Red Cloud

(born 1822, on the Platte River, Nebraska Territory, U.S.—died Dec. 10, 1909, Pine Ridge Agency, S.D.) American Indian leader. The principal chief of the Oglala Teton Dakota (Sioux), he led the opposition of both the Sioux and the Cheyenne to the U.S. government's development of the Bozeman Trail to goldfields in the Montana Territory (1865–67). Relentlessly attacking workers along the route from Fort Laramie (in modern Wyoming) to Montana, he refused offers to negotiate until the U.S. agreed to halt the project, whereupon he laid down his arms and allowed himself to be settled on the Red Cloud Agency in Nebraska.