Red Cloud: Oglala Warrior-Statesman

Abstract

E v e l y n I. F u n d a / d o r y s C r o w G r o v e r as one member called it) of a number of works grouped together; in addition to drawing conclusions about the merits of a single piece, a reviewer can also discuss those “not to be missed” points about what is happening in specialty areas like Chicana poetry or nature writing or the California novel. Because reviewers will have more latitude to consider works in the context of other contemporary writings as well as what has been published before in that field, reviewers’ judg­ ments about what qualities make individual works exceptional will likely have more impact and be more meaningful to readers. Readings will, necessarily, be closer and more informed, and the reviews, then, will consider what “frontiers” lie ahead for western American literature. Even as we consider questions about the direction of WAL’s book review section, one thing remains certain: I look forward to the challenge of making this section responsive to the ever evolv­ ing needs and interests of our readership. ESSAY REVIEW R e d C l o u d : O g l a l a Wa r r io r - S t a t e s m a n Dorys Crow Grover Until its recent publication, the manuscript of the autobiography of Red Cloud (1822-1909) languished for more than one hundred years, virtually unknown, in the Nebraska State Historical Society archives in Lincoln. R. Eli Paul’s Autobiography of Red Cloud: War Leader of the Oglalas is a third-person, “as-told-to” account that details the raiding and war practices of the Oglala Sioux and other Plains tribes during Red Cloud’s early life. Paul, in a remarkable preface and introduction, unravels the complex document to present the early life of the Lakota warrior, stating it “is not an exhaustive life history” but “provides rare firsthand information about Plains warfare and Lakota warrior culture” (27-28). W A L 3 3 (1 ) SPRING 1 9 9 8 Complementing Paul’s look at the early life, Robert W. Larson’s biography, Red Cloud: Warrior-Statesman of the Lakota Sioux, was published a few months before Paul’s book appeared. Paul had graciously permitted Larson access to the Red Cloud manuscript (a source kept from historians by Addison E. Sheldon, former director of the Nebraska State Historical Society), and Larson augmented Paul’s sources with information from the South Dakota State Historical Society, particularly from the Red Cloud Estate Papers. The Red Cloud autobiography was originally recorded in 1893 as the Life of Red Cloud by Charles W. Allen. Postmaster at Pine Ridge Agency in South Dakota and husband to a mixed-blood Lakota woman, Allen had learned that Red Cloud (known to the Oglalas as MahapiyaAuta) often reminisced with Sam Deon, a former French Canadian trader who had been a trusted friend of Red Cloud’s for more than forty years. Deon’s wife was a sister of Smoke, Red Cloud’s uncle, chief of the Oglala Bad Faces, and Deon had witnessed the signing of the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868 and claimed to have followed the Oglalas from their first agency on the North Platte River in 1871 to the White River in 1873 to Red Cloud Agency in 1877 and finally to Pine Ridge in 1878. Allen asked Deon, who was well spoken in the Oglala language, as well as French and English, to act as translator. Because Red Cloud’s narrative ends in 1864, Allen called his work “the Indian part of the life of Red Cloud,” the first of many titles given to the manuscript of 134 typed, double-spaced pages (Paul 27). That man­ uscript, as Paul details, had a tangled and troubled history marked by the personal interests and agendas of writers and historians. Part of Allen’s manuscript, titled “Red Cloud, Chief of the Sioux,” was pub­ lished in University of Nebraska’s literary magazine, The Hesperian (November-December 1895, January 1896), and while Allen planned to publish the manuscript as a book, efforts to interest a pub­ lisher failed, so...