OCTOBER 21:

October 21, 1867:  On this date the biggest US-Indian conference ever held began. The conference was held near Fort Dodge, Kansas near what was called Medicine Lodge Creek. The name came from a Kiowa "medicine lodge" which was still standing from a recent Kiowa "sun dance" ceremony. Of the Kiowa and Comanche treaty, some Kiowa signatories were Satanta, Satank, Black Bird, Kicking Bird and Lone Bear.
 

BACKGROUND:
 

For text of the Treaty, please see http://www.councilfire.com/treaty/treat359.html
 

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SET-ANGYA (Satank, "Setting Bear")

Set-angya (Satank, Setting Bear) was one of the ten Kiowa signers of the Medicine Lodge Treaty in 1867. He was a chief and Medicine Man of the Kiowa. He had War Power, when he took parties out, they were successful. He was one of ten warriors of the Crazy Dog Society. He was one of the Keepers of a Grandmother Medicine Bundle, and Keeper of the Eagle Shield, which gave him magic power.

Another power he had was Peace Power. Everybody in his band looked up to him. When people quarreled or wives were angry with their husbands and wanted to leave them, the person that was hurt would go to Satank to make things right. Satank's favorite son, Young Setting Bear, was killed with Lone Wolf's son in Texas in 1873.

In 1874, a large raiding party killed seven white men in Texas and captured a number of mules. Upon their return, the leaders bragged about their deeds in the presence of the agent and General Sherman, who promptly arrested the the three most prominent, Set-angya (Santank, Setting Bear), Set-tainte, (Satanta, White Bear) and Ado-eette (Big Tree). They were to be taken to Texas for trial and punishment. Satank sent word to his remaining son, Eagle Plume, regarding the care and passing of the Grandmother bundle, and passed his power to him.He said he would not go to Texas.

As the wagons left Fort Sill for Texas, carrying the prisoners, Satank was in the first one with guards, and Satanta and Big Tree were in the second. He managed to get his chains off, as his hands were to small to be held. He had retreived the magic Eagle Shield knife, and began to sing in a loud, clear happy voice.

"Get ready, my son," he sang, "Fill your pipe for we shall smoke together today. Make room for me . I am coming!" "I live, but I will not live forever Mysterious moon, you only remain Powerful sun, you alone remain Wonderful earth, you remain forever."

Then he stabbed the guard beside him. The man fell backward over the tailgate of the wagon and as he fell, his gun went off. Satanta and Big Tree in the second wagon heard the song start and started singing it too, as if they had the right. Only singing the song didn't do them much good because they didn't belong to the Eagle Shields and didn't have any magic knife.

The wagons stopped and the soldiers were piling around the one with Satank in it. They took him out and laid him on the ground under a pecan tree. The bullet from the soldier's gun had hit him and he was going to die, but he was still singing his song; still talking to his dead son.

He was buried in the post cemetery.

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Found at: http://www.rra.dst.tx.us/c&t/history/archer/people/KICKING%20BIRD.htm
 

KICKING BIRD (ca. 1835-1875). Kicking Bird (Tene-Angopte, Striking Eagle), Kiowa chief of mixed Crow and Kiowa ancestry, was best known as a proponent of peace and accommodation with whites. He rose to prominence in his late twenties and, after the death in 1866 of Dohäsan, paramount chief of the united Kiowa bands, assumed the leadership of the tribe's "peace faction," a position he held for the rest of his life. His position made him a natural intermediary between his Kiowa tribesmen and officials of the federal government. In this capacity he, along with Satanta, Satank and several other leading men, represented his people at the Medicine Lodge Treaty Council in 1867 and in 1869 helped to gain the release of Lone Wolf and Satanta from army captivity. Yet peace was elusive, and as conditions on the reservation worsened, Kicking Bird's close relationship with white men made enemies among his own people. At the same time, the ranks of such war chiefs as Satanta and Lone Wolf swelled as hostile Kiowas continued raiding settlements in Texas.

Brian C. Hosmer
 

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Found at: http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/view/LL/flo9.html

LONE WOLF (?-1879). Lone Wolf, a Kiowa chief whose Indian name is usually written Guipago, was a leader among the militant minority of his tribe during the violent transition from nomadic to forced reservation life in the 1870s. In the summer of 1856 Lone Wolf's band left their tepees in care of William Bent, at Bent's Fort, while they went on a buffaloqv hunt. On returning, they discovered that Bent had given the dwellings to the Cheyennes. In the fight that followed, in which Lone Wolf's horse was shot, the Kiowas were driven off, and the Cheyennes kept the tepees. By 1860, however, differences apparently had been resolved as the Kiowas made peace with the northern plains tribes. As a member of the Tsetanma, an elite society of warriors, Lone Wolf soon emerged as a leader among the tribe's militant factions. In 1863 he was among the Indian delegates accompanying United States Indian agent S. G. Colley to Washington in a futile effort to establish a favorable peace policy. Along with other prominent chiefs he signed the Little Arkansas Treaty with federal commissioners on October 18, 1865. In February and March 1866 Lone Wolf led his braves on a series of raids into Texas, where he took 150 horses. He attended the Medicine Lodge Council in Medicine Lodge, Kansas, but did not sign the treaty of October 21, 1867, probably because it did not allow the Kiowas to continue these raids.