Cloud Man

The child of French and Mdewakanton parents, he founded the agricultural community Ḣeyate Otuŋwe on the shores of Bde Maka Ska in 1829 after being trapped in a snowstorm for three days.

Cloud Man died during internment at the concentration camp at Fort Snelling on Pike Island, which held nearly 1,700 eastern Dakota and Ho-Chunk non-combatants, mainly women and children, after the U.S.–Dakota War of 1862.

[b][7] During a hunting trip on the plains near the Missouri River, Cloud Man and his party were trapped by a snowstorm and were forced to wrap themselves in blankets and lie on the ground, waiting for the snow to pass.

[6][7] Cloud Man spent some of his time during the storm reflecting on Taliaferro's proposal and after returning home to Black Dog village, visited him at Fort Snelling for advice on establishing an agricultural community.

[11][12] The agricultural colony Ḣeyate Otuŋwe[c] was established in August 1829 on the shores of Bde Maka Ska on the present-day site of Lakewood Cemetery in Minneapolis.

[13] Cloud Man also traveled to Washington, D.C., in 1837 as part of a Dakota delegation and spoke to leaders of the Sauk and Meskwaki tribes regarding recent fighting between the two groups.

[15] In 1851, Cloud Man moved with his band up the Minnesota River to near Yellow Medicine County where they joined a community of agricultural Indians, the Hazelwood Republic.