Alaxchíiahush and Frank Linderman

White and gold illustration of Alaxchíiahush wearing his feathered headdress.

Cover of American: The Life Story of Great Indian: Plenty-coups, Chief of the Crows, 1962 reprint

In 1928, when Alaxchíiahush was 80 years old, he agreed to tell his life story to Frank Linderman, a long-time friend of and advocate for Native American tribes in Montana. The resulting biography, American: The Life Story of a Great Indian: Plenty-coups, Chief of the Crows (1930), brought Alaxchíiahush’s story to the English-speaking world in his own words.

Black and white illustration of two Crow men seated on horses and looking at a sunshield in the sky.

Illustration of sunshield from American: the Life Story of a Great Indian, Plenty-Coups, Chief of the Crows, 1930