Seneca Chief Red Jacket
During the fall of 1789, Washington had to contend with the British refusing to evacuate their forts in the Northwest frontier and their concerted efforts to incite Indian tribes to attack American settlers.[290] The Northwest tribes under Miami chief Little Turtle allied with the British to resist American expansion, and killed 1,500 settlers between 1783 and 1790.[291]
Seneca chief Red Jacket was Washington's peace emissary with the Northwestern Confederacy
Red Jacket (known as Otetiani in his youth and Sagoyewatha [Keeper Awake] Sa-go-ye-wa-tha as an adult because of his oratorical skills) (c. 1750 – January 20, 1830) was a Seneca orator and chief of the Wolf clan, based in Western New York.[1]
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.
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.
Honors and legacy
A variety of structures, ships and places were named in his honor, especially in the Finger Lakes region and Buffalo:
- A complex of dormitory buildings at the University at Buffalo
- Red Jacket Dining Hall at SUNY Geneseo.
- The Red Jacket Building, an apartment and commercial building in Buffalo.
- A memorial statue and Red Jacket Park are in Penn Yan, New York near Keuka Lake. The statue was sculpted by Michael Soles.
- Red Jacket Yacht Club, which lies on the western shores of Cayuga Lake.
- The Red Jacket clipper ship, which set the unbroken speed record from New York to Liverpool.[1]
- A public school system, Red Jacket Central, which serves the communities of Manchester and Shortsville in Ontario County, New York.[22]
- The Red Jacket Volunteer Fire Department, which served the Town of Seneca Falls.
- A section of land on the Buffalo River (New York) is named "Red Jacket Peninsula". On the eastern bank of the river is the plaque containing a brief bio of Red Jacket and river history.
- Red Jacket Parkway in South Buffalo
- The community of Red Jacket in southern West Virginia, although the leader was not known to have had any connection to that region.[23]
- There is a hand-carved portrait of Red Jacket alongside a brief quotation from his Senate speech on the Empire State Carousel at the Farmers' Museum in Cooperstown, NY.