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Cloud Man (Dakota language: Maḣpiya Wic̣aṡṭa; ) was a Dakota people chief. 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. The village was seen by white settlers as a progressive step towards assimilation, yet members of the community maintained a distinctly Dakota way of life. The community was abandoned in 1839 and Cloud Man's band moved along the Minnesota River to join the Hazelwood Republic.
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. The US-Dakota War of 1862, Historic Fort Snelling, MNHS
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. Members of the party were cut off from one another, buried separately beneath snowdrifts with some small quantities of dried buffalo meat on which to subsist. Cloud Man recounted to missionary Samuel W. Pond that he would periodically dig to the surface of the snow to try and find his fellow hunters, only to be greeted with more gales of snow. When the storm subsided after almost three days, he emerged from the snow and called for the other members of his party, finding both that every one had survived the storm and that they were not far from an Indian camp.
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. Military officials at the fort responded favorably to Cloud Man's plan and provided assistance in the form of tools and seeds. He returned to Black Dog village and convinced several families to move to the banks of Bde Maka Ska with him.
Taliaferro and other white settlers in the area, such as Pond and his fellow missionary brother Gideon H. who came to live in the village, viewed Ḣeyate Otuŋwe as an experiment in "civilized life" for the Dakota, with Taliaferro referring to the community as "my little Colony of Sioux agriculturalists." Katherine Beane argues that what Taliferro viewed as a "progressive" move towards assimilation into European customs represented a step towards independence for a Cloud Man's band at a time when traditional Dakota practices faced existential challenges from white settlers encroaching into historically Dakota spaces. Beane suggests that in establishing Ḣeyate Otuŋwe, Cloud Man never " to forsake his identity as a Dakota man" and that "The change in subsistence patterns did not make the people of this village any less Dakota." Members of Ḣeyate Otuŋwe shared some of the corn they grew with members of other Dakota villages, prompting Taliaferro to give a speech to the village in September 1835, instructing them to cease the practice as counter to their self-interests; they did not. Cloud Man also traveled to Washington, D.C., in 1837 as part of a Dakota delegation and spoke to leaders of the Sauk people and Meskwaki tribes regarding recent fighting between the two groups.
As of 1839, the community had a population of 207 people: 54 women, 72 men, and 81 children. Ḣeyate Otuŋwe was abandoned that year as Cloud Man feared retaliation from nearby members of the Ojibwe, following a recent Dakota–Ojibwe war. Cloud Man and his band moved to the shores of the Minnesota River, close to Bloomington, Minnesota. 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. During the U.S.–Dakota War of 1862, he was interned at the Pike Island concentration camp where he died during the winter of 1862–1863. The spot of his death and burial was near the place of his birth.
In 2019, the Bde Maka Ska Public Art Project, commemorating the history of Ḣeyate Otuŋwe, was completed.
Two daughters were Wakaninajinwin (Stands Sacred Woman, "Stands Like a Spirit" with the Christian name "Lucy" in Hughes's genealogy) and Inażiŋwiŋ (The Day Sets, "Hushes the Night" in Hughes's genealogy). Nancy Eastman (Wakantankawin, Great Spirit Woman) was granddaughter through her mother Wakaninajinwin. Nancy had Mary Eastman Faribault (Tipiwakanwin), great granddaughter of Cloud Man, and Mary went on to have Lillian Evelyn Beane (Moore), Cloud Man's great-great-granddaughter.
Two sons were Ecetukiya (He Who Brings What He Wants) and Solomon Two Stars.Anderson, G. C., & Woolworth, A. R. (2008). Through dakota eyes: Narrative accounts of the minnesota indian war of 1862. Minnesota Historical Society Press. "Narrative 7: Ecetukiya's Testimony".
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