Satanta

Photograph of Satanta with bow and arrow

Satanta (IPA: [seˈtʰæntə]) (Set'tainte ([séʔ.tˀã́j.dè]) or White Bear) (c. 1815 – October 11, 1878) was a Kiowa war chief.

Quotes

• A long time ago this land belonged to our fathers, but when I go up the river I see a camp of soldiers, and they are cutting my wood down or killing my buffalo. I don't like that; when I see it my heart feels like bursting with sorrow.
  • From a speech at the Medicine Lodge Treaty council, October, 1867 Texas Beyond History[1]

• The Kiowas and Comanche have made with you a peace, and they intend to stick to it. If it brings prosperity to us, of course we will like it better. If it brings poverty and adversity, we will not abandon it, because it is our contract, and it will stand. We hope now that a better time has come. If all would talk and then do as they talk, the sun of peace would forever shine.
  • From "a peace council held in October, 1867, on the Arkansas river, in the present state of Oklahoma, between United States peace commissioners and the principal chiefs of four Indian tribes." J. Marvin Hunter’s Frontier Times Magazine, May, 1938 [2]

Disputed

• 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!

• I have heard you intend to settle us on a reservation near the mountains. I don't want to settle. I love to roam over the prairies. There I feel free and happy, but when we settle down we grow pale and die.