Qualla: Crow Indian Reservation

Crow Indian Reservation: Introduction

Mon, 26 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Montanabw, CC BY-SA 4.0. Every August, the third week brings over a thousand teepees to Crow Agency, Montana, forming what the tribe calls the Teepee Capital of the World. The Crow Fair has run since 1904, a gathering that predates statehood for much of the region, and it unfolds on a reservation that was once thirty million acres and is now closer to two million. The Apsaalooke, as the Crow call themselves, have occupied this land in south-central Montana since migrating here in the 1500s. They have watched it shrink through treaty after treaty, fought to protect what remained, and built a modern economy atop 1.4 billion tons of coal beneath their feet.

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Image: Montanabw | CC BY-SA 4.0

Crow Indian Reservation: Thirty Million Acres

Mon, 26 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit U.S. government, maps, Public domain. The 1851 Fort Laramie Treaty recognized Crow territory across a vast swath of what is now Montana and Wyoming. But by May 7, 1868, pressures had mounted from all directions. Europeans pushed south of the Yellowstone River while Lakota warriors, including Crazy Horse and Sitting B...

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Image: U.S. government, maps | Public domain

Crow Indian Reservation: The Prayer in Room 314

Mon, 26 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Department of the Interior. Bureau of Indian Affairs. Forestry Division. 9/17/1947-ca. 1961, Public domain. In 1917, as Congress considered yet another appropriation of Crow land, Chief Plenty Coups and Robert Yellowtail traveled to Washington, D.C. In a hotel room, they performed a ceremony. They opened a sacred bundle over incense made from buffalo chips sourced from animals in the N...

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Image: Department of the Interior. Bureau of Indian Affairs. Forestry Division. 9/17/1947-ca. 1961 | Public domain

Crow Indian Reservation: Black Diamonds

Mon, 26 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit U.S. government, maps, Public domain. The 1973 Arab Oil Embargo changed everything for the Crow. Suddenly, the enormous coal deposits beneath their territory had real value. The tribe owns 1.4 billion tons of the mineral, enough to supply the entire United States for a year. The Absaloka coal mine opened in 1974, a s...

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Image: U.S. government, maps | Public domain

Crow Indian Reservation: Living Language

Mon, 26 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Boyd Norton, Public domain. Of the approximately 11,000 enrolled members of the Crow Tribe, about 7,900 live on the reservation today. Eighty-five percent still speak Crow as their first language, a remarkable survival rate for an Indigenous tongue in modern America. The language preserves ways of thinking ...

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Image: Boyd Norton | Public domain

Crow Indian Reservation: Plenty Coups' House

Mon, 26 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit IronWolf68, CC BY 3.0. Near the town of Pryor stands Chief Plenty Coups State Park, preserving the two-story lodge house and grocery store of the leader who helped save the reservation in 1917. Plenty Coups, whose Crow name was Alek-Chea-Ahoosh, chose accommodation with the U.S. government as a surviva...

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Image: IronWolf68 | CC BY 3.0