Red Cloud: The Lakota Leader Who Closed the Bozeman Trail

Summer of 1868. Three Army forts along the Bozeman Trail stand empty, their garrisons pulled back, their stockades burned by Lakota and Cheyenne warriors within hours. The United States abandons military posts by treaty for the first and only time in its history, forced out by a coalition Red Cloud helped build. But the forts burned because Lakota, Cheyenne, and Arapaho fighters waged a two-year campaign across the Powder River country. Crazy Horse led the decoy at the Fetterman Fight that killed 81 soldiers in under an hour. Dull Knife brought Cheyenne warriors to the Wagon Box Fight. Dozens of leaders held the line together, raid by raid, ambush by ambush, until the trail became indefensible. Red Cloud negotiated the Treaty of Fort Laramie and his name sits on the victory, but when he turned to diplomacy after the war, younger warriors called it surrender. By 1874 the government broke the treaty, sent Custer into the Black Hills, and took back every promise made in 1868. Red Cloud spent 40 years fighting with petitions and speeches instead of bullets, and history still argues whether he saved his people or betrayed them. The Supreme Court ruled in 1980 that the Black Hills were stolen illegally. The Lakota have refused over $1 billion in compensation, and the fight Red Cloud started in 1866 is still not over.