The early home of the Crow-Hidatsa ancestral tribe was in the Ohio country, near Lake Erie.

Driven from there by armed, aggressive neighbors, they settle for a while south of Lake Winnipeg in present Manitoba.

Later the people move to the Devil's Lake region of North Dakota before the Crow split from the Hidatsa and move westward.

The Crow have largely pushed westward due to intrusion and influx of the Cheyenne and subsequently the Sioux, also known as the Lakota.

To acquire control of their new territory, they war against Shoshone bands (called Bikkaashe—"People of the Grass Lodges"), and drive them westward.

They ally with local Kiowa and Kiowa Apache bands.