Satanta

 

Satanta was called “orator of the Plains” for his eloquence in council. At the Medicine Lodge negotiations he said: “I don’t want to settle. I love to roam over the prairies. There I feel and happy, but when I settle down I grow pale and die.” Satanta was one of the most active raiders of his tribe. He was imprisoned for his part in the Salt Creek massacre. Following his parole, he was returned to prison at Huntsville, and committed suicide by throwing himself from a second floor window of the hospital. In 1963 his remains were taken from a Huntsville cemetery to Oklahoma. His old adversary, General Custer, once said: “Aside from his character for restless barbarity and activity in conducting merciless forays against our exposed frontier, Satanta is a remarkable man – remarkable for his power of oratory, his determined warfare against the advances of civilization, and his opposition to the…quiet, unexciting…life of a reservation Indian.”