Historic Southwest Citizens: Cloud Man

In Cloud Man’s lifetime there was not a written language for the Dakota. The history for this article is drawn from accounts of European-American traders, politicians, missionaries, and other settlers who wrote accounts in the early 19th century. Due to the prejudices and misconceptions of the time, this account may inevitably reflect some of that bias. The goal of this article is to inform readers of the historical importance of Cloud Man to Southwest Minneapolis.

In 1828 while on a hunting expedition, Mdewakanton leader Cloud Man was caught in a blizzard and survived by letting the snow cover him. The snow fell for three days before Cloud Man could crawl out from under it. 

“While trapped by the snow," local missionary Samuel Pond wrote, "Cloud Man thought upon a hunter’s life and decided that if he survived he would follow [Indian agent Lawrence] Taliaferro’s advice and raise corn.”

The Promise Of Stability

It wasn't just a near-death experience and advice of an ally that pushed Cloud Man to abandon the traditional lifestyle. Opportunities for hunting were being diminished by fur-trapping and squatters taking Dakota land as more Americans pushed into tribal lands. Cloud Man saw an opportunity to use the technology of the plow to increase yields and help prevent starvation of his band.

Cloud Man was nearly alone in his embrace of permanent farming, and few Dakota leaders agreed with his decision, but in the year after the snowstorm, Cloud Man led the Mdewakanton band of Dakota to farm at Lake Calhoun.

While the settlement was often called Cloud Man’s Village, Taliaferro’s official name for the village was ‘Eatonville’ after then-Secretary of War John H. Eaton.

By 1832 the village's population had increased significantly from 8 to 125 people. Many of those who joined Cloud Man were women and children.

In 1834 two missionaries, Samuel and Gideon Pond, were sent by Taliaferro to live at Eatonville. Cloud Man chose to welcome them and both Ponds respected his leadership. Samuel Pond spoke of Cloud Man as “a man of superior discernment and of great prudence and foresight.” The Ponds helped farm the land and studied the Dakota language.

A Tenuous Existance

Although staying in Eatonville brought opportunities for a more consistent food supply for the Mdewakanton band, life in the village was tenuous.

Sac and Fox Indians attacked the Dakota people, making Cloud Man wary of continuing to listen to the advice of Taliaferro. Cloud Man addressed a group who were pressuring his people not to retaliate, saying, “I always thought myself and my people would be made happy by listening to your advice. But I begin to think the more we listen, the more we are imposed upon by other tribes.”

Affairs worsened in 1838 as news arrived that Ojibwe chief Hole-in-the-Day had killed some of the Wahpeton band of Dakota. Lake Calhoun was too close to Ojibwe territory to be safe from attack.

News of Taliaferro’s resignation as Indian agent came as an additional sign that it was time to move the band further from the threat of Ojibwe attack. With new leadership at Fort Snelling, there would be no support of the farming experiment at Lake Calhoun.

The Village Abandoned

In 1840 Cloud Man’s band moved to a more defensible location near the Minnesota River in Oak Grove (now south Bloomington), leaving the farm and village they had built behind.

Although there is little evidence of Cloud Man’s Village in present day Lakewood Cemetery, Cloud Man’s memory lives on. A Dakota ceremony at sunrise on the site of the village marked the beginning of Minneapolis’ 150th anniversary celebrations in 2008.

Syd Beane, a member of the Flandreau Santee Sioux Tribe and great-great-great-great-grandson of Cloud Man conducted the ceremony and called Cloud Man’s Village “a symbolic experiment of peace and reconciliation.”