Red Cloud (1822-1909)

American Indian leader of the Sioux tribe. Paramount chief of the Oglala Sioux from 1860, he led the armed resistance to the advance of white settlers along the Bozeman Trail. He signed the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868 which gave the Indians a large area in the Black Hills of Dakota. He resisted any involvement in the war which culminated in the Battle of Little Bighorn in 1876.

Born in the area of modern Nebraska, Red Cloud led his followers to the Red Cloud Agency in Nebraska after Custer's last stand at Little Bighorn. From there they were moved to the Pine Ridge Agency, South Dakota in 1878; Red Cloud continued to seek compromise with the government.

Red Cloud

Town and administrative headquarters of Webster County, south Nebraska; population (1990) 1,200. It is situated on the Republican River, 56 km/35 mi south-southwest of Hastings, and 10 km/6 mi north of the Kansas state border. The town is a processing and shipping hub for grain, livestock, dairy goods, poultry, and produce. It became famous as the model for various communities in the work of novelist Willa Cather, who spent much of her youth here.

In an area once hunted by the Omaha, Pawnee, and Oto, it was founded as a white settlement in 1870 and named after a Sioux leader.