Ramsey County History – Spring 2001: “A ‘Good Man’ in a Changing World: Cloud Man, the Dakota Leader, and His Life and Times”

A ‘Good Man’ in a Changing World: Cloud Man, the Dakota Leader, and His Life and Times

Author: Mark Dietrich

A compelling portrait of the Mdewakenton Dakota leader Cloud Man in Minnesota up to the early 1860s. Confronted by a dwindling population as his people lost their land and the ability to survive as hunter-gatherers, Cloud Man worked with the U.S. Army’s Indian Agent Lawrence Taliaferro in the 1830s an effort to establish agriculture as a more viable way of life in the area around Minneapolis’ Lake Calhoun. The author has produced a stirring account based on his indefatigable research. Cloud Man and Minnesota’s history are also seen through the state’s pioneers: Colonels Henry Leavenworth and Josiah Snelling, Philander Prescott, Samuel and Gideon Pond, Henry H. Sibley, Seth Eastman, Alexis Bailly, and Alexander Ramsey, as well as his Dakota ally, Little Crow, and Ojibwe chief and adversary, Hole-in-the-Day.

PDF of Dietrich article