![William S](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/64/William_S._Soule_-_Satank_%28SPC_BAE_3912-B_Vol_1_01158500%29.jpg)
Satank (Set-angya or Set-ankeah, translated as chief Topinabee A quiet Sitting Bear) was a prestigious
Kiowa
Kiowa () people are a Native American tribe and an indigenous people of the Great Plains of the United States. They migrated southward from western Montana into the Rocky Mountains in Colorado in the 17th and 18th centuries,Pritzker 326 and eve ...
warrior and medicine man. He was born about 1800, probably in Kansas, and killed June 8, 1871. An able warrior, he became part of the
Koitsenko
The Koitsenko was a group of the ten greatest warriors of the Kiowa tribe as a whole, from all bands. One was Satank who died while being taken to trial for the Warren Wagon Train Raid. The Koitsenko were elected out of the various military so ...
(or Kaitsenko, ''Ko-eet-senko''), the society of the bravest Kiowa warriors. He led many raids against the Cheyennes, the Sacs, and the Foxes. As the white settlers' importance increased, he raided settlements, wagon trains, and even army outposts.
Background
In 1860 Satank was a frequent visitor at the Peacock Ranch near present-day
Great Bend
Great Bend is a city in and the county seat of Barton County, Kansas, United States. It is named for its location at the point where the course of the Arkansas River bends east then southeast. As of the 2020 census, the population of the ci ...
, Kansas. Satank asked Mr. George Peacock to write a letter of introduction (begging paper) saying that Satank was a good Indian. Peacock took advantage of Satank's illiteracy, and instead wrote that Satank was a bad Indian. When the Chief learned about the trick from
Buffalo Bill Mathewson, Satank's tribe killed Peacock and several other people at Peacock Ranch.
[Bernard Bryan Smyth, The Heart of the New Kansas, Great Bend, Ks, B. B. Smyth, 1880, p. 82.][The Ranch at Walnut Creek Crossing by Louise Barry, Summer 1971]
/ref>
Struggle for power after death of the Kiowa chief Little Mountain (Dohäsan)
After the death of the Kiowa supreme chief Dohäsan
Dohäsan, Dohosan, Tauhawsin, Tohausen, or Touhason (late 1780s to early 1790s – 1866) was a prominent Native American. He was War Chief of the Kata or Arikara band of the Kiowa Indians, and then Principal Chief of the entire Kiowa Tribe, ...
in 1866 Guipago
Guipago (Gui-pah-gho, or ''Lone Wolf he Elder'
'' Alone among the Wolves '') (c. 1820 – July 1879) was the last Principal Chief of the Kiowa tribe. He was a member of the Koitsenko, the Kiowa warrior elite, and was a signer of the Little Arkan ...
was selected as the new head chief, Satanta took over the leadership as war chief, with Satank leading the Koitsenko; Tene-angopte (Kicking Eagle), together with Napawat (No Mocassins) was the leader of the white-friendly party. 1867 Satank signed the Medicine Lodge Treaty
The Medicine Lodge Treaty is the overall name for three treaties signed near Medicine Lodge, Kansas, between the Federal government of the United States and southern Plains Indian tribes in October 1867, intended to bring peace to the area by re ...
together with Satanta and other Kiowa chiefs (but not Guipago, who refused to sign).
Last years and Warren wagon-train affair
In 1870 his son, also named Satank, was killed in a raid in Texas. Disconsolate, the old man carried some of his son's bones with him. He stepped up his raiding, in retribution for his son's death, including many conducted by Satanta and other discontented Kiowa, Comanche and Apache tribes, including the Warren Wagon Train Raid, on May 18, 1871 on Salt Creek Prairie in Texas.
The survivors of the Warren train had rushed on to Fort Richardson, where they encountered General William Tecumseh Sherman
William Tecumseh Sherman ( ; February 8, 1820February 14, 1891) was an American soldier, businessman, educator, and author. He served as a general in the Union Army during the American Civil War (1861–1865), achieving recognition for his com ...
, who had passed by the raiding party as it lay hidden waiting for the wagon train. The General, realizing that he had escaped death by fate, ordered Colonel Ranald S. Mackenzie and the 4th Cavalry to pursue the war party and bring back those responsible for the attack.[Texas State Libraries & Archives Commission, Satanta]
/ref>
The Army did not catch the war party, the war party caught themselves. Leaders Satank and Satanta had come back to the reservation, and had they kept quiet, no one would have ever found out officially who had committed the Warren Wagon Train Raid. But Satanta could not bring himself to be quiet. He asked the Indian Agent on the Kiowa-Comanche Reservation for ammunition and supplies, bragging that he, Satank, and young war leader Ado-ete
Big Tree (Kiowa: Ado-ete (ca. 1850–1929), was a noted Kiowa warrior and chief. He was a loyal follower of the fighting chiefs party (led by Satank, Satanta, and Guipago), and conducted frequent raids upon other tribes and white settlers, ofte ...
( Big Tree) had led the war party which had recently killed the teamsters at Salt Creek, and that they could have killed General Sherman if they had wished.[
Sherman, already enraged over the acts of the war party, was further enraged to hear that he could have been killed. He ordered the arrest of Satank, Satanta, and Big Tree, and personally carried it out on the Agent’s porch, in spite of Guipago's intervention (the head chief came in well equipped with loaded rifle and guns, fit to fight for his friend's liberty, but had to surrender in front of the massive presence of military troops). Sherman then hit on the ingenious idea of sending the Indian Chiefs to Jacksboro, Texas to be tried in state court for murder. He ordered them tried as common felons by the Court of the Thirteenth Judicial District of Texas. This would deny them any vestige of rights as a prisoner of war, which they might keep in a military court martial, and send a message that acts by a war party would be regarded as common crimes rather than legitimate resistance by representatives of a sovereign state. This would mark the first time Indian Chiefs had ever stood trial in the white man’s court.][
]
Trial of Satanta and Big Tree - first Indian leaders tried in state court
General Sherman ordered the trial of Satanta and Big Tree
The Trial of Satanta and Big Tree occurred in May 1871 in the town of Jacksboro in Jack County, Texas, United States. This historic trial of Native American War Chiefs of the Kiowa Indians Satanta and Big Tree for the murder of seven teamster ...
, along with Satank, making them the first Native American Leaders to be tried for raids in a US Court. Sherman ordered the three Kiowa sub-chiefs taken to Jacksboro, Texas, to stand trial for murder. Satank had no intention of allowing himself to be humiliated by being tried by the white man's court, and told the Tonkawa scouts before the three were to be transported to Fort Richardson that they should tell his family they would be able to find his body along the trail. Satank refused to get in the wagon, and after the soldiers threw him in, he hid his head under his red blanket, (worn as a sign of his membership in the Koitsenko). The soldiers apparently believed the old Chief was hiding his face because of humiliation, but in reality, he was gnawing his wrists to the bone so that he could get out of the chains they had put on him. He began singing his death song, and when his hands were free, stabbed and wounded one of his guards - a corporal - in the leg with a knife he had secreted in his clothes, and managed to wrestle the man's rifle from him. Satank was shot to death before he could manage to fire. (A teamster, Antonio Barbello, was wounded by a random shot in the head.) Satank's body lay unburied in the road, with his people afraid to claim it for fear of the Army, though Col. Mackenzie assured the family they could safely claim the remains. Nonetheless, they were never claimed.
Final resting place
Eventually his corpse was buried by the army at Chief's Knoll, on the cemetery at Fort Sill, Oklahoma
Fort Sill is a United States Army post north of Lawton, Oklahoma, about 85 miles (136.8 km) southwest of Oklahoma City. It covers almost .
The fort was first built during the Indian Wars. It is designated as a National Historic Landmark ...
.''Army Digest''
/ref> Satanta was also brought there after his suicide in prison at Huntsville, Texas, and buried nearby. Other prominent chiefs of the Kiowa, Comanche and Arapaho are also buried on or around the same knoll, such as Kicking Bird (Kiowa), Ten Bears (Comanche), Quanah Parker (Comanche), Yellow Bear (Arapaho) and Little Raven (Arapaho).
References
External links
*http://www.santafetrailresearch.com/trail-photo-02/wc-satank-set-ankeah-set-ohgia.html
*
*
Indianer-Web.de
German Site
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sitting Bear
1800s births
1871 deaths
Kiowa people
Native American leaders
Texas–Indian Wars
Native American people of the Indian Wars
19th-century Native Americans