19 Facts About Dohasan

Dohasan, Dohosan, Tauhawsin, Tohausen, or Touhason was a prominent Native American.

Dohasan was War Chief of the Kata or Arikara band of the Kiowa Indians, and then Principal Chief of the entire Kiowa Tribe, a position he held for an extraordinary 33 years.

Dohasan is best remembered as the last undisputed Principal Chief of the Kiowa people before the Reservation Era, and the battlefield leader of the Plains Tribes in the largest battle ever fought between the Plains tribes and the United States.

Dohasan was known to traders as early as the late 1820s.

Dohasan gained a reputation as a fierce, but tricky, warrior and successful war chief.

Dohasan was a member of the elite warrior society, the Koitsenko.

Dohasan became principal chief of the Kiowas in the spring of 1833, after the tribe elders and sub-chiefs deposed then-Principal Chief A'date.

Dohasan was the last undisputed Principal Chief of the Kiowa Tribe while they were a free people.

Dohasan was among those on hand to greet the colonel and his expedition.

The expedition found Dohasan to be a friendly and calm in person under peaceful conditions.

The purpose of the expedition was to end the ferocious fighting between the various Plains Tribes, and in May 1837 Dohasan was one of the principals who signed the Fort Gibson Treaty, by which the United States government sought to end intertribal warfare in Indian Territory.

When he was unable to master the art of driving a team, Dohasan had a couple of Kiowa boys ride the harnessed horses as he sat in the driver's seat.

Dohasan, assisted by Satank, Guipago and Satanta, led the Kiowas in the first attack.

In October 1865 Dohasan signed the Little Arkansas Treaty, but he vigorously protested confinement to a reservation, declaring that the Kiowas owned all the land from the North Platte River to the upper Texas Panhandle and needed room to roam about.

The aging Set'angia, leader of the Koitsenko warriors society, did not take part in the contest with the two younger and already famed war leaders, and Gui'pahgo, Dohasan's nephew, renowned as warrior and war-leader, and one of the leaders in the Adobe Walls fight, prevailed on Set'tainte, the only one warrior leader comparable with him, and was elected as the new head chief of the Kiowa people.

The younger Dohasan took part in the remaining battles as the Kiowa struggled to remain a free people.

Dohasan was the primary calendar keeper among the Kiowa throughout most of the 19th century.

In 1892 the young Dohasan gave his annual family calendar history, begun by his uncle, the last great principal chief of the Kiowa, to Capt.

Dohasan's descendants included his granddaughter, Betty Nixon, who co-founded the Mid-America All-Indian Center in Wichita, Kansas, in 1976.