Grayson County TXGenWeb

Chief Satanta

Chief Big Tree

The first scheduled passenger train to enter Denison arrived on Christmas evening 1872 at 7:00 p.m. with approximately 100 passengers. Two celebrated KiowaChiefs, Satanta and Big Tree (cousins) were aboard the train as a result of being taken by officers to the Texas State Penitentiary at Huntsville. The reason for their being aboard the first Missouri-Kansas-Texas train into Denison was a result of their being convicted of murder in 1871.

Henry Warren, who contracted to haul supplies to forts for the Government, was traveling in northern Texas when attacked by a large group of warriors a few miles from Fort Richardson near Jacksboro, Texas. Among the leaders on that fateful day in May 1871were Satanta, Big Tree and Satank. Seven teamsters were killed and General William Tecumseh Sherman captured the three Indian Chiefs at Fort Sill in Oklahoma a few days after the raid when they attempted to collect their rations at the fort. General Sherman decided to have Satanta and Big Tree tried in the state court at Jacksboro for murder. Satank provoked a attack while on the trail to Jacksboro, Jack Co., Texas, and was killed, which was his intention rather than being humiliated in a white man's court. The War Chiefs were indicted on July 1, 1871, tried on July 5 and convicted on July 8 and sentenced to death - to be executed September 1. However, President U.S. Grant advised Texas Governor Davis to commute their sentencs to life imprisonment at Huntsville Penitentiary.

President Grant was trying to negotiate a peace with the Kiowas, Arapahos, and Comanches in the weeks leading up to the presidential election of 1872. Their representatives consented to meet with Grant only if he would first arrange for Satanta and Big Tree to be let out of prison long enough to be transported from Huntsville to St. Louis for a reunion with their brother Kiowas. "Week Ending August 28th" [1872]: Santanta [sic] and Big Tree passed through the city in charge of a guard last Thursday, en route to Fort Riley, Kansas." (Denison Daily News, Tuesday, December 31, 1878) This was at the end of September. At the conclusion of that meeting the tribal delegation continued on its way to Washington in September 1872. Satanta and Big Tree were supposed to return to Huntsville to finish serving their sentences, but for some reason the feds kept them in jail in St. Louis. Eventually Governor Edmund J. Davis of Texas began to demand the return of the prisoners.

Indian Commissioner E.P. Smith promised at the meeting with the Plains Indian delegation in Washington to release Satanta and Big Tree.

Shortly before Christmas they were put on a train back to Huntsville, and that train stopped in Denison on the evening of Christmas Day 1872, following the meeting they had attended in St. Louis nearly three months earlier.
The Kiowa Chiefs were released on parole from Huntsville Penitentiary in the fall of 1873. "From a special dispatch we learn that the Indian chiefs, Satanta and Big Tree were freed on Monday. The conference took place at Fort Sill, and the Kiowas and other tribes were present, but only a few Comanches. The government is pledged to gather the Indians raiding on the frontier, and place them under close servailance, and also re-arrest the chiefs if they misbehave. The Kiowas are to return all property and captives taken and held by them." (The Denison Daily News, October 8, 1873).

The local Denison paper of late 1873 report that Big Tree was a leader amongst the Kiowas and involved in continued attacks in northeast Texas. "Old Big Tree is again on the war path, and will no doubt take many an innocent scalp before the Government gets hold of him again." (The Denison Daily News, November 12, 1873) And additionally in the same newspaper issue, "The following item shows how the policy of turning loose such murderers as Satanta and Bit Tree is working: The Indians are as bad on the frontier, if not worse, than they have been since the war. All the Indians are off their reservations except Satanta. They are headed by Big Tree, and have stolen nearly all the horses on Little Wichita and West Fork." (The Denison Daily News, November 12, 1873)

Hostilities continued and in June 1874 Satanta and Big Tree were arrested once again for violation of their parole by their participation in the attack on Adobe Walls, a trading post, in Hutchinson County, Texas, and the Red River War. "Considerable excitement exists throughout the Indian Territory, because of the recommendation of President Grant in his message to Congress to organize the Indian Territory for the purpose of locating the wild Indians among these people. The Indians say that for the last 60 years they have been trying to civilize themselves and their children, and now to place the Modoes, Kickapoos, Arapahos, Kiowas and Comanches along side of them as neighbors would demoralize their children and destroy the labor of years. They ask that the Indians of the Plains be confined to the territory west of the 98th meridian. This looks like a very sensible request." (The Denison Daily News, December 21, 1873).
After several skirmishes in the summer of 1874, Satanta and Big Tree turned themselves in at the Cheyenne Indian Agency in Darlington, Indian Territory in late September 1874. "Arrival of Satana and Bit Tree in arms! Satanta, Big Tree, Woman's Heart and Bird Medicine, together with about 150 bucks, squaws and papooses, arrived at Fort Sill under guard from Cheyenne last Tuesday eve. The four Chiefs were ironed." (The Denison Daily News, October 17, 1874). "The notorious Chief, Santanta, passed down the road Sunday morning, heavily ironed, on his way to occupy his old quarters in the State prison. He was kept busy while the train remained at the depot writing his autograph for Denison spectators, who crowded round to get a glimpse of him." (The Denison Daily News, November 5, 1874)

Big Tree's parole was reinstated after investigation of his role in the attack on Adobe Walls but Satanta was returned to carry out his prison sentence at Huntsville Penitentiary. Big Tree remained imprisoned at Fort Sill until the Kiowas were defeated in December 1874.

"A correspondent of the Galveston News recently talked with the old Indian chief, Santanta [sic], in the Texas penitentiary. Santanta, the correspondent said, is treated very leniently. His occupation is chair-making, but he is allowed to desist and fall asleep whenever he chooses. He said that his age was 86 years, and yet he is a powerful-looking old fellow, with not a gray hair in his head..." (Denison Daily News, Sunday, April 21, 1878, pg. 7) Overtaken by despair and broken in spirit, Satanta committed suicide by leaping to his death from a high window onto the bricks of the prison yard in October 1878.

"A dispatch from Huntsville says the noted Kiowa Chief Satanta has gone to the happy hunting grounds. During the last week he cut his chest and legs for the purpose of bleeding himself, and Friday, the 11th, about 4 o'clock, while up in the hospital, he passed out to the balcony of the second story and purposefully fell over the railing to the ground. He died about 10 p.m. Friday, and was buried Saturday....(Denison Daily News, Thursday, October 17, 1878, pg. 2)

Sources:
Donna Hord Hunt; ed. by Mavis Anne Bryant. Frontier Denison, Texas. c2015
"Big Tree". The Handbook of Texas online. (Viewed March 18, 2016)
Find-A-Grave: Chief Big Tree, memorial #24072440
"Satanta (Chief)". Wikipedia. (Viewed March 18, 2016)
"Trial of Satanta and Big Tree". Wikipedia. (Viewed March 18, 2016)