Red Cloud was born about 1822 on Blue Creek, two days' travel by pony above the site of North Platte, Nebraska. His father, Lone Man, belonged to the Brulé tribe of Teton Sioux and his mother, Walks as She Thinks, was perhaps a cousin, recognized as a sister, of Old Smoke, described by Parkman in The California and Oregon Trail (1849).
He early became noted as a warrior and, before he left the warpath, had made a record of eighty individual feats of courage. By the early sixties he led an independent band of his own.
In June 1866, as head of the Oglalas and accepted leader of all the Sioux and Cheyenne hostiles, he attended the council at Fort Laramie, but, on learning that the government intended to proceed with the opening of the Bozeman trail and the building of three forts, he defiantly stalked from the meeting and began war. For two years he kept the trail and the forts, which were built with great difficulty, closely besieged. He commanded the hostilities at the Fetterman massacre in December 1866 and at the Wagon Box fight in August 1867. Another part of his command attacked the Hayfield party near Fort C. F. Smith.
His resolute campaign induced the government to yield, and by the treaty of 1868 the trail was closed and the three forts were abandoned. Thereafter he was an advocate of peace. In 1870 he visited Washington and New York. Though a persistent critic of the government and of its Indian agents, whom he charged with graft and fraud, he openly opposed the agitation for war in 1876. He remained at loggerheads with the government's representatives.
In 1881, on his sending to President Garfield a letter threatening that unless the President removed the agent, V. T. McGillycuddy, he would do so himself, McGillycuddy deposed him from the chieftainship of the Oglalas. From that time, shorn of his power and much of his influence, he lived quietly. After the removal of the tribe to the Pine Ridge agency in South Dakota, he aged rapidly and became blind and decrepit. He died at his Pine Ridge home.
Red Cloud is described by Cook as "a magnificent specimen of physical manhood" who in his prime was "as full of action as a tiger". He had great dignity of manner and has been spoken of as a natural-born gentleman. His character has been variously appraised. He was charged with duplicity, both in 1876 and in 1890, in secretly encouraging the hostiles while professing peace. Cook, who knew him more intimately than any other white man, asserts that he was sincere and that his efforts for peace caused him great loss of prestige. Among the whites he had many admirers.
One of the important associations of his life was his friendship with Othniel C. Marsh, the geologist.
He accepted, some Christian ideas, and in later life he was inclined to Roman Catholicism.
Though counseling loyalty to the government, he was unfriendly to the ways of civilization.
He was married to Pretty Owl. They had six children.
