The Red Cloud Agency was an Indian agency for the Oglala Lakota as well as the Northern Cheyenne and Arapaho, from 1871 to 1878. It was located at three different sites in Wyoming Territory and Nebraska before being moved to South Dakota. It was then renamed the Pine Ridge Reservation.
As stipulated in the Fort Laramie Treaty (1868), the US government built Indian agencies for the various Lakota and other Plains tribes. These were forerunners to the modern Indian reservations.
In 1871, the Red Cloud Agency was established on the North Platte River near Fort Laramie. Two year later it was moved to an eastern corner of Nebraska, then two years later to South Dakota. [1]
In August 1873, the agency was moved to the northwestern corner of Nebraska, near the present town of Crawford. Constructed on a hill overlooking the White River, the agency buildings included a large warehouse, offices, home for the agent, blacksmith shop and stables for horses. A school house was later added. Two trading stores were also built adjacent to the agency.
On 8 February 1874, agency clerk Frank Appleton was killed by the Miniconjou 'Lone Horn of the North.' Fort Laramie General John E. Smith was called by Saville to deal with three hundred Sioux braves besieging the agency. Smith eventually established a small army post near the agency called Fort Robinson. [1]
The Red Cloud Agency was the center of much activity during the Great Sioux War of 1876-77. In May 1877, Crazy Horse and allied leaders came with their people to the Red Cloud Agency for surrender. Following the killing of Crazy Horse, the agency was moved further west.
The site of Red Cloud Agency No. 2 is included in Fort Robinson and Red Cloud Agency, a United States National Historic Landmark.
The agency was moved to the White River in October 1877, in present day, South-Central South Dakota.
In 1878, the Red Cloud Agency was relocated to southern South Dakota and renamed the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.
The Lakota are a Native American people. Also known as the Teton Sioux, they are one of the three prominent subcultures of the Sioux people, with the Eastern Dakota (Santee) and Western Dakota (Wičhíyena). Their current lands are in North and South Dakota. They speak Lakȟótiyapi—the Lakota language, the westernmost of three closely related languages that belong to the Siouan language family.
The Sioux or Oceti Sakowin are groups of Native American tribes and First Nations people from the Great Plains of North America. The Sioux have two major linguistic divisions: the Dakota and Lakota peoples. Collectively, they are the Očhéthi Šakówiŋ, or "Seven Council Fires". The term "Sioux", an exonym from a French transcription of the Ojibwe term Nadowessi, can refer to any ethnic group within the Great Sioux Nation or to any of the nation's many language dialects.
Red Cloud was a leader of the Oglala Lakota from 1865 to 1909. 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. 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.
The Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, also called Pine Ridge Agency, is an Oglala Lakota Indian reservation located in the U.S. state of South Dakota, with a small portion of it extending into Nebraska. Originally included within the territory of the Great Sioux Reservation, Pine Ridge was created by the Act of March 2, 1889, 25 Stat. 888. in the southwest corner of South Dakota on the Nebraska border. It consists of 3,468.85 sq mi (8,984 km2) of land area and is one of the largest reservations in the United States.
Red Cloud's War was an armed conflict between an alliance of the Lakota, Northern Cheyenne, and Northern Arapaho peoples against the United States and the Crow Nation that took place in the Wyoming and Montana territories from 1866 to 1868. The war was fought over control of the western Powder River Country in present day north-central Wyoming and Montana.
The Treaty of Fort Laramie is an agreement between the United States and the Oglala, Miniconjou, and Brulé bands of Lakota people, Yanktonai Dakota, and Arapaho Nation, following the failure of the first Fort Laramie treaty, signed in 1851.
Crazy Horse was a Lakota war leader of the Oglala band in the 19th century. He took up arms against the United States federal government to fight against encroachment by White American settlers on Native American territory and to preserve the traditional way of life of the Lakota people. His participation in several famous battles of the Black Hills War on the northern Great Plains, among them the Fetterman Fight in 1866, in which he acted as a decoy, and the Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876, in which he led a war party to victory, earned him great respect from both his enemies and his own people.
The Sioux Wars were a series of conflicts between the United States and various subgroups of the Sioux people which occurred in the later half of the 19th century. The earliest conflict came in 1854 when a fight broke out at Fort Laramie in Wyoming, when Sioux warriors killed 31 American soldiers in the Grattan Massacre, and the final came in 1890 during the Ghost Dance War.
He Dog, a member of the Oglala Lakota, was closely associated with Crazy Horse during the Great Sioux War of 1876-77.
American Horse was an Oglala Lakota chief, statesman, educator and historian. American Horse is notable in American history as a U.S. Army Indian Scout and a progressive Oglala Lakota leader who promoted friendly associations with whites and education for his people. American Horse opposed Crazy Horse during the Great Sioux War of 1876–1877 and the Ghost Dance Movement of 1890, and was a Lakota delegate to Washington. American Horse was one of the first Wild Westers with Buffalo Bill's Wild West and a supporter of the Carlisle Indian Industrial School. His record as a councilor of his people and his policy in the new situation that confronted them was consistent, and he was known for his eloquence.
The Great Sioux Reservation was an Indian reservation created by the United States through treaty with the Sioux, principally the Lakota, who dominated the territory before its establishment. In the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868, the reservation included lands west of the Missouri River in South Dakota and Nebraska, including all of present-day western South Dakota. The treaty also provided rights to roam and hunt in contiguous areas of North Dakota, Montana, Wyoming, and northeast Colorado.
Spotted Tail was a Sichangu Lakota tribal chief. Famed as a great warrior since his youth, warring on Ute, Pawnee and Absaroke (“Crow”), and having taken a leading part in the Grattan Massacre, he led his warriors in the Colorado and Platte River uprising after the massacre perpetrated by John M. Chivington's Colorado Volunteers on the peaceful Cheyenne and Arapaho camping on Sand Creek, but declined to participate in Red Cloud's War.
Tasunka Kokipapi, was an Oglala Lakota leader known for his participation in Red Cloud's War, as a negotiator for the Sioux Nation after the Wounded Knee Massacre, and for serving on delegations to Washington, D.C.. A proper translation of his name is They Fear Even His Horses or His Horse Is Feared, meaning that the bearer of the name was so feared in battle that even the sight of his horse would inspire fear. During and after his lifetime, American sources and written records mistranslated his name as Young Man Afraid of His Horses or uncommonly as His Horses Are Afraid.
Touch the Clouds was a chief of the Minneconjou Teton Lakota known for his bravery and skill in battle, physical strength and diplomacy in counsel. The youngest son of Lone Horn, he was brother to Spotted Elk, Frog, and Roman Nose. There is evidence suggesting that he was a cousin to Crazy Horse.
The Oglala are one of the seven subtribes of the Lakota people who, along with the Dakota, make up the Očhéthi Šakówiŋ. A majority of the Oglala live on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, the eighth-largest Native American reservation in the United States.
Grant Short Bull was a member of Soreback Band, Oglala Lakota, and a participant in the Battle of the Little Bighorn. He became a headman during the early twentieth century on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.
Amos Bad Heart Bull, also known as Waŋblí Wapȟáha, was a noted Oglala Lakota artist in what is called Ledger Art. It is a style that adapts traditional Native American pictography to the new European medium of paper, and named for the accountants' ledger books, available from traders, used by the artists for their drawings and paintings. He was also the tribal historian of the Oglala, as his father Bad Heart Bull was before him.
The Great Sioux War of 1876, also known as the Black Hills War, was a series of battles and negotiations that occurred in 1876 and 1877 in an alliance of Lakota Sioux and Northern Cheyenne against the United States. The cause of the war was the desire of the US government to obtain ownership of the Black Hills. Gold had been discovered in the Black Hills, settlers began to encroach onto Native American lands, and the Sioux and the Cheyenne refused to cede ownership. Traditionally, American military and historians place the Lakota at the center of the story, especially because of their numbers, but some Native Americans believe the Cheyenne were the primary target of the American campaign.
Yellow Bear, Mato Ǧí, was an Oglala Lakota leader.
The Wágluȟe Band is one of the seven bands of the Oglala Lakota. The Wágluȟe Band is also known as the Loafer Band.