The daily morning journal and courier., 1902-06-27
RED CLOUD DYING.
FAMOUS INDIAN CHIEF NEAR
 HIS END IN DAKOTA,

Conspicuous on Frontier-He Had Led
 His People i'm Many Desperate En.
 Iy to the Whites.
 Red Cloud, the famous Indian chief
 who was second in command of the ab-
 origines to Sitting Bull at the battle ol
 the Little Big Horn, when General
 Custer and all his men were massacred
 is lying at the point of death at Pine
 Ridge, S. D., says a correspondent of the Chicago Tribune. His condition is
 regarded as helpless and probably ere
 many days he will have gone to the
 happy hunting grounds of his fathers.
 For many years past Red Cloud has 4 been mentioned among the good Indi-
 ans of the nation. Since the peace
 that followed the final defeat of his
 tribe he has been the white ans friend
 and has received many attentions from
 the officials at Washington, which city he tice visited in the interests of those over whom he once ruled with an iron hand. Next to Tecumseh, he has filled %sthe largest place in American history of any Indian and in many respects he was that gallant warriors superior. ' His compatriot, Sitting Bull, was more notorious, but his standing among the Sioux themselves was far below that of the truly great man who now lies at the verge of the grave. Osceloa, Black Hawk, Geronimo, Joseph and others have been prominent in frontier annals
 in modern times. Red Cloud represents the best type, Geronimo the worst.
 Maqbe-Luta, Crimson Cloud, was born in 1922. Of his youth we know little. He probably roamed over the country, capturing game, playing was and lmita- ting in pantomime the feats of his fath- CTS. We hear of him as a young man of eighteen or twenty in various engage ments against the Crows, Pawnees and other enemies of the Sioux, in which he
 signalzed himself for bravery and was promoted by the elders of his tribe, He joined the various trials of the sun dance, ceremony requiring more cour- age and fortitude than any other initla- tion known to men, either in ancient or modern times.
 Shortly after 1S45 the whites began to SLOWLY push tIlelI way NCClN ctl u clllu northward. Buffalo hunters, miners Mand rough classes flocked to the from tier. Types of men who neither re- spected the rights of others nor feared God came in contact with various bands of Sioux upon their hunting grounds, and as a natural consequence robberfes and other crimes were resorted to by both races.
 Red Cloud himself said that his peo- ple first regarded the intrusion of the whites as they would that of any other tribe. The whites could not appreciate what the destruction of game, particu- Iarly that of the buffalo, meant to the Sioux and other plains Indians. He foresaw the destruction of the buffalo and urged that severe measures should be adopted to prevent it. He claimed, and justly, too, that a government as powerful as that at Washington should have restrained all immigration until the lands now embraced by the states of Kansas, Nebraska and North and South Dakota had been either taken away from the Indians and paid for or left in their undisputed possession and 'trespassing upon those lands had been summarily stopped. He further said that Indians and white men could not live peaceably together their modes of life, habits, languages and inclinations being totally different.
 Viewed in the light of subsequent de- 7velopments Red Clouds position was entirely correct The white men who f1ocked to the frontier made no distinc- iotn between those which were hostile and those which were friendly. More over. tatal ignorance of Indian manners and customs brought about many con- f1icts and misunderstandings between welI-meaning and respectable settlers en route to California. Scores of in- stances of this character could easily be published as a part of the history oI the pains. It Is not surprising, then, to find that from 1S4S to 1877 continual war was waged upon the plains. These thirty years of conflict looked at from a military standpoint, comprised long series of petty skirrnishes and massa- cres perpetrated by both white and red men alike. Viewed from the Indian standpoint, it was continual struggle on the part of some four or five thou- sand men against invasion and eXter- mination The result as we all know, was the almost total annihilation of the l Indian.
 The most courageous stand made by | Indians in western history occurred but | a short time after the Fetterman defeat. | Major Powell had just received iron | wagon beds from the east and also the | first repeating rifles seen upon the | pains He started across an exceeding | Iy dangerous piece of territory and was 1 surrounded by MaqbeLuta and his | band. The men made barricade of | the wagon beds, and from beneath | them kept up a continuous fire upon the | enemy. There were some eleven hun dred Indians, and they charged across | the field many times. Major Powell | said that he thought at least three hun l dred were killed, but Colonel Dodge | places the number much higher. When it is considered that Indians are very loath to charge in open ground unless every advantage is with them, the pres ence of some great leader must account for this remarkable instance of brave ry. That one was Red Cloud. Many of | the Indians fell within a few yards of the wagon beds. Both Powell and
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