Date
Meaning & History
This was the name of Red Jacket (known as Otetiani in his youth and Sagoyewatha (Keeper Awake) Sa-go-ye-wa-tha because of his oratorical skills) (c. 1750 - 1830), a Native American Seneca orator and chief of the Wolf clan. He negotiated on behalf of his nation with the new United States after the American Revolutionary War, when the Seneca as British allies were forced to cede much land, and signed the Treaty of Canandaigua (1794). He helped secure some Seneca territory in New York state, although most of the people had migrated to Canada for resettlement after the defeat of the British. His talk on "Religion for the White Man and the Red" (1805) has been preserved as an example of his great oratorical style.