Chief Red Jacket

Choctaw Traditions – The Council Fire, The Nahullo

The faces of the Choctaw and Chickasaw men of sixty years ago were as smooth as a woman’s, in fact they had no beard. Sometimes there might be seen a few tine hairs (if hairs they might be called) here and there upon the face, but they were few and far between, and extracted with a pair of small tweezers whenever discovered. Oft have I seen a Choctaw warrior standing before a mirror seeking with untiring perseverance and unwearied eyes, as he turned his face at different angles to the glass, if by chance a hair could be found lurking … Read more

Indian Wampums

Reading The Wampums

The Indians, having no written language, preserved and handed down their history to future generations through tradition, much of which could have been obtained a century and a half ago, and even a century ago, which was authentic and would have added much to the interest of the history of the continent of which we boast as our inheritance, though obtained by the extermination of a race of people whose wonderful history, had it been obtained as it once could have been, would have been very interesting and beneficial to future generations, throwing its light back over ages unknown, connecting … Read more

Charles Montezuma

There always have existed among the North American Indians, and still exist, many examples of intellectual ability, of genius, of high moral feeling and as noble and pure patriotism as was ever found in any nation of people and as proof of this fact I relate the following: Some twenty-five years ago a photographer of Chicago, being in Arizona on a vacation trip, found and rescued from an Apache camp an abandoned Indian male infant of full blood. The photographer became possessed with a desire to take the boy home with him and adopt him. In spite of warnings that the … Read more

Moravian Massacre at Gnadenbrutten

George Rogers Clark

In the early part of the year 1763 two Moravian missionaries, Post and Heckewelder, established a mission among the Tuscarawa Indians, and in a few years they had three nourishing missionary stations, viz: Shoenbrun, Gnadenbrutten and Salem, which were about five miles apart and fifty miles west of the present town of Steubenville, Ohio. During our Revolutionary War their position being midway between the hostile Indians (allies of the British) on the Sandusky River, and our frontier settlements, and therefore on the direct route of the war parties of both the British Indian allies and the frontier settlers, they were … Read more

The Meeting in 1811 of Tecumseh and Apushamatahah

Peter Perkins Pitchlynn was the Choctaw Principal Chief from 1864-1866

The meeting in 1811, of Tecumseh, the mighty Shawnee, with Apushamatahah, the intrepid Choctaw. I will here give a true narrative of an incident in the life of the great and noble Choctaw chief, Apushamatahah, as related by Colonel John Pitchlynn, a white man of sterling integrity, and who acted for many years as interpreter to the Choctaws for the United States Government, and who was an eye-witness to the thrilling scene, a similar one, never before nor afterwards befell the lot of a white man to witness, except that of Sam Dale, the great scout of General Andrew Jackson, … Read more

Red Jacket Monument, Forest Lawn Cemetery, Buffalo, New York

Red Jacket, Sagoyewatha, or Keeper Awake

Much has been said of the speaking ability of this noted Indian. A good example of one of his famous speeches was one that was delivered to a missionary named Cram who visited the Senecas, in 1805. This missionary requested a council with the Senecas, claiming that he had an important message to deliver to them. When the people had assembled, Cram gave a speech in which he told the Indians that they had never worshipped God in a decent manner but that they and their fathers had been in great darkness and error. He informed them that he had … Read more

Witchcraft–Case of Tom. Jemmy

The Trial of Red Jacket

In the spring of 1821, a man belonging to Red Jacket’s tribe, fell into a languishing condition, and after lingering for some time, unable to obtain relief, died. The “medicine men” were unable to divine the cause of his malady; the circumstances of his sickness and death, were thought to be very peculiar, and his friends could discover no better way of explaining the matter, than to suppose he had been bewitched. The Indians believed in sorcery, and at different times in their history had been known to execute summary judgment, on those whom they supposed to be guilty of … Read more

Cornplanter in Disrepute

Not long after the large sale of their domain to Robert Morris, which had been negotiated at Big Tree, the Seneca began to realize that they had committed a great mistake. The broad lands, mountain, hill, and valley, over which they had roamed, the springs and streams of water by whose side they had been wont to encamp, and above all the graves of their sires, where affection’s altar had been hallowed by their sighs and tears, these were still in view, but they appeared not as in days gone by, to wear for them the smiles of old and … Read more