The story of Red Cloud - a child of God

[Lou Newton]

I read a book titled "The Heart of Everything That Is" - The Untold Story of Red Cloud an American Legend

Red Cloud was an Oglala Lakota Sioux native american. He was born in 1822 and died in 1909. He was appointed to be the first Chief of the all the Sioux nations. They had never had a Chief over all the Sioux nations before.

Here are some of the things he said:

I am poor and naked, but I am the chief of the nation. We do not want riches but we do want to train our children right. Riches would do us no good. We could not take them with us to the other world. We do not want riches. We want peace and love.
Red Cloud

I hope the Great Heavenly Father, who will look down upon us, will give all the tribes his blessing, that we may go forth in peace, and live in peace all our days, and that He will look down upon our children and finally lift us far above this earth.
Red Cloud

Even if you live forty or fifty years in this world, and then die, you cannot take all your goods with you.
Red Cloud

The white man has got the gold out of the land which belonged to the red man.
Red Cloud

When I was a young man, I was poor. In a war with other nations, I was in eighty-seven fights. There I received my name and was made Chief of my nation. But now I am old and am for peace.
Red Cloud

The Great Spirit will not make me suffer because I am ignorant. He will put me in a place where I shall be better off than in this world.
Red Cloud

The whites, who are educated and civilized, swindle me, and I am not hard to swindle because I do not know how to read and write.
Red Cloud

Look at me. I was a warrior on this land where the sun rises, now I come from where the sun sets. Whose voice was first surrounded on this land - the red people with bows and arrows. The Great Father says he is good and kind to us. I can't see it...
Red Cloud

NOTE: The Great Father is a reference to the President of the US

We were told that they wished merely to pass through our country. . . to seek for gold in the far west . . . Yet before the ashes of the council are cold, the Great Father is building his forts among us. . . . His presence here is . . . an insult to the spirits of our ancestors. Are we then to give up their sacred graves to be allowed for corn?
Red Cloud

“They made us many promises, more than I can remember, but they kept only one; they promised to take our land, and they did.”
― Red Cloud

"The Great Spirit raised both the white man and the Indian. I think he raised the Indian first. He raised me in this land, it belongs to me. The white man was raised over the great waters, and his land is over there. Since they crossed the sea, I have given them room. There are now white people all about me. I have but a small spot of land left. The Great Spirit told me to keep it."

Chief Red Cloud - Sioux

Whose voice was first sounded on this land? The voice of the red people who had but bows, and arrows...What has been done in my country I did not want, did not ask for it; white people going through my country... When the white man comes in my country he leaves a trail of blood behind him...I have two mountains in that country... The Black Hills and the Big Horn Mountain. I want the great father to make no roads through them. I have told these things three times; now I have come here to tell them the fourth time.

Chief Red Cloud - Sioux

We can see today that the US government is doing to us what they did to the Indians long ago.

It seems to me that this so called ignorance Indian, who could not read and knew nothing about The Bible, knew more about God than many who claimed Red Cloud to be a heathen.

What should our response to this be ? I, for one, confessed these events as sin and asked the Lord to please forgive me and for whatever my forefathers did to take part in these injustices.

Reading this book brought me to tears quite a few times:

In the next post I will tell about how hard one man fought to try to save one unborn child.

It is a story worthy of being told.

[Lou Newton]

The Sioux nations had lived in the eastern woodlands of America and had to keep moving further west until they ended up in Minnesota. From Minnesota they had to keep moving west until they ended up in the Powder River valley in southeastern Montana and northern Wyoming. They survived on buffalo for food, clothing and shelter.

The white man was killing buffalo so fast that the Sioux could see that they would soon be gone. So the Sioux said they would not allow the white man to enter their land. When the white man kept coming on their land they went to war with the white man.

After the Civil War the US tried to get all the tribes of that region to sign another treaty of peace. But as the Indians were camped around Fort Laramie waiting to consider the treaty an army Col. Carrington arrived to go into the Indians land to build forts on their land even before the treaty was signed. This enraged the indians and they could see the US thought nothing about their rights or their land.

Carrington left from Fort Laramie to build his forts and Red Cloud got up and announced that he would fight and die rather that see his family die of starvation. Carington went on the build Fort Reno and further north a larger Fort Phil Kearney. He stayed at Fort Phil Kearney with his wife and his men. There was also a Lieutenant Grummond at the Fort with his pregnant wife Frances.

Red Cloud attacked a wood cutting detail of about 90 men as a decoy. Carrington sent all of his best soldiers with the best horses and weapons out of the Fort to destroy these Indians. A Capt Fetterman was in charge of this group and he took his men to the ridge overlooking the For hoping to cut off the Indians as they retreated. The Indians enticed Fetterman to take his men over the ridge ( he had been ordered not to cross over the ridge) and Fetteman chased after the Indians. He ran into an ambush of thousands of Indian warriors and was destroyed to the man. All of the horses that were still fit to ride were lost along with all of the repeating rifles and the best trained soldiers.

This left Carrington very afraid that Red Cloud would attack the Fort next and kill everyone in it. ( some of the soldiers in the Fort had rifles that would not even fire) So he asked for volunteers to try to get through the surrounding Indians to ask for help from Fort Laramie. To add to the Indians that surrounded the Fort it was about 25 below with blizzard conditions. Carrington sent three different men leaving at different times and traveling separately hoping at least one would get through.

There was a gold miner at the at the Fort who was born to Portuguese parents in the Azores by the name of John "Portugee" Phillips who volunteered to go. He was not in the army and had no duty to do so. Phillips and Frances has seen one another at the Fort but had not even spoke let alone know each other. She was with child and her husband had just been killed that same day.

Phillips knocked on her door and gave her his wolf skin robe. He looked at her condition and said, keep this robe to keep you and your baby warm and to remember me by. I will go for help even if it cost me my life. She did not know why a total stranger would say such a thing to her. She did not know of his personal code of honor that pregnant woman and unborn babies are to be protected at all costs.

Col Carrington took Philips to the stables to take his pick of Carrington's personal horses. Phillips chose a white Kentucky Thoroughbred for it's speed and color ( white would blend with the snow and be hard to see). They opened the gates at night and Phillips rode out into the fierce cold wind not knowing where the Indians were.

Phillips rode by night and hid by the day in the terrible wind and cold. He ran out of food for the horse and dug into the snow to find little handfuls of grass to feed it. When he arrived at a telegraph station he was close to death and his horse was in even worst condition. He sent the message asking for help but the telegraph operator told him that he thought the Indians had cut the line for he had not received even one message all day.

The other two men arrived at the station while he was there and said they were unable go on to Fort Laramie. They all tried to persuade Phillips not to try to go to For Laramie for he would never make it and he would die for nothing. Phillips bundled up and left immediately. The snow was thigh deep by now.

Phillips went snow blind and could not see but went by feel. Finally the lights on the Fort were in sight and the horse was drawn to the lights as a moth to the flame. Phillips fell from his horse before he arrived at the Fort but a sentry just so happened to see him and went to his rescue. He and another carried Phillips and led his horse into the gates. Phillips was hardly able to talk but said he had a message for the Commander.

It was Christmas night and they carried Phillips into the celebration that was taking place that night. At the sight of this man covered with ice sickles and near death, the band stopped playing and silence feel over the room. Phillips took the letter from inside his buffalo robe and handed to to the Commander. The Commander was in shock at the news of the massacre. He was also stunned that any man could travel 236 miles in four days in the most vicious northerner storms ever recorded on the high plains. This ride became as famous in the west as Paul Revers ride.

They carried Phillips to the infirmary, and as they did, they carried him past his horse that had collapsed and died in the courtyard.

This man went through all this to try to save one unborn baby. Yet we have people today who will fight, not to save, but for the right to kill these unborn babies. Certainly God will judge this nation that does not protect the most innocent and very ones that can do nothing to protect themselves.

Why do politicians fight so hard to kill these unborn ? Because these unborn can not vote.

We can not thank Phillips for his extreme courage that was beyond human understanding. But we can be very thankful to The Lord Jesus who will reward every righteous act. Not one righteous act will escape His knowing.

Lou Newton

[Steve Hollander]

Good story Lou. Thanks