JUNE 8:

June 8, 1874:  Cochise dies today.

June 8, 1871:  When confronted at Fort Sill, in south-central Indian Territory, about knowing anything about the attack on the wagons loaded with corn on May 15th on the Butterfield trail, Satanta said he was the leader of the raid. Satanta tells the agent that Santak, Big Tree, and others were with him. General Sherman places the three Indians under arrest and handcuffed.
While being transported back to Fort Richardson in north-central Texas, Satank manages to work free from his handcuffs. He then attacks a guard with a hidden knife. Satank grabs a rifle from another guard, but he is shot and killed by the remaining soldiers. His body will be thrown in a ditch, and the group will continue to Texas.
 

BACKGROUND:
 
 

Words Spoken:  Set Angya (Satank - Sitting Bear)
 

"If all would talk and then do as you have done, the sun of peace would shine forever."
 

*****
 

>From http://www.emayzine.com/lectures/Comanche.html
 

The final showdown between the United States military and the Comanche-Kiowa warriors occurred in the so-called Red River War of 1874-75.  However, the new phase of Indian hostilities and the subsequent army mobilization began in May 1871.

While on a raiding expedition into Texas, one of the most influential of the militant Kiowa chiefs, Satanta, and his warriors set up a trap along the Butterfield Southern Route (which led from St. Louis through the Southwest to California) on the Salt Creek Prairie near Jacksboro.

The war party let a small army ambulance wagon train pass, then attacked a train of 10 army fright wagons following behind. The Indians killed eight of the twelve defenders, routed the rest, and plundered the wagons, which turned out to contain not arms or ammunition but corn. Seizing the mules, the Indians fled northward.

As it turned out, General William Tecumseh Sherman, the commander of the army, had been riding in the ambulance train, and when he learned of the incident at Salt Creek - firsthand evidence that Grant's Peace Policy was not working - he resolved to make a move on Kiowa and Comanche militants.

First, he sent Colonel Ranald Mackenzie and his Fourth Cavalry across the Red River onto the tribes' reservation, where they managed to scatter some bands, but little else. Then, with the help of Lawrie Tatum, the Quaker Indian agent at Fort Still, he lured three of the known participants in the raid for a council - Satanta, Satank, and Big Tree -and proceeded to arrest them.

Satank was killed in a fight that broke out; the other two were taken and later convicted of murder, sentenced to die by the Texas state court.

Because of pressure from both the Quakers, who disapproved of Tatum's conspiracy, and federal proponents of the Peace Policy, the governor of Texas commuted the sentence.  In 1873, he allowed the Kiowas to return to their reservation.

The action, it was hoped, would appease the agency bands and lead to the cessation of raids.
 

*****
 

>From http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/view/SS/fsa33.html
 

Satanta (Set'Tainte - White Bear, ca. 1820-1878).  Kiowa chief, was born around 1820 somewhere in the Kiowa domain, probably in what is now Kansas or Oklahoma, during the zenith of Plains Indian power and cultural development. Over the course of his life, however, the plains tribes were defeated, demoralized, and finally confined to reservations. Satanta attempted to prevent the demise of Kiowa sovereignty and proved willing to use both diplomacy and warfare as means to secure his ends ...

... Fear of army retribution kept the Kiowas on the reservation for about two years. By early 1871, however, resentment over inadequate provisions had outpaced the military threat, and the Kiowas grew restless. A series of raids followed, a new wave of violence that claimed the lives of some fourteen white Texans during the spring of 1871. For Satanta, frustration over confinement was heightened when the tribe split into two factions, one led by Guipago and the other by Tene-angopte. Responding to the apparent slight, Satanta returned to the warpath and, assisted by Ado-eete (Big Tree) and Satank, led a party of some 100 Kiowas against Henry Warren's wagon train near the present town of Graham, Young County, on May 18, 1871. In the engagement the twelve teamsters were overwhelmed and seven were killed. The Warren Wagontrain Raid, or Salt Creek Massacre, as it came to be called, sparked a sense of outrage across a frontier already weary of violence. Responding to the survivors' horrific accounts and the settlers' calls for vengeance, Sherman dispatched Col. Ranald S. Mackenzie with orders to bring the offending Indians to justice.
 

*****
 

From:  http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/
 

Satank (Sitting Bear, ca. 1800-1871), Kiowa warrior and medicine man, was born shortly after 1800, probably in what is now Kansas ...

... in 1867 the Kiowas, along with most other tribes of the southern plains, agreed to attend the Medicine Lodge Treaty council, in what is now Barker County, Kansas. The Kiowas were represented by Satanta, self-proclaimed heir of Dohäsan, and Satank, now about seventy years old, who was described as "about five feet ten, sparsely made, muscular, cat-like in his movements," and distinguished by a wispy moustache. Together Satank, Satanta, and several other Kiowas signed the treaty that forced the tribe to move to a reservation in southwestern Oklahoma.

When the bulk of the tribe settled on its new lands the following year, Satank was among them. However, he seems never to have adjusted to confinement and was absent frequently. His resentment only grew when, in 1870, his son, also known as Satank, was killed in Texas. Reportedly, the old man was inconsolable and, after journeying to Texas to retrieve his son's bones, killed and scalped a white man. He joined Satanta, a young warrior named Big Tree, and other discontented Kiowas, Comanches, and Plains Apaches to conduct a series of raids throughout the next year on settlements in North and West Texas. On May 18 Satank and his compatriots attacked the Henry Warren wagon train, which was carting supplies to Fort Griffin, and killed and mutilated seven of the twelve teamsters. The five who survived made it to Fort Richardson, where they related their experiences, later sensationalized as the Warren Wagontrain Raid, to Gen. William T. Sherman.

In response Sherman sent Col. Ranald S. Mackenzie and the Fourth United States Cavalry to search for the culprits. Though Mackenzie failed to find the Indians, when he arrived at Fort Sill, Indian Territory, he found Satank, Satanta, and Big Tree already there and requesting rations ...

Four days after meeting with Sherman, the three leaders, handcuffed and shackled, began their journey. Satank refused to climb into the transport wagon and was thrown in by two guards. The indignity of being transported in chains was too much for the old warrior, who was pledged to death before dishonor. Under the cover of a blanket he worked to free himself. While singing the death song of the Koitsenko, he tore enough flesh from his wrists to escape from the handcuffs. Quickly, he grasped a knife concealed in his breechclout, sprang on the closest guard, knocked him out of the wagon, and grabbed his carbine. As Satank prepared to fire on his captors, he was felled by rifle fire from several guards. Satanta and Big Tree watched helplessly as Satank, mortally wounded, was thrown from the wagon and left by the side of the road to die ...
 

*****
 

>From http://www.rootsweb.com/~itkiowa/chiefpic.html
 

Kiowa Chief, Satanta  1830-1878

Satanta ("White Bear Person") was the son of Red Tepee, who was the keeper of the Tai-me, the Kiowa medicine bundles. During his boyhood, he was known as Guaton-bain or "Big Ribs". During the early days of the Civil War, he conducted many raids along the Santa Fe Trail. He would later become a principal chief in the Kiowa Wars of the 1860s-1870s and was known as "The Orator of the Plains." When Little Mountain died in 1866, Satanta became the leader of the war faction of the Kiowas. His rival was Kicking Bird of the peace faction.

As a result of his rivalry, Lone Wolf became the compromise choice for the position of principal chief. Meanwhile, Satanta and his warriors continued raiding in Texas. Famed for his eloquence, Satanta spoke at the Medicine Lodge Treaty of 1867 where the Kiowas ceded their lands in the valleys of the Canadian and Arkansas Rivers and agreed to settle on a reservation within Indian Territory. However, some of the Kiowas were slow to move onto their lands in Indian Territory. In May 1871, Satanta was in a war party that attacked the Warren wagon train with Satank, Big Tree and Mamanti.. Later, Big Tree, Satank, and Satanta were seized for trial after bragging openly about their exploits. Satank tried to escape on the road to Texas; he was fatally shot.

In September 1874, surrendering peacefully, Satanta was taken into custody and then imprisoned at Huntsville, Texas. On October 11, 1878, Satanta jumped off the upper floor of the prison hospital and committed suicide. The proud and dignified warrior was buried in Texas. His grandson, James Auchiah, received permission in 1963 to bring Satanta's remains to Fort Sill, Oklahoma, so that he could be interred with other Kiowa chiefs.
 

*****
 

http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/view/BB/fbi7.html
 

Big Tree (Ado-Ete, ca. 1850-1929).  Kiowa warrior, chief, and cousin of Satanta, was born somewhere in the Kiowa domain at the time when pressures from the expanding Caucasian population were threatening the tribe's traditional way of life. By the late 1860s the embattled Kiowas were forced to seek an accord with whites. The agreement, arrived at during the Medicine Lodge Treaty Council in 1867, forced Big Tree and the Kiowas to move to a reservation in southwestern Oklahoma. Frustrated by the confinement, Big Tree came under the sway of leaders of the tribal war faction at an early age. He joined Satank, Lone Wolf, and Satanta in raids on settlements inside Indian Territory and across the Red River in Texas.