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NATIVE
AMERICAN LEGENDS
Satanta - Orator of the Plains
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Known to his people as Set-Tainte, meaning "White Bear Person,"
Satanta was a great Kiowa
warrior who would later become the
principal chief in the
Kiowa Wars of the 1860s-1870s and was known as "The Orator of the Plains."
He was born about 1820, during the height of the power of the Plains
Tribes, probably along the Canadian River in the traditional winter
camp grounds of his people.
After developing a reputation as an outstanding warrior, he was was
made a sub-chief of his tribe under Chief
Dohasan
while still in his twenties. In appearance, he was described as
tall, having a fine physique, erect bearing, and a piercing glance.
He fought with
Chief
Dohasan at the
First Battle of Adobe Walls in 1864, and earned enduing fame for
his use of an army bugle to confuse the troops in battle.
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Satanta
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His speaking abilities gained him the title of "Orator of the Plains,"
and as such, he negotiated several treaties with the American
government including the Little Arkansas Treaty in 1865 and the
Medicine Lodge Treaty in 1867, which required the
Kiowa to
be placed on a reservation.
The treaty assured the
Kiowa
people rule over the lands set aside for them, but white settlers
continued to pour across their territory and as a result the
Kiowa
continued to raid settlements and harass immigrants.
The unstable situation got worse when Chief Dohasan died in 1866 and
without his strong leadership, competition between several sub-chiefs
including Satanta, Guipago, and Tene-angopte, resulted in more raids
across the southern plains from
Kansas to
Texas, during the fall of
1866 and into 1867. During one of these raids in the
Texas Panhandle,
the
Kiowa
killed a man named James Box and captured his wife and four children,
whom they sold to the army at
Fort Dodge,
Kansas.
By this time, Satanta's fame as a warrior and a leader was growing but
he was unable to defuse
a confrontation between the
Kiowa
and the US Cavalry near
Fort Zarah,
Kansas in 1867. After a young
Kiowa
warrior was killed at the civilian camp near the army fort, and the
Kiowa
gathered to avenge his death and the cavalry retaliated by attacking
the
Kiowaencampment, in which several children were killed during the brief
skirmish..
The Medicine Lodge Treaty of 1867 failed to resolve the sources of
conflict and by early 1868 the
Kiowa
and other plains tribes were actively attacking white settlers.
Fearing that these attacks were leading to an Indian uprising, General Philip H. Sheridan was sent in to restore order in the
"winter campaign" of 1868-69. Sheridan's strategy
of
destroying
Kiowahomes and horses dampened the
Kiowa's
will to resist, especially after
Lieutenant Colonel
George A. Custer
destroyed the southern Cheyenne village on the Washita River on
November 23, 1868. Upon hearing of
Custer'swillingness to kill women and children, Satanta and Guipago decided to
surrender. Flying a flag of truce, the two chiefs approached Custer
on
December 17th, but were immediately arrested and
held for nearly three months while
Custer
sought permission to hang
them. Finally, in February, 1869 Tene-angopte negotiated their freedom
by promising that the
Kiowa
would return to the reservation and cease all attacks on white
settlers.
However, by 1871, Satanta and his followers were obviously not
satisfied with the reservation and began to make a number of attacks
on wagon trains in
Texas. On May 18, 1871, Satanta, along with Big Tree and Satank, he
led the
Warren Wagon Train Raid in
Texas,
in which seven teamsters lost their lives.
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After making public boasts
of the deed to the agent at
Fort Sill,
Oklahoma,
he,
Satank
and
Big Tree
were arrested by military authority and sent to
Texas
for trial.
Satank
was killed while resisting a guard and Satanta was warned
that he might be hanged for his crimes. To this, Satanta responded: "
I am a great chief among my people. If you kill me, it will be like a
spark on the prairie. It will make a big fire - a terrible fire!"
Satanta and
Big Tree were tried in
Texas
and sentenced to death; but
Texas
Governor Edmund Davis, overruled the court and the punishment was
changed to life imprisonment. While in prison, a visitor described him
as "a tall, finely formed man, princely in carriage, on whom even the
prison garb seemed elegant." Just two years later, Satanta was
released in 1873, conditional upon the good behavior of their people.
The following year, Satanta and his warriors were back on the warpath,
attacking buffalo hunters and engaging in the what is known as the
Second Battle of Adobe Walls which occurred on June 27, 1874.
In October, 1874, Satanta was captured and once again placed in the
Texas
Penitentiary. Unwilling to spend the rest of his life in prison,
Satanta killed himself on October 11, 1878, by throwing himself from a
high window of the prison hospital.
©
Kathy Weiser/Legends
of America, updated February, 2010.
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From the Rocky Mountain General Store
Native
American Guides & Books -
Legends of America and
the
Rocky Mountain General Store has collected a number of
Native American Guides & Books for our readers of history and
Native
American lore. For many of these, we have only one available. To see this varied collection, click
HERE!
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