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Chief Red Cloud's Shirt
Buckskin, porcupine quills, fabric, pigment
Oglala Sioux, possibly made by Cheyenne
pre-1902
L 86.4, W 63.5, cm
AGFO 439
Agate Fossil Beds National Monument
Photo Credit: NPS, Harpers Ferry Center
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Link to historic photo
Link to park home page
Link to park collection data
All Park Collection Information |
This shirt once belonged to Chief Red Cloud (1822-1909), a legendary Oglala Sioux leader of the Lakota Nation. In the 1860s, Chief Red Cloud led the Lakota and their allies to close the Bozeman Trail, a route to the Montana gold fields. He negotiated a treaty resulting in the U.S. abandoning its forts along the trail. Turning from warrior to diplomat, Red Cloud continued in later life to fight for the rights of his people, while walking a fine line between two cultures. Often photographed, he has become an icon, in the larger public memory, for all indigenous peoples of an earlier time in U.S. history. In the late 1800s, he befriended Nebraska rancher James Cook and the two enjoyed an enduring relationship. In a portrait painted at Cook's Agate Springs Ranch in 1902, Red Cloud wears this shirt, which he presented to Cook on his last visit in 1908. Part of Cook's ranch now forms Agate Fossil Beds National Monument. The park museum collection has over 10,000 Cook family items, including the shirt. |
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