Sanpitch (Ute chief)

Chief Sanpitch
Born	Utah, United States
Died	18 April 1866 Birch Canyon, near Fountain Green, Utah
Known for	Being the brother of Chief Walkara and fathering Black Hawk
Children	Black Hawk

Sanpitch (killed April 18, 1866) was a leader of the Sanpits tribe of Native Americans who lived in what is now the Sanpete Valley, 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, 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 to teach the band to farm, though this was met with little enthusiasm.

In March 1866, (after having fought in the Black Hawk War) as part of the ongoing disputes with the local natives, Chief Sanpitch had been taken into custody and incarcerated in the jail in Manti. Following his escape a month later, he was killed on April 18, 1866, in Birch Creek Canyon (in San Pitch Mountains, between Fountain Green and Moroni). Sanpitch's interactions with early Mormon settlers are chronicled in Gottfredson's History of Indian depredations in Utah.

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.

Some sources indicate that he, or his grandfather of the same name, is the namesake of Sanpete County, the Sanpete Valley, the San Pitch Mountains, and the Sanpitch River. However, all of them share the origin of their names: the Sanpits people. According to William Bright, their name comes from the Ute word saimpitsi, meaning "people of the tules".

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