Crow Nation

The Crow Indian tribe originated in the southeastern United States. As with numerous other tribes, the Crow moved west onto the Great Plains in the 1600s and 1700s due to pressure from English and other European settlers. After first living with the Hidatsa on the upper Missouri River, conflict with that tribe led them to migrate further west to Canada, Utah, and Oklahoma [Page 182]before eventually reaching the Rocky Mountains. By 1700, they had finally settled in the Yellowstone River region in what is today Montana. One of their chiefs had had a vision in which the Great Spirit gave him sacred seeds and told him to head to the big mountains and plant them. This would allow his people to grow in population and strength. By 1800, the Crow had adopted the nomadic and warlike Plains Indian way of life, which was created in part because of the acquisition of guns from French and English settlers to the east and horses from Spanish settlers to the south.

As the United States expanded west, an inevitable clash took place between American settlers and nomadic Plains Indians such as the Crow. Pioneer trails before the Civil War and railroads after began cutting across the Great Plains. However, it was the lure of gold that led to the opening of the Bozeman Trail through Wyoming and into Montana in 1864. The trail was dotted with forts at locations such as Fort Laramie and Fort Phil Kearney in order to protect pioneers and gold seekers. Nevertheless, it was around this time that the Crow made a strategic decision to ally with the Americans against larger and better-armed tribes, such as the westward-expanding Sioux and Blackfoot, in order to preserve their homeland and way of life to the extent that they could. By 1865, the Crow had been pushed about as far west as possible without being driven off the plains completely. The following year, 81 soldiers who had left Fort Phil Kearney to defend a wood train under attack by the Sioux were killed in what became known as the Fetterman Massacre.

The possibility that the United States would abandon the Bozeman Trail as a result of the massacre helped further drive the Crow into an alliance with the Americans. Captain Nathaniel C. Kinney, commander of Fort C. F. Smith along the Bozeman Trail, hired 10 Crows as scouts and spies in January of 1867. In February, Long Horse, The Bear in the Water, The Dog That Bats His Eye, and Iron Bull agreed to work as Crow army couriers for $33 per month. A Crow delegation attended peace talks at Fort Laramie in November of 1867. Crow leaders like Bear's Tooth and Blackfoot expressed concern about U.S. presence on the Bozeman Trail and subsequent actions, such as cutting down trees and the killing and wasting of wild game. The delegation did not mention the previous main concern of removing the Sioux from the area. The Crow had come to believe that preserving their way of life and not moving on to a reservation were at least as important as being rid of their tribal enemies. The Americans refused to abandon the Bozeman Trail and nothing was accomplished in 1867. However, in February of 1868, the U.S. government did abandon the trail. The Sioux, Arapaho, and Crow later signed the 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie. The Crow surrendered all of their land in Wyoming and in parts of Montana. They received a reservation in southeast Montana, as well as doctors, teachers, provisions, and the assistance essential in converting to a settled way of life. Land sales eventually reduced the reservation and left it in several pieces.

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