The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 29, July 1925 - April, 1926 Page: 192

                                
Southwestern Historical Quarterly

treachery  and  blood-the cunning      Cataline-the promoter of
strife-the breaker of treaties signed by his own hand--the inciter
of his fellows to rapine and murder-the artful dealer in bravado
while in the pow-wow, and the most abject coward in the field,
as well as the most canting and double-tongued hypocrite when
detected and overcome! In Big Tree we perceive the tiger-demon,
who has tasted blood and loves it as his food-who stops at no
crime, how black soever-who is swift at every species of ferocity,
and pities not at any sight of agony or death-he can scalp, burn,
torture, mangle and deface his victims with all the superlatives of
cruelty, and have no feeling of sympathy or remorse. They are
both hideous and loathsome in appearance, and we look in vain to
see them anything to be admired, or even endured.""
Having thus exposed the characters of the two prisoners at the
bar, the prosecutor then reviewed the terrible atrocities committed
by the savages in their "moonlight" raids; and graphically set
forth the scenes of horror and indescribable suffering of their hap-
less victims.46 So powerful was the speech of the eloquent attorney
that but a short time was spent in deliberation by the jury. The
prisoners were pronounced guilty of murder in the first degree
and their punishment was fixed at death.
In the course of the trial, Satanta was given a chance to speak
for himself. Standing before Judge Soward, partly expressing
himself with his manacled hands, he spoke in the Comanche dia-
lect. He attempted to free himself from all blame of the Indian
raids by saying that he had always been a friend to the "Tehannas";
that his tribe had taunted him and called him a "squaw" because
of his friendship for the people of "Tehanna"; and that on the
last raid he came down into Texas as "a big medicine-man to
doctor the wounds of the "braves." Concluding his plea for free-
dom he said that if he were allowed to return to his people, "I
will wash out the spots of blood and make it [Texas] a white
land and there shall be peace, and the Tehannas may plow and
drive their oxen to the banks of the river, but if you kill me it
will be like a spark in the prairie-make big fire! burn heap !"47
Two of the notable witnesses in the trial of the two Indians
were Laurie Tatum and General Renald S. MacKenzie. The
11J. Wilbarger, Op. Cit., pp. 562-563.
"Ibid., passim.
47J. Wilbarger, Op. Cit., pp. 567-568, gives an imperfect extract from the
speech of Satanta.

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