Side:Trip Chief Plenty Coups Memorial State Park
(34 miles round trip)
Chief Plenty Coups
Also know as Aleek-chea-ahoosh, or Many Accomplishments, Chief Plenty Coups lead the Crow Tribe through a very tumultuous time. The population of his people had been decimated by Euro-American disease and war with the Plains tribes.
At a young age he had a vision that white people would inevitably control his land. He believed that by cooperating and aligning with the whites his people would bene t more than if he opposed.
While the Crow may have felt compelled to join thegovernment, their sympathies may have still been with the Nez Perce.
“An old Indian woman and her daughter came across the trail of Joseph and his band and saw a horse tied in the brush and riding down there found a young woman had dropped out of Joseph’s Band and con ned herself and was tryin to wrap her baby up and join the band. The old woman and daughter coaxed the woman to go home with them and not try to overtake Joseph, which she did. Three or four years afterwards the government learned that there was a Nez Perce renegade Indian among the Crows and ordered her sent in exile with the others.”
- C.T. Stranahan (agent for Nez Perce Reservation)
