Editing Red Jacket (section)

==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 (New York)|Seneca Lake]].<ref>John Niles Hubbard, "An Account of Sa-Go-Ye-Wat-Ha"</ref> Others believe he was born near [[Cayuga Lake]] and present-day [[Canoga, New York|Canoga]].<ref>Col. William L. Stone (1838), ''Life of Red Jacket''</ref> Others say he was born south of present-day [[Branchport, New York|Branchport]], at [[Keuka Lake]] near the mouth of Basswood Creek.<ref>Miles A. Davis (1912), ''History of Jerusalem'', p. 38.</ref><ref>Stafford C. Cleveland (1873), ''History of Yates County'', p. 450.</ref> It is known that he grew up with his family at Basswood Creek, and his mother was buried there after her death. The Iroquois 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. <ref name=parkerxxiii/>

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 nation|Mohawk]] chief [[Joseph Brant]] became bitter enemies and rivals before the American Revolutionary War, although they often met together at the [[Iroquois 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.<ref>Graymont, p. 216.</ref>
===Relationship with Joseph Brant===
There was a mutual dislike between Red Jacket and Joseph Brant (Thayendanegea).<ref>McKenney & Hall, Volume Two, 1870, Pg. 282.</ref> 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.<ref>McKenney & Hall, Volume Two, 1870, Pg. 282</ref> 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, favouring 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.<ref>McKenney & Hall, Volume Two, 1870, Pg. 283.</ref> 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.<ref> McKenney & Hall, Volume Two, 1870, Pg. 282</ref>  
===Silver medal from George Washington===

[[File:PhiladelphiaPresidentsHouse.jpg|thumb|left|250px|[[President's House (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)|President's House]], [[Philadelphia]]. Red Jacket met with presidents George Washington, and later John Adams, in the presidential mansion in Philadelphia, when that city was the temporary national capital.]]
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.<ref>McKenney & Hall 1870, p. 17.</ref> 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]].<ref name="bechs">{{Cite web|url=http://artvoice.com/issues/v10n1/art_scene|title=Fact, Fiction & Spectacle: the Trial of Red Jacket|publisher=[[Buffalo History Museum]]|access-date=2013-07-06}}</ref> 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.<ref name="repatriation">{{cite news |last1=McCarthy |first1=Robert J. |title=Red Jacket Medal's long journey ends at Seneca museum |url=https://buffalonews.com/news/local/red-jacket-medals-long-journey-ends-at-seneca-museum/article_e58abce0-b653-11eb-9765-dfb7bd73568c.html |access-date=May 16, 2021 |work=Buffalo News |date=May 16, 2021 |ref=repatriation}}</ref>  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.<ref>Red Jacket Medal Returned to Seneca Nation, 00:00:35 to 00:01:00</ref>  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.<ref>Red Jacket Medal Returned to Seneca Nation', 00:01:50 to 00:02:10</ref>

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.{{citation needed|date=January 2025}}

===Diplomacy===

In 1794, Red Jacket was a signatory, along with [[Cornplanter]], [[Handsome Lake]], and fifty other [[Iroquois]] 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 Iroquois or other Native American allies.<ref>{{cite web |title=The Canandaigua Treaty of the 1794 |url=http://canandaigua-treaty.org/The_Canandaigua_Treaty_of_1794.html |access-date = 2008-01-08 }}</ref> The treaty confirmed peace with the United States, as well as the boundaries of the postwar [[the Phelps and Gorham Purchase|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 people|Seneca]] tribe. The Seneca Tribe made peace with settlers in the Finger Lakes region, but they suffered hardship in the [[Genesee County, New York|Genesee Region]] and other parts of Western New York.<ref>Wisbey, Herbert A., Jr. (2009). ''Pioneer Prophetess: Jemima Wilkinson the Publick Universal Friend''. Cornell Press.</ref>

In 1797, by the Treaty of Big Tree, [[Robert Morris (merchant)|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 (village), New York|Geneseo]] in [[Livingston County, New York|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{{citation needed|date=June 2021}} and trinkets to the women to "grease" the sale.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Goldman |first1=Mark |title=High hopes : the rise and decline of Buffalo, New York |date=1983 |publisher=[[State University of New York Press]] |location=Albany |isbn=9780873957342 |page=28}}</ref> 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, Monroe County, New York|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.<ref>[http://mountainlaurelreview.com/sections/cornplanter/cornplanter_current.html ''The Cornplanter Chronicles,'' Vol. 4, part 7], ''Mountain Laurel Review''</ref>

[[File:Red Jacket monument.jpg|thumb|Monument at [[Forest Lawn Cemetery (Buffalo, New York)|Forest Lawn Cemetery]]; sculpted by [[James G. C. Hamilton]].]]