phil Kearny with two civilians and 79 cavalry and infantrymen to chase away a small Indian war party that had attacked a wood party days before. Captain Frederick Brown accompanied Fetterman; the two were confident in their troops and anxious to go to battle with the Indians. They disobeyed orders to stay behind the Lodge Trail Ridge and pursued a small decoy band of warriors, led by an Indian on an apparently injured horse. The decoy was the prominent warrior Crazy Horse. Fetterman and his troops followed the decoy into an ambush by more than 2,000 Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapaho. Combined Indian forces suffered only 14 casualties, while they killed the entire 81-man US detachment.

Following this battle, a US peace commission toured the Plains in 1867 to gather information to help bring about peace among the tribes and with the US. Finding that the American Indians had been provoked by white encroachment and competition for resources, the commission recommended assigning definite territories to the Plains tribes. The Lakota, Northern Cheyenne, and Arapaho bands, and others settled for peace with the US under the Treaty of Fort Laramie. The US agreed to abandon its forts and withdraw completely from Lakota territory.

Treaty of 1868[link]

The treaty established the Great Sioux Reservation, covering the territory of West River, west of the Missouri River in present-day Nebraska (which had been admitted as a state in 1867), and including parts of South Dakota. Uneasy relations between the expanding United States and the natives continued. In 1870, Red Cloud visited Washington D.C., and met with Commissioner of Indian Affairs Ely S. Parker (a Seneca and U.S. Army General) and President Ulysses S. Grant.

In 1871, the government established the Red Cloud Agency on the Platte River, downstream from Fort Laramie. As outlined in the Treaty of 1868, the agency staff were responsible for issuing weekly rations to the Oglala, as well as providing the annually distributed supply of cash and annuity goods. The agent and Washington officials would determine how much of the annuity was to be paid in cash or goods, and sometimes the supplies were late, in poor condition, inadequate in amount, or never arrived at all. Red Cloud took his band to the agency (a predecessor of the Indian reservation) and tried to help them in the transition to a different way of life. In the fall of 1873, the agency was removed to the upper White River in northwestern Nebraska.

Great Sioux War of 1876–1877[link]

Red Cloud settled at the agency with his band by the fall of 1873. He soon became embroiled in a controversy with the new Indian agent, Dr. John J. Saville.

In 1874, General George Armstrong Custer led a reconnaissance mission into Sioux territory that reported gold in the Black Hills, an area held sacred by the local Indians. Formerly, the Army tried to keep miners out but did not succeed; the threat of violence grew. In May 1875, Sioux delegations headed by Red Cloud, Spotted Tail, and Lone Horn traveled to Washington, D.C. in an attempt to persuade President Grant to honor existing treaties and stem the flow of miners into their lands. The Indians met on various occasions with Grant, Secretary of the Interior Delano, and Commissioner of Indian Affairs Smith. He told them on May 27 that Congress was ready to resolve the matter by paying the tribes $25,000 for their land and resettling them into Indian Territory. The delegates refused to sign such a treaty, with Spotted Tail saying about the proposal:

“When I was here before, the President gave me my country, and I put my stake down in a good place, and there I want to stay.... You speak of another country, but it is not my country; it does not concern me, and I want nothing to do with it. I was not born there.... If it is such a good country, you ought to send the white men now in our country there and let us alone.”^[2]

Red Cloud, close-up in his war bonnet

Seated, L to R: Yellow Bear, Jack Red Cloud, Big Road, Little Wound, Black Crow; Standing, L to R: Red Bear, Young Man Afraid of his Horse, Good Voice, Ring Thunder, Iron Crow, White Tail, Young Spotted Tail, ca. 1860-1880

Although Red Cloud was unsuccessful in finding a peaceful solution, he did not take part in the Lakota war of 1876-1877, which was led by Tȟašúŋke Witkó (Crazy Horse) and Tȟatȟáŋka Íyotake (Sitting Bull).

In the fall of 1877, the Red Cloud Agency was removed to the upper Missouri River. The following year it was removed to the forks of the White River, in present-day South Dakota, where it was renamed the Pine Ridge Reservation.

His last days[link]

Red Cloud became an important leader of the Lakota as they transitioned from the freedom of the plains to the confinement of the reservation system. His trip to Washington, DC had convinced him of the number and power of European Americans, and he believed the Oglala had to seek peace.

Red Cloud continued fighting for his people, even after being forced onto the reservation. In 1887 Red Cloud opposed the Dawes Act, which broke up communal tribal holdings, and allocated 160-acre plots of land to heads of families on tribal rolls for subsistence farming. The US declared additional communal tribal lands as excess, and sold it to emigrant settlers. In 1889 Red Cloud opposed a treaty to sell more of the Sioux land. Due to his steadfastness and that of Sitting Bull, government agents obtained the necessary signatures for approval through subterfuge, such as using the signatures of children. He negotiated strongly with Indian Agents such as Dr. Valentine McGillycuddy.

He outlived all the other major Sioux leaders of the Indian Wars. He died in 1909 at the age of 87 on the Pine Ridge Reservation, where he was buried.

Legacy and honors[link]

Announcements of the death and recognition of Red Cloud's achievements was printed in major newspapers across the country. As had been typical of the US perception during Red Cloud's prominence in war, the article in The New York Times mistakenly described him as leader of all the Sioux bands and tribes, but noted his abilities as a leader and diplomat. While he was a prominent leader, the Lakota were highly decentralized and never had one overall leader, especially of the major divisions, such as Oglala and Brulé.^[3][4][5]

Red Cloud was among the Indians photographed by Edward S. Curtis. In 2000, he was posthumously selected for induction into the Nebraska Hall of Fame. He has been honored by the United States Postal Service with a 10¢ Great Americans series postage stamp.

Note: Red Cloud descendants have continued to be chosen as traditional chiefs of the Lakota Sioux:

• Jack Red Cloud, 1909–1928 (included as a younger man in photo to the right)
• James Red Cloud, 1928–1960
• Charles Red Cloud (his brother), 1960–1979, and
• Oliver Red Cloud, 1979–present.

Oliver Red Cloud (90 years old), is the fourth-generation direct descendant of Chief Red Cloud. Oliver is a chief of the Oglala Lakota Sioux people and Speaker of the traditional Lakota Sioux Nation. He is the Chairman of the "Black Hills Sioux Nation Treaty Council".

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Red Cloud

• "Red Cloud", New Perspectives on The West, PBS, 2001
• "Red Cloud". Chief of the Oglala Lakota. Find a Grave. Oct 25, 2002. http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=6878358. Retrieved Aug 18, 2011. 
• Red Cloud - bronze sculpture
• "Chief Red Cloud's Great-Great Grandson on Native American Issues", video interview by Democracy Now!