One is generally referred to simply as Sanpete a man who may well have been chief of the San Pitch band within the Ute nation. This group was fairly sedentary, not roaming far as the people were horseless and largely inhabited lands associated with the San Pitch and lower Sevier rivers in present-day Sanpete and Juab counties.

The Dominguez-Escalante party encountered members of this group during its expedition through the region in 1776 and noted peculiar features about the band: people clad in rabbit skins, noses pierced with a small bone and beards on the men. Chief Sanpete played a role at the peace parley held at Chicken Creek in May 1854 between Wakara and Brigham Young arranged for the purpose of formally ending the Walker War.

This chief was described as “aged and infirm” and “whose eyes were dim and whose hand trembled” as he recalled grievances against the whites, particularly the “Americats” responsible for killing his wife and son. This elderly leader may have died within a year or two after this meeting for his name fades from surviving records covering that time.

The name “Chief Sanpitch” comes up, however, by at least December of 1854 when Mormon missionary Jacob Hamblin met him in Southern Utah near Santa Clara. Hamblin described this Sanpitch as a cold, heartless individual intent on tearing native children away from their weak and impoverished parents through physical dominance and token trade to face a life as slaves in New Mexico. Ironically, this Ute leader’s name does not surface much in central Utah until after Arapeen’s death in December of 1860.

Northern Utah is the geographic area where the name Chief Sanpitch frequently surfaces between the late 1850s and early 1860s, a leader who is generally associated with the northwestern band of the Shoshoni nation. Records reveal that this particular band of “Sho-sho-nees” frequented Weber Valley and would unite with the “Utah” to fight other tribes like the Flatheads.

Moreover, some observers considered many of these Indians as a cultural and blood mix between the two tribes. Trying to follow the Chief Sanpitch who rises to importance in central Utah becomes a bit confusing, to the point that one is led to question whether the two men might actually have been one and the same.

This latter possibility becomes even more plausible when events in the aftermath of the Bear River Massacre are taken into consideration. Patrick Connor and his command of U.S. troops went on a frenzied hunt to track down Shoshoni leaders and others who survived the massacre.

Following Arapeen’s death in December 1860, references to “his brother” Sanpitch become much more frequent in central Utah. In fact, Sanpitch shows up in Salt Lake City in June of 1862 with Chief Peteetneet and “some 20 other Indians of their tribe” from the south for a few days’ visit. 

Nevertheless, right up to the eve of the Black Hawk War, Sanpitch remained fairly distant to whites in the Sanpete and Sevier valleys, revealing that a vacuum yet remained in Ute leadership for the area following Arapeen’s death.

Once hostilities erupted between white settlers and Ute warriors in the spring of 1865, local military leaders soon turned a suspicious eye to Sanpitch, who outwardly professed neutrality and friendship to the settlers.

White military leaders believed he was secretly aiding the camp of their enemies and Sanpitch was ultimately taken into custody with eight other Ute leaders and locked in a jail at Manti in 1866 as part of a plot to draw Chief Blackhawk into a trap.

After a dreary month’s incarceration, Sanpitch and his fellow prisoners broke out of the county jail the night of April 14. An injured Sanpitch evaded detection for a few days but was finally overtaken at Birch Canyon near Fountain Green, and like the other escapees who were tracked down one-by-one, lost his life in a confusing and hopeless struggle.

As the Black Hawk war began, it was already apparent that the Utes of central Utah were in a weakened state and with each passing day falling under the effects of a growing white dominance. For whatever reason, Chief Sanpitch, who succeeded Arapeen as leader of the Ute bands in central Utah, failed to inherit or apply skills necessary to maneuver effectively between his culture and that of a foreign and rapidly expanding world; a glaring void as far as any possibility of negotiating peaceful and beneficial relations for his people.