Fort Laramie, 1868

Red Cloud’s Victory

It has been two years of resistance and now the whites will have to listen to Red Cloud and Bear Tooth and the others dictate the terms of peace. It is November 6. Red Cloud is surrounded by a small group of triumphant warriors. He has lived up to the message he sent to General Sherman a year before:

The Great Father sent his soldiers out here to spill blood. I did not first commence the spilling of blood… If the Great Father kept white men out of my country, peace would last forever, but if they disturb me there will be no peace… The Great Spirit raised me in this land, and has raised you in another land. What I have said I mean. I mean to keep this land.

Dee Brown, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, 116

http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/people/i_r/redcloud.htm

http://www.sonofthesouth.net/union-generals/custer/chief-red-cloud.htm