Chief red jacket speech analysis

Red Jacket Defends Native American Religion, 1805

by Red Jacket

The Senecas, members of the Iroquois Confederacy, fought on the side of the British in the American Revolution.

Red Jacket, also known as Sagoyewatha, was a chief and orator born in eastern New York; he derived his English name from his habit of wearing many red coats provided to him by his British allies. After the hostilities, as the British ceded their territories to the Americans, the Senecas and many other Indian peoples faced enormous pressure on their homelands.

Chief red jacket speech analysis

Red Jacket was a critical mediator in relations between the new U.S. government and the Senecas; he led a delegation that met with George Washington in 1792, when he received a peace medal that appeared in subsequent portraits of the Indian leader.

In 1805 a Boston missionary society requested Red Jacket’s permission to proselytize among the Iroquois settlements in northern New York State. Red Jacket’s forceful defense of native religion,