Red Jacket: Iroquois Diplomat and Orator.

Abstract

Red Jacket: Iroquois Diplomat and Orator. By Christopher Densmore. (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1999. Pp. xxvi, 166. Illustrations, maps. Cloth, $34.95; paper, $16.95.) Christopher Densmore's concise new biography of Red Jacket appears at an appropriate moment in history. With New Yorkers currently embroiled in several bitter controversies over Iroquois land claims within state boundaries, Densmore offers us an opportunity to view the critical period in which many of the now-disputed treaties were negotiated through the perspective of one of the principal Native-American participants. While this is not one of the author's professed aims, his study nevertheless provides a cogent look at the way in which Red Jacket and the rest of the Six Nations who remained in New York succeeded in maintaining a relationship with their American neighbors based on consensual treaties. Red Jacket, known to his fellow Senecas as Sagoyewatha, is best known historically for his eloquent oratory. Indeed, his authority stemmed from his ability to represent the sentiments of his people in council. Red Jacket came into prominence during the 1790s, when federal officials developed a more favorable attitude toward the Iroquois Confederacy in hopes of capitalizing on what they perceived as the authority of the Six Nations over the militant Native-American groups residing in the Ohio Valley. Following the diplomatic pattern of many of his eighteenth-century predecessors among the Iroquois, Red Jacket recognized a window of opportunity and traded on this new spirit of accommodation on the part of the Americans. Although Iroquois leaders had no authority over the Ohio Valley nations, Red Jacket pledged neutrality in the conflict, becoming an American medal chief after 1792. He employed Iroquois neutrality as leverage in bargaining with federal officials, assuming a leading role in the negotiation of the 1794 Treaty of Canandaigua, which returned some of the territory taken from the Six Nations at the 1784 Treaty of Fort Stanwix, and fixed firm boundaries for the reservations remaining in New York state. After 1794, Red Jacket devoted himself to the causes of preserving Seneca lands against relentless speculators and resisting the efforts of Christian missionaries. Densmore includes authoritative texts of three of Red Jacket's most famous speeches on these themes as appendices, permitting his readers to encounter firsthand the arguments made by the Seneca leader. Densmore explains the remarkable popularity of these speeches in the early nineteenth century by demonstrating how they meshed with an emerging popular skepticism toward evangelical missionaries. Red Jacket lived a turbulent life, frequently finding himself at the center of controversies between the Senecas and neighboring Americans. Amidst the celebrated speeches, tours of large American cities, meetings with presidents, and frequent portraits, Red Jacket offered testimony in court on several occasions, opposed the inroads of the predatory Ogden Land Company, and battled back from being deposed by a group of Christian Seneca leaders to work for Seneca unity during his last years. He died in 1830. Densmore argues convincingly that the ultimate retention by the Senecas of their reserved lands in New York state should be regarded as part of Red Jacket's successful legacy. …