Sanpitch (Ute chief)

Chief Sanpitch
Born	Utah
Died	18 April 1866 Birch canyon near Fountain Green, Utah
Ethnicity	Sanpits
Known for	Giving his name to Sanpete County, fathering Black Hawk
Children	Black Hawk

Sanpitch (killed April 18, 1866) was a leader of the Sanpits^[1] tribe of American Indians who lived what is now Sanpete County, Utah, before and during settlement by Mormon immigrants. The Sanpits are generally considered to be part of the Timpanogos or Utah Indians. He was the brother of famed Chief Walkara and the father of Black Hawk,^[2] for whom the Black Hawk War in Utah (1865–72) is named. In 1850, after measles from newly arrived Mormon settlers decimated their tribes, Walkara and Chief Sanpitch asked the Mormons to come to the Sanpete Valley teach the band to farm,^[3] though this was met with little enthusiasm. After fighting in the Black Hawk War, he was killed on April 18, 1866, near Fountain Green, Utah.^[4]

Sanpitch's interactions with early Mormon settlers are chronicled in Gottfredson.^[5] The Sanpitch River and Sanpete County take their names from him or his grandfather of the same name.

Sanpitch is almost certainly not the same person as the Shoshone chief of the same name who was alive in 1870. The Shoshone and Utes were enemies.

References

1. Warren L. D'Azevedo, William C. Sturtevant, ed. (1978). Handbook of North American Indians. Washington: Smithsonian Institution. p. 340. ISBN 0160045819. |first1= missing |last1= in Authors list (help);
2. "Black Hawk War Productions". Retrieved 26 January 2013.
3. Simmons, Virginia McConnell (2001). The Ute Indians of Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico (1st pbk. ed.). Boulder, Colo.: University Press of Colorado. ISBN 0870816470.
4. Simmons, Virginia McConnell (2001). The Ute Indians of Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico (1st pbk. ed.). Boulder, Colo.: University Press of Colorado. ISBN 0870816470.
5. Gottfredson, Peter (1919). History of Indian depredations in Utah. Skelton publishing.