The Crow Indians called themselves the Absaroka, which is Siouan for "bird people." Their name among whites became that of the well-known bird. Early in their history, they left the Hidatsas of the upper Missouri in what is now North Dakota because of a dispute over buffalo. Led by Chief No Vitals, the Crows then migrated farther upriver, to the Yellowstone River at the foot of the Rocky Mountains. This territory is presently in southern Montana and northern Wyoming. The Crows who settled north of the Yellowstone toward the Musselshell River became known as the Mountain Crow because of the high terrain. Those who lived to the south, along the valleys of the Big Horn, Powder, and Wind rivers, came to be called the River Crow.
Both groups of Crows gave up the village life of their Hidatsa kinsmen. They stopped farming for food, growing only tobacco crops from then on; they no longer constructed earthlodges; and they stopped making pottery. The Crows chose the life of the Plains Indians instead. This meant they lived in hide tepees, in camps which they moved often, following the herds of buffalo and other game. They also ate wild plant food. The horse, when they acquired it in the 1700s, drastically changed their hunting and warfare patterns by allowing them to travel faster and farther than before.
Before the Lewis and Clark expedition through Crow country in 1805-6, very few white men had ever seen the Crow Indians. In 1743, the La Verendryes brothers had visited Crow country, naming the inhabitants Beaux Hommes (Handsome Men). After Lewis and Clark, various fur companies and their trappers moved into Crow country. Trading posts were built--Fort Lisa at the junction of the Yellowstone and Bighorn rivers in 1807, Fort Cass farther up the Bighorn, and others.
By 1964, the Bozeman Trail, was blazed through Crow country. Shortly thereafter, three military posts--Fort Reno, Fort Phil Kearney, and Fort C.F. Smith...