Henry Roe Cloud was born on December 28, 1886 in Winnebago, Nebraska, United States to Winnebago parents. His father's name was Na-Xi-Lay-Hunk-Kay; his mother's is given as "Hard-to-See. " His own Winnebago name was Wo-Na-Xi-Lay-Hunka; the "Roe" in his English name is from his adoptive parents, Dr. and Mrs. Walter C. Roe, who, like many of the Caucasians who took an interest in Indian affairs in their day, were missionaries.
Roe Cloud was educated at an Indian school at Genoa, Nebr. , and at Mt. Hermon School in Massachusetts. He went on to become the first Indian person to graduate from Yale, receiving the B. A. degree in 1910. After studying sociology for a year at Oberlin, he earned the B. D. degree from Auburn Theological Seminary in 1913 and the M. A. from Yale in 1914.
He was ordained in the Presbyterian ministry in 1913. Roe Cloud early distinguished himself as a leader. He was chairman of a Winnebago delegation to meet with the president in 1912-1913, and a member of a survey commission on Indian education in 1914. Still in his twenties, he was an important leader in the Society of American Indians, predecessor of the pan-Indian National Council of American Indians. Cloud made another major contribution as a member of the staff of a survey of Indian affairs conducted by the Institute for Government Research (the Brookings Institution) in 1926-1927 and 1929-1930. He was coauthor of its report to the secretary of the interior, the Meriam Report (1928). This document, which revealed the shocking varieties of Indian poverty and deprivation, had some effect in the effort to redefine federal Indian policy under the New Deal. Cloud spent two years as special regional representative in the Office of Indian Affairs (1931 - 1933), and then in August 1933 Franklin Roosevelt appointed him superintendent of Haskell Institute in Lawrence, Kansas. This was to be the high point in Cloud's career. His appointment was part of what was intended as a clean sweep: Roosevelt's new secretary of the interior, Harold Ickes, was conceived of as a friend of the Indians, and his new head of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, John Collier, was committed to the preservation and even the nurturing of tribal cultures. The choice of Cloud to head Haskell Institute, a major Indian educational institution, was seen as part of an enlightened policy of using native administrators whenever possible. Though Cloud as superintendent spoke with New Deal cheer of new directions in policy and bluntly described the failings of previous administrations, he shared with his white predecessors a belief that assimilation of the Indian into white society was coming, one way or another. He also tended to confuse missionary zeal with education. He did not say that such an "advance" might not be desirable. Believing in the "onward march in civilization, " he felt that Indian peoples had their choice of being trampled under its feet or rising up to "join its forces in keeping with the mighty tread of all the races. " Cloud insisted, however, that the nature of the transition should be determined by Indian leaders. "Haskell Institute, " he wrote, "today postulates as a reason for its continued existence its great task in the development of a native leadership for every Indian tribe in the United States. " He felt that he and his institution were "definitely committed to the preservation of Indian race culture, " and was therefore frustrated by Haskell's limiting vocational-oriented curriculum. Cloud left Haskell Institute in 1936 to become assistant supervisor of Indian education at-large in the Office of Indian Affairs. His further posts were superintendent of the Umatilla Indian Agency, Pendleton, Oreg. (1947 - 1950); and regional representative, Grande Ronde and Siletz Indian Agency (1948 - 1950). He also served at one time as editor of the Indian Out-look. Cloud died of coronary thrombosis in Siletz, Oregon, and was buried in Crescent Grove Cemetery, Beaverton, Oregon. His wife remained active after his death in the National Council of American Indians.
Most importantly, in 1915 he founded the Roe Indian Institute in Wichita, Kansas, and for fifteen years thereafter was its superintendent. This institution, which became the American Indian Institute in 1920, was unique among Indians schools in its academic orientation; unlike other schools, which followed the Booker T. Washington-style idea that vocational education was most appropriate, Cloud's school trained Indian people to be leaders.
Quotations: "The once great and glorious past of the race has been held up disparagingly by many white teachers thinking thereby to coerce the young Indian student to abandon this reigning spirit of his forefathers. Mistakenly, teachers of the past believed that this was the only method left open for advancement into the white man's civilization. "
On June 12, 1916, Roe Cloud married Elizabeth Georgian Bender, a part-Chippewa graduate of the Hampton Normal Training School, who assisted him in the founding and management of the American Indian Institute. They had four daughters, Elizabeth Marion, Anne Woesha, Lillian Alberta, Ramona Clarke, and a son, Henry Roe, who died in infancy.
