*ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: acquired from Christies Auction catalogue, New York, 14 DEC. 2000.
(AMERICAN INDIANS, Seneca Tribe). RED JACKET (Sagoyewatha, 1758?-1830), CORN-PLANTER (John O’Bail or Abeel, c.1732-1836). Document, SIGNED BY 10 SACHEMS OF THE SENECA TRIBE (with an “X” in each case), including Red-Jacket and Corn-Planter, co-signed by H. Cunningham, Horatio Jones, H. Pratt and another as witnesses, the body of the document in an ornate scribal hand, corroborating certification on verso. Buffalo, 21 May 1821. 1 page, small folio, one section neatly detached at old fold (repairable).
RED-JACKET, CORN-PLANTER AND OTHER CHIEFS OF THE SENECAS
A duplicate receipt for payment made in accordance with a treaty, signed by a remarkable assemblage of important Seneca leaders, including Red-Jacket and Corn-Planter. “We the chiefs of the Seneca Nation of Indians do acknowledge to have received…by the hands of Jasper Parrish Sub-Agent Five Hundred Dollars in full for the annuity due for the present year, agreeable to a certain writing or agreement made at a Treaty held at Buffalo…on the 13th day of September 1815. Signed duplicate receipts…” Beneath, each chief’s name is written, with space for his “X” mark: “Young King,” “Red Jacket,” “Corn Planter,” “Little Billy,” “Black Snake,” “Captain Pollard,” “Captain Shongo,” “Captain Strong”, “Little Beard,” and “Chief Warrior.” On the verso a Justice of the Peace, L.G. Austin, certifies that “Horatio Jones, one of the subscribing witnesses” had appeared before him to testify that the receipt “was made in his presence, and that he saw the persons whose names are subscribed to the within Receipt, severally execute (sign) the same.”
Sagoyewatha’s English name, Red Jacket, had been given him by a British officer at the time of the Revolution, during frontier fighting against the Americans. A member of the Wolf clan of the Senecas, his lack of battle prowess (for which he was ridiculed by Joseph Brant and Cornplanter) was balanced by political astuteness and a talent for oratory. He spoke against land sales to Americans in 1787-1790, but later signed the agreements and generally “advanced in power while his powerful rival Cornplanter, declined” (DAB). He met with President Washington in 1792 and as an important chief of the once-powerful Iroquois Confederacy, went to Washington D.C. in 1801 to protect continuing encroachments on Indian lands. Red-Jacket grew increasingly determined to oppose missionary activity on the reservations and all white settlement on Indian lands, and in 1821 he and his supporters successfully urged passage of a New York law to protect the reservation lands. But he was unable to prevent the Christian missionaries from converting his people and died, “childless, in an alien, Christian world” (DAB). Some example of his exceptional oratory, taken down at the time, survive.