The motivations and internal perspectives of the Lakota, Northern Cheyenne, Arapaho, Crow scouts, and others were often simplified or ignored.

Medicine Crow approached the battle from a very different position.

His family connected him directly to Crow scouts who had been involved in the campaign.

White Man Runs Him had seen the unfolding events.

Medicine Crow listened to these recollections as a child and carried them into adulthood.

The Crow position in 1876 was complicated.

The Crow had their own enemies and strategic interests.

Some Crow men served as scouts for the U.S.

Army, not because the history of U.S.-Native relations had suddenly become benevolent but because Plains politics involved longstanding rivalries, territorial pressures, and choices made under rapidly changing conditions.

Medicine Crow resisted narratives that reduced Native people to a single political bloc.