Satanta Quotes

Has the white man become a child that he should recklessly kill and not eat? When the red men slay game, they do so that they may live and not starve.

– Satanta

Kiowa chief’s complaint to U.S. Army commander, after witnessing soldiers and civilians wantonly killing large number of buffalo for sport. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West, by Dee Brown. Chapter 11.

A long time ago this land belonged to our fathers, but when I go up to the river I see camps of soldiers on its banks. These soldiers cut down my timber, they kill my buffalo and when I see that, my heart feels like bursting.

– Satanta

Kiowa chief’s speech at Medicine Lodge, Kansas, 1867. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West, by Dee Brown. Chapter 11.

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!

– Satanta

Kiowa chief. Warning during his trial for murder in Texas in May, 1871.

I love this land and the buffalo and will not part with it. I want you to understand well what I say. Write it on paper…I hear a great deal of good talk from the gentlemen the Great Father sends us, but they never do what they say. I don’t want any of the medicine lodges [schools and churches] within the country. I want the children raised as I was.

– Satanta

Kiowa chief’s speech at Medicine Lodge, Kansas, 1867.

I have heard that 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.

– Satanta

Chief of the Kiowas, in a speech to the government peace commissioners at Fort Larned. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West by Dee Brown.