Editor’s note: This is one in an occasional series on “forgotten” ancestors who may not be fully recognized today for their achievements.
Raymond Wilson
Special to ICT
Elizabeth Bender Cloud was an Ojibwe activist, educator and staunch believer in Native self-determination who was noted for her decades-long work across Indian Country.
She gained recognition for her own work, particularly for Native women, and for the work she did side-by-side with her husband, Henry Roe Cloud, a noted Ho-Chunk educator and activist.
“Decades before Wounded Knee and the occupation of Alcatraz, their activism sowed the seeds of what would come to be known as the Red Power Movement,” their granddaughter, Renya Ramirez, an anthropology professor at the University of California Santa Cruz, writes in her 2018 book, “Standing Up to Colonial Power: The Lives of Henry Roe and Elizabeth Bender Cloud. Ramirez is a member of the Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska.
Elizabeth was born April 2, 1887, in Fosston, Minnesota, near the White Earth Reservation. Her Native name was Quay-Zaince, translated as twin, because she had a twin sister who died at birth.
Her mother was Ojibwe, and her father was a German-American logger who supported Ojibwe culture in which Native females and males traditionally shared political, economic and social roles. Besides Elizabeth, the couple had two daughters and seven sons.
Elizabeth attended several schools. At about age nine, she attended Catholic Sisters School in St. Joseph, Minnesota, for one year and transferred to Catholic Sisters School closer to her home for an additional year. Elizabeth then attended Pipestone Indian Training School in Pipestone, Minnesota, in 1898, where she took mostly vocational classes for half a day and worked manual labor the rest of the day.
Elizabeth enrolled at Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute in 1903 and graduated with a teaching degree in 1907. An outstanding student at Hampton, Elizabeth was secretary of the literary society, secretary of the Christian Endeavor Society, and wrote articles for Talks and Thoughts, the school’s newspaper.
Several of her siblings also attended Hampton, including her brother Charles Albert Bender, who became a famous professional baseball pitcher for the Philadelphia Athletics. Known as “Chief” Bender, he was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1953.
In 1908, she went to work for the Bureau of Indian Affairs as a teacher and matron (housemother) at the Blackfeet Indian School in Browning, Montana. Her duties included working with students both in and out of the classroom, and she was considered an excellent teacher. Her duties as matron included doing laundry, some cooking, and caring for the sick. Regarding the latter, she played a major role in helping students who were inflicted with trachoma, a serious eye disease.
She eventually returned to post-graduate work, and in 1910, Elizabeth spent two years at Hahnemann Hospital in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in nursing training courses.
After her nursing training, Elizabeth returned to the Blackfeet School. In 1914, she received a transfer to the Fort Belknap Indian School in Harlem, Montana, where she again served as a teacher and matron to students.
In 1914, she attended The Society of American Indians conference in Madison, Wisconsin, where she met her future husband, Henry Roe Cloud. She went on to teach at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania in 1915, where she started a campfire program that helped Native girls improve their domestic and artistic skills.
Also in 1915, she was instrumental in the success of the Roe Institute, later renamed the American Indian Institute, which Henry had founded in 1915 in Wichita, Kansas, as a college preparatory school for Native people.
They were married in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1916, and worked together for decades to improve Native conditions in society.
Elizabeth contributed mightily to the Roe Institute’s success, not only as a teacher but also as a student supervisor. She also handled administrative duties. She enrolled in courses at Wichita University and at the University of Kansas during the 1930s.
She resigned from the American Indian Institute in 1934, and later joined her husband, who had become superintendent of Haskell Institute in Lawrence, Kansas, in 1933. Again, Elizabeth was a valuable assistant to Henry and supported his improvements in curriculum offerings and the need for students to appreciate their Native heritage.
In 1940, Elizabeth served on the White House Conference on Children and Youth. The conference focused on improving issues regarding children in the United States and the importance of having children appreciate and preserve democracy.
Elizabeth moved to the Umatilla Indian Reservation in Pendleton, Oregon, where Henry became superintendent in 1940. There she began her many years of involvement with Indigenous women’s issues and increasing federal support for Native political, economic, and social self-determination, particularly after her discussions with the president of the General Federation of Women’s Clubs at the White House conference.
She was the major leader of the newly named Oregon Trails Women’s Club for Native women on the reservation and joined the Oregon State Federation of Women’s Clubs, serving as chair of the Indian Welfare Committee and becoming a member of the General Federation of Women’s Clubs.
In 1950, Elizabeth became the first Native to head the federation’s Indian Affairs Division. She traveled about 22,000 miles and spoke to groups regarding the need for reforms that guaranteed Natives self-determination and equality in society.
Her husband, who in 1948 had been appointed regional representative for the Grande Ronde and Siletz Indian Agencies in Oregon, died of a heart attack in Siletz, Oregon, on Feb. 9, 1950.
But that didn’t stop Elizabeth’s works. In 1951, she began working with the National Congress of American Indians in 1951 and became a co-director of the American Indian Development Project that advocated reforms to improve Native conditions and recognize Native sovereignty. She also opposed federal termination and relocation proposals, known as House Concurrent Resolution 108, that would end the special trust status of Native nations and move Natives to urban areas for more opportunities.
She also met with Commissioner of Indian Affairs Dillon S. Myer, who oversaw relocation of Japanese-Americans from their homes to internment camps during World War II and fervently expressed her views against termination and relocation policies.
Among awards she won were the Golden Rule Foundation Mother of the Year Award, in 1950, and, the same year, the Indian Council Fire Distinguished Indian Award, which her husband had won in 1935.
Among her publications were “From Hampton to New York,” Talks and Thoughts, February 1905; “A Hampton Graduate’s Experience,” The Southern Workman, April 1915; “Training Indian Girls for Efficient Home Makers,” The Red Man, 1916; “Indian Affairs,” The General Federation Clubwoman, May 1951; and “Statement by Participants,” Amerindian, September/October 1953.
Elizabeth Bender Cloud died on Sept. 16, 1965, in Portland, Oregon, at age 78. Her decades of activism for Native causes should not be forgotten.
Sources: Yale University Archives; Hampton University Archival Sources; Carlisle Indian School Digital Research Center; and Renya K. Ramirez, “Standing Up to Colonial Power: The Lives of Henry Roe and Elizabeth Bender Cloud” (2018).