Henry Roe Cloud to Henry Cloud: Ho-Chunk strategies and colonialism

This essay examines the gendered settler colonial aspects of Henry Roe Cloud's relationship with his informally adoptive 'mother,' Mary Roe. It argues that Cloud, my Ho-Chunk grandfather, an intellectual, activist, and policy-maker, defied colonial reality by appropriating the white notion of the self-made man, and by relying upon his Ho-Chunk masculinity, his partnership with his wife, Elizabeth, his Christian identity, and Ho-Chunk-centric hubs. It also argues that Cloud's Ho- Chunk warrior training contributed to his intellectual abilities. Finally, it critiques Joel Pfister's The Yale Indian, arguing that his 'colonial' claim to Cloud's letters prevents an adequate discussion of Indian-white settler colonial relations. Pfister's focus on Cloud's 'individuality', dismissing Cloud's Ho-Chunk-ness, resembles the settler colonial policies of removal.