Living Well at the End of a World

In 1855, in what is today Wyoming and Montana, the Crow Indians seemed to face imminent extinction. They suffered raids from neighboring tribes, pressure from white settlers, and disease. Today, the Crow Indian Reservation occupies 2.2 million acres. 7,900 Crow live on the reservation, out of a tribe of 11,000 members, 85 percent of whom speak Crow as their first language. The Crow think of themselves as a modern nation that conducts relations with the U.S. government and the state of Montana. Unlike most other Indian tribes, they were never defeated in battle and continue to live on the land they believe God gave them. The single person to whom this is most due is Plenty Coups, the last chief of the Crow, who led his people through a period of immense cultural change from their life of intertribal warfare and hunting to farming on a reservation in modern America.