Red Jacket (known as Otetiani [Always Ready][1] in his youth and Sagoyewatha [Keeper Awake] Sa-go-ye-wa-tha as an adult because of his oratorical skills) (c. 1750 – January 20, 1830) was a Seneca orator and chief of the Wolf clan, based in Western New York.

He helped secure some Seneca territory in New York state, although most of his people had migrated to Canada for resettlement after the Paris Treaty.

[1] Red Jacket lived much of his adult life in Seneca territory in the Genesee River Valley in western New York.

He and the 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".

Both were artful and eloquent men; while Brant had the advantage of education and travel, Red Jacket was superior in devotion to his people.

[15] 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.

[citation needed] 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.

[17] The treaty confirmed peace with the United States, as well as the boundaries of the postwar the Phelps and Gorham Purchase (1788) of most of the Seneca land east of the Genesee River in western New York.

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 tribe.

[18] In 1797, by the Treaty of Big Tree, Robert Morris paid $100,000 to the Seneca for rights to some of their lands west of the Genesee River.

As often occurred, Morris used gifts of liquor to the Seneca men[citation needed] and trinkets to the women to "grease" the sale.

[22] At a council of the New York indigenous nations called on July 6, 1812 by the Indian agent Erastus Granger, Red Jacket acted as a spokesman of the Senecas.

[24] Peter B. Porter was able to successfully negotiate an alliance with Red Jacket to assist the American armed forces in the Battle of Chippawa.

In 1876, the politician William C. Bryant presented a plan to the Council of the Seneca Nation to reinter Red Jacket's remains in Forest Lawn Cemetery in Buffalo.

George Catlin painted him twice, Henry Inman once, and Robert W. Weir did his portrait in 1828, when Red Jacket was on a visit to New York City.

[32][33] After meeting with the leaders of the Seneca delegation, Red Jacket provided a thought-out response representing his people as a whole.

After expressing his gratitude to the Great Spirit for the opportunity to meet, Red Jacket stated that the Senecas listened with excitement to Cram’s proposal.

At the time, the Iroquois of present-day New York State were having difficulty dealing with the constant increase of European immigrants and encroachment on their remaining lands.

Red Jacket made it clear that he and his people would not change their religious beliefs based on the white man's word.

"You say that you are sent to instruct us how to worship the Great Spirit agreeably to his mind, and, if we do not take hold of the religion which you white people teach, we shall be unhappy hereafter.

Red Jacket acknowledged that the European Americans' religious beliefs were based on a sacred text, but said, "If it was intended for us as well as you, why has not the Great Spirit given to us, and not only to us, but why did he not give to our forefathers, the knowledge of that book, with the means of understanding it rightly?"

On another occasion, Red Jacket delivered a speech known as ‘We like our religion and do not want another’ to Reverend Alexander from New York City during a Seneca council at Buffalo Creek in May 1811.

[37] Noticing that ‘the black coats’ come with sweet voices and smiling faces, offering to teach the religion of the white people, Red Jacket proposed that, if they wished well to the Senecas, to keep away and not disturb them.

In his "Speech to the U.S. Senate", Red Jacket was respectful and open-minded regarding his visitors' beliefs, hoping that his audience would respond similarly.

He argued that it was wrong to portray his people as savages, when they had shown kindness but received in return only "poison" (hard liquor).

Red Jacket also acknowledged that the white settlers' religion was beset with divisive controversies, unlike his peoples' own faith.

Red Jacket's "Speech to the U.S. Senate" expresses his ability to use a distinct form of rhetoric that distinguishes the difference in religious tolerance between the Indians and United States citizens.

His emotional appeal to members of the US Senate, whom he feels are neglecting the Indians' right of religious freedom, is an example of his attempt to persuade his audience to recognize their fallacies.

If the Indians are being secularized for their religious beliefs, yet they believe in one ultimate Creator, just like the European Americans, how can they be viewed as a lesser body?