Red Jacket ( – January 20, 1830), known as Otetiani ("Always Ready")Parker 1952, Preface p. xxiii. in his youth and later as ("Keeper Awake", also written as Sagoyewatha) for his oratorical skills, was a Seneca orator and chief. On behalf of his nation, he negotiated with the new United States after the American Revolutionary War, when the Seneca as British allies were forced to cede much land following the defeat of the British; he signed the Treaty of Canandaigua (1794). He helped secure some Seneca territory in New York state, although most of his people had migrated to Canada for resettlement after the Paris Treaty. In his later life, he campaigned against Christianity and in favor of traditional Haudenosaunee religion. Red Jacket's speech on "Religion for the White Man and the Red" (1805) has been preserved as an example of his great oratorical style.
Life Red Jacket's birthplace has long been a matter of debate. Some historians claim he was born about 1750 at Kanadaseaga, also known as the Old Seneca Castle. Present-day Geneva, New York, developed near here, at the top of Seneca Lake.John Niles Hubbard, "An Account of Sa-Go-Ye-Wat-Ha" Others believe he was born near Cayuga Lake and present-day Canoga.Col. William L. Stone (1838), Life of Red Jacket Others say he was born south of present-day Branchport, at Keuka Lake near the mouth of Basswood Creek.Miles A. Davis (1912), History of Jerusalem, p. 38.Stafford C. Cleveland (1873), History of Yates County, p. 450. It is known that he grew up with his family at Basswood Creek, and his mother was buried there after her death. The Haudenosaunee had a matrilineal kinship system, with inheritance and descent figured through the maternal line. Red Jacket was considered to be born into his mother's Wolf Clan, and his social status was based on her family and clan. He was taught by his mother at a young age that truth was a powerful weapon.
Red Jacket lived much of his adult life in Seneca territory in the Genesee River Valley in western New York. In the later years of his life, Red Jacket moved to Canada for a short period of time. He and the Mohawk chief Joseph Brant became bitter enemies and rivals before the American Revolutionary War, although they often met together at the Haudenosaunee Confederacy's Longhouse. During the war, when most of both the Seneca and Mohawk were allies of the British, Brant contemptuously referred to Red Jacket as "cow killer". He alleged that at the Battle of Newtown in 1779, Red Jacket killed a cow and used the blood as evidence to claim he had killed an American rebel.Graymont, p. 216.
Relationship with Joseph Brant There was a mutual dislike between Red Jacket and Joseph Brant (Thayendanegea).McKenney & Hall, Volume Two, 1870, Pg. 282. They were rival politicians and each was the leading man among their own people. Since the Senecas and the Mohawks were the principal nations of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, each sought the first place in the confederacy. Both were artful and eloquent men; while Brant had the advantage of education and travel, Red Jacket was superior in devotion to his people.
Joseph Brant was a bold and sagacious warrior. Red Jacket, on the other hand, disliked war and bloodshed.McKenney & Hall, Volume Two, 1870, Pg. 282 Red Jacket considered that the Senecas could only be free so long as they remained true to their culture. He believed that every art and custom of 'civilization' which they adopted increased their dependency on the Euro-American society.
While Brant maintained a friendly relationship with the English throughout his life, favoring the introduction of agriculture to the Mohawks and converting to the Christian faith in early life, Red Jacket opposed the missionaries, the Christian religion, and everything that originated from the oppressors of his people.McKenney & Hall, Volume Two, 1870, Pg. 283. Following some alleged land speculations against Brant in 1803, Red Jacket was successful in removing him from the chieftainship of the Confederacy. However, at a subsequent council, Brant was able to get this decision reversed.
Silver medal from George Washington
Red Jacket became famous as an orator, speaking for the rights of his people. His language was beautiful and figurative, and delivered with the greatest ease and fluency.McKenney & Hall 1870, p. 17. After the war, he played a prominent role in negotiations with the new United States federal government. In 1792 he led a delegation of 50 Native American leaders to Philadelphia. The US president George Washington presented him with a special "peace medal", a large oval of silverplate engraved with an image of Washington on the right-hand side shaking Red Jacket's hand; below was inscribed "George Washington", "Red Jacket", and "1792".
Red Jacket wore this medal on his chest in every portrait painted of him. The medal was held from 1895 to 2021 in the collection of the Buffalo History Museum. In May 2021, it was repatriated to the Seneca Nation and is currently held in the collection of the Onöhsagwë:De' Cultural Center, also known as the Seneca-Iroquois National Museum. A formal repatriation ceremony was held on May 17, 2021 at the Seneca Nation's Cultural Centre in Salamanca, since the Native Americans Graves Protection and Repatriation Act recognized Red Jacket's medal as culturally important to the Seneca nation.Red Jacket Medal Returned to Seneca Nation, 00:00:35 to 00:01:00 The Senecas made a formal request for its return in October 2020, almost 125 years after the Buffalo Historical Society came in the possession of the medal in 1898, when the last living relative of the estate of Red Jacket sold it to the museum.Red Jacket Medal Returned to Seneca Nation', 00:01:50 to 00:02:10
Red Jacket was also presented with a silver inlaid half-stock long rifle, bearing his initials and Wolf clan emblem in the stock and his later name Sagoyewatha inlaid on the barrel. This rifle has been in private hands since his death.
Diplomacy
In 1794, Red Jacket was a signatory, along with Cornplanter, Handsome Lake, and fifty other Haudenosaunee leaders, of the Treaty of Canandaigua, by which they were forced to cede much of their land to the United States due to the defeat of their British ally during the war. Britain had ceded all its claims to land in the colonies without consulting the Haudenosaunee or other Native American allies. The treaty confirmed peace with the United States, as well as the boundaries of the postwar Phelps and Gorham Purchase (1788) of most of the Seneca land east of the Genesee River in western New York.
In 1790 the Public Universal Friend and the Philadelphia Society of Friends were the first settlers in the formerly Seneca region. Despite the pillaging of the Native River-Settlement in Ah-Wa-Ga Owego, New York, by generals Clinton and Sullivan during the Revolutionary War, the Society made peace with the wary Seneca tribe. The Seneca Tribe made peace with settlers in the Finger Lakes region, but they suffered hardship in the Genesee Region and other parts of Western New York.Wisbey, Herbert A., Jr. (2009). Pioneer Prophetess: Jemima Wilkinson the Publick Universal Friend. Cornell Press.
In 1797, by the Treaty of Big Tree, Robert Morris paid $100,000 to the Seneca for rights to some of their lands west of the Genesee River. (This area developed as present-day Geneseo in Livingston County). Red Jacket had tried to prevent the sale but, unable to persuade the other chiefs, he gave up his opposition. As often occurred, Morris used gifts of liquor to the Seneca men and trinkets to the women to "grease" the sale. Morris had previously purchased the land from Massachusetts, subject to the Indian title, then sold it to the Holland Land Company for speculative development. He retained only the Morris Reserve, an estate near the present-day city of Rochester. During the negotiations, Brant was reported to have told an insulting story about Red Jacket. Cornplanter intervened and prevented the Seneca leader from attacking and killing Brant.The Cornplanter Chronicles, Vol. 4, part 7 , Mountain Laurel Review
War of 1812
Red Jacket took his name, one of several he used as an adult, from a highly favored embroidered coat given to him by the British for his wartime services. The Seneca allied with the British Crown during the American Revolution, both because of their long trading relationships and in the hope that the British could limit American encroachment on their territory. After the British were defeated, the Seneca were forced to cede much of their territory to the United States. Many of their people resettled in Canada at what is now the Six Nations Reserve in Ontario. In the War of 1812, Red Jacket supported the American side. At a council of the New York indigenous nations called on July 6, 1812 by the Indian agent Erastus Granger, Red Jacket acted as a spokesman of the Senecas.Parker 1952, Pg. 153. When asked by Granger if the Senecas were to join the war on the British side, Red Jacket replied that his people cared more for peace than for war, and that he did not wish their Canadian brothers’ blood be spilled when there was so little occasion for it.Parker 1952, Pg. 154.
Later life His later adult name, Sagoyewatha () , which roughly translates as "he keeps them awake", was given by the Seneca about 1780 in recognition of his oratory skill. When in 1805 Jacob Cram, a New England missionary, asked to do mission work among the Seneca, Red Jacket responded by saying that the Seneca had suffered much at the hands of Europeans. His speech, "Religion for the White Man and the Red", expressed his profound belief that Native American religion was fitting and sufficient for Seneca and Native American culture. It has been documented and preserved as one of the best examples of North American oratory."Red Jacket on Religion for the White Man and the Red", Bartleby Website, accessed May 22, 2011.
Red Jacket developed a problem with alcohol and deeply regretted having taken his first drink (see following quote). When asked if he had children, the chief, who had lost most of his offspring to illness, said:
Red Jacket was once a great man, and in favor with the Great Spirit. He was a lofty pine among the smaller trees of the forest. But, after years of glory, he degraded himself by drinking the firewater of the white man. The Great Spirit has looked upon him in anger, and his lightning has stripped the pine of its branches.
In his later years, Sagoyewatha lived in Buffalo, New York. In his last public speech titled ‘I am an aged tree and can stand no longer’ from 1829, Red Jacket foresaw his death.Blaisdell, 2000. Pg. 48 He stated that he was like an old tree whose leaves had fallen, branches withered, and that he had been shaken by every breeze. Although he was about to be joined with the spirits of his ancestors, it made him uneasy to think about the Senecas, who, as he rightfully predicted, were soon to be scattered and forgotten.Blaisdell, 2000. Pg. 48. On his death, his remains were buried in an Indian cemetery (now within Seneca Indian Park in South Buffalo, New York). In 1876, the politician William C. Bryant presented a plan to the Council of the Seneca Nation to reinter Red Jacket's remains in Forest Lawn Cemetery in Buffalo. This was carried out on October 9, 1884. The proceedings, with papers documenting speeches given by Horatio Hale, General Ely S. Parker (Red Jacket's nephew's grandson, known as a "clan grandson," who inherited the famous medal), and others, were published (Buffalo, 1884). A memorial to Red Jacket, sculpted by James G. C. Hamilton, still stands within Seneca Indian Park.
According to Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography, "Several portraits were made of him. George Catlin painted him twice, Henry Inman once, and Robert W. Weir did his portrait in 1828, when Red Jacket was on a visit to New York City. Fitz-Greene Halleck has celebrated him in song."