An Account of Sa-Go-Ye-Wat-Ha, or Red Jacket, and His People, 1750-1830

by John Niles Hubbard

"BROTHERS: We have now made known to you our minds; we expect and earnestly request that you will permit our friends to receive this our gift, and will make the same good to them, according to the laws and customs of your nation."

By the laws of the State, no sale or transfers of Indian lands could be made to private individuals, without permission from the government. Hence the address embodying the request as presented above, which was complied with, and the land secured as desired by the Indians.

The above is certainly an able document, and has been justly admired for its originality, and the boldness of its figures. It is in keeping with the high order of mind, that has marked the history of the Six Nations. One expression in it has been pointed out, as an instance of the truly sublime: "THE GREAT SPIRIT SPOKE TO THE WHIRLWIND, AND IT WAS STILL."

We may observe here that in tracing the history of the Iroquois, the instances are not rare of a true nobility of character. Their confidence and esteem once secured, no slight cause would interrupt, none appreciated more highly the offices of kindness,—and none would go further in making a generous return for favors rendered.

Jasper Parrish and Horatio Jones were favorite interpreters of Red Jacket, and as they passed no inconsiderable part of their lives among the Indians, a further notice of their history is desirable.

The early life of Captain Jasper Parrish was marked by scenes alike trying and eventful. He was a native of Connecticut, from which State his family removed to the waters of the Delaware, in the state of Pennsylvania. In 1778, when but eleven years old, he accompanied his father on a short expedition, to remove a family of backwoodsmen, to a less exposed part of the settlement. On their way they were attacked by a small party of Indians, and made captives. The father was taken to Niagara, and after a captivity of two years, was exchanged and enabled to return to his own family.

The son was claimed by a war-chief, who treated him kindly, and after a time took him to the waters of the Chemung. On entering an Indian village, the war-party which accompanied them, sounded the war-whoop, and it was answered by the Indians and Indian boys who came out to meet them. They pulled the young prisoner from the horse he was riding, scourged him with whips, and beat him with the handles of their tomahawks, one of the forms of their gauntlet, until his master humanely rescued him. He was after this sold to a family of Delawares, and taken to reside with them on the Delaware river, where he suffered much from want of proper clothing, and from scanty fare. To inure him to cold, the Indians compelled him almost daily, to strip and plunge into the icy waters of the river.

He was with the Indians when General Sullivan invaded their country, and witnessed their retreat, after the battle at Newtown, until they found protection from the guns of the British, at Fort Niagara. Here they subsisted during the winter by rations from the garrison, and to induce them to return again to their villages, on the Genesee river, the officers pledged them an increased bounty for American scalps.

On one occasion, while with the Delaware family at Niagara, he came near being a victim of the British bounty for scalps. Left alone with some Indians, who were having a carousal, he overheard a proposal to kill the young Yankee, and take his scalp to the fort, and sell it for rum. In a few moments one of them took a large brand from the fire and hurled at him, but being on the alert he dodged it, and made his escape. The Indians pursued, but it was dark and they did not find him.

From the Delaware family, he was sold to an Indian of the Mohawk tribe, called Captain David Hill. At a council of the British and Indians, he was afterwards adopted with much ceremony, into the family of Captain Hill, as his own son. He resided with him at the Mohawk settlement near the present village of Lewiston, till the close of the war, and being surrendered in accordance with the stipulations of the treaty at Fort Stanwix in 1784, he returned once more to his own father's house.