st produced a vision that would serve Chief Plenty Coups until the end of his life, one he abided by in orchestrating peace with warring tribes and in his relations with the U.S. government as representative of his people:
He saw the buffalo disappear and spotted buffalo, or cattle, appear in their place. A forest was destroyed by a storm, except for a single tree. This tree held the lodge of the Chickadee, who survived the storm because he was a sharp listener who learned from others and knew where to pitch his lodge (Biography of Plenty-Coups 2).
This vision provided Chief Plenty Coups with a style of cooperation and adaptation that would serve him well as leader of the Crow during reservation life.
Chief Plenty Coups aided the U.S. government in their military battles against the Sioux as well as serving as the lead Indian scout for General George Crook. He is generally credited with keeping Crook and his menÆs fate from being the same as General George Custer at the battle of Little Bighorn. While many Native Americans and others criticize the Crow Chief for siding with the white man, the fact that the Crow had often been attacked by the Sioux made such collaboration in their best interest to Plenty CoupsÆ way of thinking. As Thomas Berger writes in American Heritage:
[T]he Crows have too often been underrated and sometimes even disdained for being allies of the white manàBut it is only human to look kindly on those who share your enemies, and the outnumbered Crows had been at war with the aggressive and expansionist Sioux long before the arrival of G. A. CusteràIn their day, the Crows were gallant and formidable warriorsö (65).
The transition to reservation existence was not easy for any Indian tribe. Such was the case for the Crow, but under the leadership of Chief Plenty Coups, a skillful negotiator, the Crow made the transition more successfully and profitably than many other tribes. Chief Plenty C...