The Heart of Everything That Is

The Heart of Everything That Is is a historical biography of the Oglala Lakota leader Red Cloud written by Bob Drury and Tom Clavin. Published in 2013, The Heart of Everything That Is tells the story of Red Cloud’s War, the greatest military victory of American Indian forces over the United States Army. The authors purported to draw most of the information in their book from a lost autobiography of Red Cloud, written with the help of a white coauthor near the end of Red Cloud’s life. However, some scholars have called the authenticity of the autobiography into question.

Red Cloud is born in 1822 near the Platte River in modern-day Nebraska. His mother, Walks As She Thinks, is an Oglala Lakota and his father, Lone Man, is a leader of the Brule Lakota. Since children in matrilineal Lakota societies belong to their mother’s tribe, Red Cloud is an Oglala.

While still a child, Red Cloud is mentored by his mother’s brother, Old Chief Smoke, who also adopts the young Red Cloud after both of his parents die. Red Cloud gets his first combat experience as a teenager, participating in raids against neighboring bands of Pawnee and Crow.



In the middle of the nineteenth century, the Lakota are in the midst of expanding their territory into surrounding Crow tribal lands. At the same time, the United States is looking for a new route to the recently discovered gold fields of Montana. John Bozeman and John M. Jacobs develop the Bozeman Trail, which cuts through the newly annexed Lakota lands. The US government is in violation of an earlier treaty that set these lands aside for use by Native American tribes.

In 1868, Red Cloud and other Lakota leaders ally with their Arapaho and Cheyenne neighbors, attacking a United States Army unit and defeating it in a battle called the Fetterman Massacre by the United States, and the Battle of the Hundred Slain by the allied Indian forces. Though there had been clashes between Army troops and Native Americans before, this decisive victory for the Lakota is the beginning of Red Cloud’s War.

Shortly after that, Red Cloud and the Lakota warrior Crazy Horse lure a detachment of US infantry into an ambush and attack them. All eighty-one of the infantrymen are killed, while Red Cloud’s forces suffer only fourteen casualties.



Following the ambush, US delegates agree to meet with Red Cloud to negotiate peace. In 1868, Red Cloud is instrumental in getting the US government to restore the borders of the Lakota tribal land and withdraw all its military forces from the area. The US government also places a restriction on mining, logging, and the harvesting of other resources from land belonging to the Lakota and their allies.

Through continued contact with the local Red Cloud Indian Agency, Red Cloud is also able to secure regular shipments of rations and supplies for the Oglala Lakota. However, the supplies are often late or in poor condition, and eventually, the agency pulls out of the area entirely.

With the agency gone, American settlers begin to encroach on Lakota territory to look for gold in the Black Hills area. In 1875, Red Cloud and several other tribal representatives travel to Washington to meet with President Ulysses S. Grant in an attempt to get him to enforce the existing treaties barring miners from the land. Grant attempts to convince Red Cloud to resettle his people elsewhere, but Red Cloud refuses to agree to the new treaty because the proposed land is not as fertile or capable of supporting the Lakota way of life as their existing homeland.



Eventually, negotiations in Washington break down. Back in Lakota territory, Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull lead another war against American settlers in their territory. After that, the Lakota are forcibly removed by the US government and eventually, resettled on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.

Red Cloud continues to lead the Lakota during the transition. However, his trip to Washington convinces him of US military supremacy; after he returns from his meeting with the president, his main concern is making peace. After moving to Pine Ridge, he continues to advocate for his people, opposing the Dawes Act and other new treaties that would take land away from the Lakota until his death in 1909 at the age of eighty-seven. Obituaries at the time recognized his skills as a diplomat and statesman.

The Heart of Everything That Is was a New York Times bestseller and was selected by Salon as a best book of the year. The biography generally received positive reviews, with the Boston Globe calling it a “page turner” and USA Today saying it was the “definitive chronicle of the conflict between an expanding white civilization and the Plains Indians who stood in its way.” However, American Indian scholars have expressed reservations about the book, citing factual errors and a stereotypical depiction of Plains Indian culture.