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Updated: June 22, 2025
It is alleged, according to their tradition, that the Crows became a separate nation nearly two hundred years ago, because the tribe was becoming too numerous. In the early years of the century the head chief of the Crows was A-ra-poo-ash. The celebrated Jim Beckwourth had already become a leader among the Crows, and shortly after the death of A-ra-poo-ash was unanimously chosen in his place.
It had on its rolls Jim Bridger, Kit Carson, Jedediah Smith the Knight in Buckskin, the Sublette brothers, Jim Beckwourth the French mulatto who lived with the Crows as chief, and scores of others, mainly young men, genuine Americans of both French and Anglo-Saxon blood. Its career did not cease until the summer of 1834.
Every one was talking of it with wonder and amazement, and the chief's opinion was demanded at once; they were expecting it, and wanted to know what the consequences were to be. Admonished by his recent defeat, Beckwourth now had no trouble in reading the stars.
The precipitous walls of the Canyon forbade escape, and at length they became so demoralized that Beckwourth declares they actually proposed to cast lots as to which should be killed to make food for the others.
All who were able turned out at my summons, and, when they saw the booty awaiting them, their faces were irradiated with joy. Each man shouldered his load, but there was not one capable of carrying the weight of forty pounds. The game being all brought into camp, the fame of Jim Beckwourth was celebrated by all tongues.
At last Jim Beckwourth lost patience: "You are all a set of fools and old women," cried he; "come with me, if any of you are brave enough, and I'll show you how to fight." Beckwourth instantly threw off his trapper's suit of buckskin, stripping himself naked as were the Indians themselves.
Jim Beckwourth, who was one of the party, a mere youth then, tells of the success in the following words: I seized my rifle and issued from camp alone, feeling so reduced in strength that my mind involuntarily reverted to the extremity I had been brought to by my youthful folly in coming into such a desert waste.
His statement is corroborated by such men as Robert Campbell, of St. Louis, and other famous mountaineers of the time. There is a pretty piece of fiction connected with one of the claimants to its discovery, by the celebrated Jim Beckwourth, that famous Afro-American, who was chief of the Crow Nation.
Louis, then the centre of all Western commerce, had established himself in Green River Valley with a large band of expert trappers which included now famous names like Henry, Bridger, Fitzpatrick, Green, Sublet, and Beckwourth. This Suck was at the entrance to Flaming Gorge, as it has since been named.
By the cries and whoops that arose from below, Beckwourth knew that the Blackfeet were just beneath him; then running forward, he leaped from the rock right in the midst of the surprised savages. As he fell, he caught one of the Blackfeet by his long, loose hair, and dragging him toward him, buried his hatchet in his brain.
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