Unsatisfied with the roles being offered to her as a Native American woman, she wrote her own, highly successful play and cast herself as the heroic male lead.

She was born in Gowanda, New York,[2] to father Ga-Na-Gua,[2] also known as Dr. Alan Mohawk,[3] a chief medicine man of the Seneca Nation, and mother Lydia, who was known as "The Angle" on the Cattaraugus Reservation.

"[3] In an interview with the Liverpool Weekly Courier, she gave an English translation of her name as 'Majestic Palm', along with a signed photograph of herself.

[6] She briefly married James Rider, a white Civil War veteran, but left due to abuse.

[3] Beginning her performing career in America, Gowongo's prestige as an actor and playwright translated to Canada and then across the Atlantic to the United Kingdom where she toured her work.

[1] Besides Wep-ton-no-mah, The Indian Mail Carrier, her best known work, in 1900, she starred in a Broadway melodrama, Lincoln J. Carter's “The Flaming Arrow,” again playing a Native American man.

[1] Gowongo's most famed work as a playwright, Wep-ton-no-Mah, The Indian Mail Carrier, sparked the interest of audiences and the general public across America and Britain.

[8] Playing the role of Wep-ton-no-Mah, a Native American man, Gowongo troubled stereotypes of Indigeneity, race, gender, and sexuality while engaging in the contemporary urge to reimagine the frontier, as seen in the popular Buffalo Bill Wild West Shows, which she also performed in.

She decided to cast herself as the male lead because "I said to myself that I must have something free and wild that would fit with my own nature, I wanted to ride and wrestle, and I thought, 'Well, I can't do that as a woman, I must act a man, or better, a boy.

He shoots his gun, thinking it is aimed at Wep-ton-no-mah, but actually hits his father, Chief Ga-ne-gua, who dies in his stead.

Several years later, Wep-ton-no-mah returns from chasing down bandits, and agrees - reluctantly - to finally take the job he was offered by Colonel Stockton.

Before this however, he enters Colonel Stockton's house, disguised as another friend of Captain Franklin's, and attempts to steal some money from his desk.

Spanish Joe's accomplice has, however, switched sides, and so Garry and Sam (two of Colonel Stockton's servants) discover that Wep-ton-no-mah is in trouble and go to find him.