Henry Cloud's Childhood and Young Adulthood

In this chapter I discuss Henry Cloud's early years, his youth on the Winnebago Reservation with his beloved family, his Ho-Chunk education, and his training in white schools, including Yale University. In his published autobiographical narrative for a missionary journal, a doubleness is present that revolves around his Christian conversion. Even while writing for a white Christian audience, he remains true to his Native position. As a child, he refused to forget his Ho-Chunk language and identity, resisting the federal government's settler-colonial attempt to assimilate him in the federal boarding schools and challenging the conservative Christian doctrine that pagan identities must be forgotten. As a Native and Christian, he had access to white ideas, which he strategically used for Native goals and objectives. As an orator and writer, he was able to perform in various cultural registers, using both Eurocentric and Indigenous concepts to sway his audience. As a Ho-Chunk modern man and warrior, he appropriated the popular rhetoric of white masculinity of the "self-made man" to increase his power in white society, ultimately challenging attempts of settler-colonial forces to take away his masculine power and turn him into a "non-man."

Later in his life, during a speech to a graduating class of Alaska Native students, Cloud articulated a strong Ho-Chunk position. Indeed, Cloud had a tremendous sense of humor and was a great teller of tales. He attributed his storytelling ability to his precious Ho-Chunk grandmother, who would tell him stories only in the winter. Cloud used Ho-Chunk trickster strategies to help him survive and excel in the midst of colonialism, including doubleness, shape-shifting, humor, and creativity. Cloud was a Ho-Chunk intellectual, who argued that Natives should attend college, thus challenging settler-colonial and racist assumptions that Natives were not smart enough. He developed a modern Ho-Chunk warrior identity by adding white concepts to his core Ho-Chunk philosophy and educational training. His additive, flexible, and fluid cultural and intellectual methodology disputes the subtractive and static approach of federal boarding schools and classic anthropology — both of which are linked to settler colonialism. He created Ho-Chunk–centric hubs to support his Ho-Chunk identity and culture while living away from his tribe.

Ho-Chunk, "People of the Big Voice," and Removals

Some historical background regarding the Ho-Chunk will help to set the scene for Cloud's childhood and his later life. The Ho-Chunk, or the "People of the Big Voice," lived for centuries in our homelands in present-day Wisconsin. In 1634 the Ho-Chunks encountered the French settler Jean Nicolet when he landed at Red Banks, Wisconsin. The French called our Ho-Chunk people the Winnebago. (Even though I am an enrolled member of the Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska, I will be using the name Ho-Chunk: an act of decolonization, as this is the name we gave ourselves.) Due to colonization Ho-Chunks are now divided into two distinct tribal nations. These two tribal nations are the Ho-Chunk Nation, whose members live on our traditional homelands in Wisconsin, and the Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska, whose members live on the reservation in Nebraska created by the federal government. The Ho-Chunk Nation reclaimed their original tribal name in 1994.2

As soon as the colonizer arrived, our people began experiencing settler colonialism. Colonizers made treaties with our Ho-Chunk ancestors to dispossess us of our precious and cherished land. As part of the Treaty of 1825, our tribal territory extended from Green Bay, beyond Lake Winnebago, to the Wisconsin River and the Rock River in Illinois, including 8.5 million acres. Once colonization started, our story as Ho-Chunks is one of much suffering and incredible hardships. Much of our misery began in the late 1820s, when miners began to pour into southwestern Wisconsin. Treaty commissioners promised they would punish whites who entered Ho-Chunk lands. But the lure of mineral-rich, lush farmlands proved too strong, and the colonizer sincerely believed that Indigenous lands were available for the taking. Within ten years the federal government reversed its position and forced the Ho-Chunk to sell our land at a meager percentage of its value. Federal officials then forcibly removed our Ho-Chunk ancestors from Wisconsin.

After the signing of the 1832 treaty, the Ho-Chunk were first removed to land in Iowa, called the "Neutral Ground"; it was supposed to act as a buffer between the Sac and Fox and Dakota Nations. We were then removed to a wooded region of northeastern Minnesota in 1846, to act as a barrier between the Ojibwe and the Lakota. Consequently, the Ho-Chunk suffered from the raids of both tribes. After the signing of the 1855 treaty, the federal officials removed the Ho-Chunk to land near the Blue Earth River in southern Minnesota. As soon as we arrived, white settlers demanded our removal yet again. In 1863 our people were forcibly removed to the Crow Creek Reservation in South Dakota, and more than 550 people died on our horrific journey. The Ho-Chunk requested that the federal government exchange their South Dakota reservation for lands near the friendly Omahas in 1865. The Omahas' reservation was situated in northeastern Nebraska, next to the Missouri River and close to present-day South Sioux City, Iowa.

The memories of our Ho-Chunk ancestors include stories about being rounded up at gunpoint, loaded into boxcars, and shipped to our reservation in Nebraska. My mother told me that there were many Ho-Chunk casualties as a result of these multiple removals. Being forcibly removed away from our homelands is a psychic wound that we, as the descendants, carry within our hearts, spirits, and minds. My grandfather's parents were likely born in the 1860s, suffered through this very difficult history, and lived on our newly created reservation in Nebraska next to the Missouri River. After these removals many Ho-Chunks returned to their ancestral homelands in Wisconsin and eventually created the Ho-Chunk Nation in Wisconsin.

Cloud and Ho-Chunk Naming

Henry Cloud's Ho-Chunk name was Wo-Na-Xi-Lay-Hunka, meaning "War Chief." Cloud describes it in a letter in a metaphorical rather than literal way as the "Chief of the Place of Fear." Ho-Chunk naming provides the clan and the family a mechanism to emphasize the child's place in a support system, and this network, or Ho-Chunk hub, serves the child throughout life. Remembering the circumstances of naming and the crucial role it plays is fundamental to Ho-Chunk education. Naming ceremonies are tribal educational structures that introduce one's place in the tribe and the universe. Children were often named at tribal...