A fact from Trial of Satanta and Big Tree appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 26 February 2008, and was viewed approximately 2,731 times (disclaimer) (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:
Did you know... that the trial of Satanta and Big Tree was the first time Native American war chiefs were tried for acts committed during a war party?
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Latest comment: 6 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Menominee Chief Oshkosh had been tried and acquitted in 1830. See Wisconsin magazine of history: Volume 86, number 2, winter 2002-2003, "Judge James Duane Doty and Wisconsin's First Court", Patrick J. Jung. GregJackPBoomer!16:29, 5 July 2018 (UTC)Reply
In response to GregJackP above, Wisconsin was not a state in 1830. It was a part of Michigan Territory until 1836, and not a state until 1848. Another Wisconsin Indian, named Maw Zaw Mah Nee Kah, son of a Ho-Chunk chief, was tried in Brown County District Court, in 1837, for the murder of interpreter Pierre Pauquette, but this too was not a state court.
The records of the Maw Zaw Mah Nee Kah trial are UW Green Bay Area Research Center, Brown County Series 65, Box 16 (31), Folder 55, Case File 1576, and are cited in Martin Zanger's chapter on Pauquette (spelled Paquette), in the Anthology of Western Great Lakes Indian History. Note that several references erroneously claim that Maw Zaw Mah Nee Kah was either acquitted, pardoned, or even executed. He was in fact convicted, but this was overturned by the Wisconsin Territorial Supreme Court due to several irregularities in the trial, including the court declaring itself a federal circuit court, which did not then exist in Wisconsin. [1]
Neither trial contradicts the claim of Satanta and Big Tree being the first American Indians tried in a US State court.
References
^Fixico, Donald L, ed. (1987). An Anthology of Western Great Lakes Indian History. American Indian Studies. pp. 330–335.
