A Great Difference Between Red and White

By Red Jacket, Sagoyowatha

Book Id: WPLBN0100002614
Format Type: PDF eBook:
File Size: 0.1 MB
Reproduction Date: 1/1/1843

Title:	A Great Difference Between Red and White
Author:	Red Jacket, Sagoyowatha
Volume:
Language:	English
Subject:	Non Fiction, History of America
Collections:	History, Authors Community
Historic Publication Date:	1843
Publisher:	Bradbury, Soden & Co.

Member Page:	History Is A Weapon .org
Citation APA MLA Chicago Red Jacket, B. S. (1843). A Great Difference Between Red and White. Retrieved from http://www.gutenberg.cc/

Description
A Great Difference between Red and White is a speech written by Sago-Yo-Watha (Red Jacket), Iroquois, 1805 and published in Daniel Drake's book "Lives of Celebrated American Indians" (Boston, Bradbury, Soden & Co. 1843), 283–87.

Summary
The Senecas, members of the Iroquois Confederacy, fought on the side of the British in the American Revolution. Red Jacket, also known as Sagoyewatha, was a chief and orator born in eastern New York; he derived his English name from his habit of wearing many red coats provided to him by his British allies. After the hostilities, as the British ceded their territories to the Americans, the Senecas and many other Indian peoples faced enormous pressure on their homelands. Red Jacket was a critical mediator in relations between the new U.S. government and the Senecas; he led a delegation that met with George Washington in 1792, when he received a peace medal that appeared in subsequent portraits of the Indian leader. In 1805 a Boston missionary society requested Red Jacket’s permission to proselytize among the Iroquois settlements in northern New York State. Red Jacket’s forceful defense of native religion, below, caused the representative to refuse the Indian’s handshake and announce that no fellowship could exist between the religion of God and the works of the Devil.

Excerpt
“Yet we did not fear them. We took them to be friends. They called us brothers. We believed them and gave them a larger seat ... they wanted more land; they wanted our country. Our eyes were opened, and our minds became uneasy.” “You have got our country, but are not satisfied; you want to force your religion upon us.” “How shall we know when to believe, being so often deceived by the white people?”