162 THE GEORGE CATLIN INDIAN GALLERY. 



THE FIVE KNOWN INDIAN CHIEFS (SENECAS) RE-ENTOMED WITH RED 

 JACKET AT BUFFALO, N. Y., OCTOBER 9, 1884. 



THE YOUNG KING. 



Young King, or Gui-en-gwah-toh, was born at or near the site of the present vil- 

 lage of Canandaigua about the year 1760. He was probably the nephew, on his 

 mother's side, of the Seneca sachem popularly known as Old Smoke, or Old King — 

 renowned in our earlier annals — to whose title Gui-en-gwah-toh, "The Bearer of the 

 Smoking Brand," or, more literally, "The Smoke Has Disappeared," he succeeded. 

 This titular dignity, which invested him with the right to kindle and extinguish the 

 council tire of his nation— always the most numerous and powerful in the Iroquois 

 confederacy — bestowed upon him and his uncle, Old King, a delusive prestige and 

 rank which led the whites to speak of them as royal personages. 



Young King was a man of lofty stature and herculean mold, and of great force of 

 character, though not endowed with the rare intellectual qualities which rendered 

 his uncle the most influential Seneca chieftain of his period. 



The leader of the Indians at the so-called massacre of Wyoming, history alleges, 

 was a Seneca chief known to the natives by the name of Gui-en-gwah-toh. Careful 

 investigators affirm that Old King was too aged and Young King too juvenile to 

 have taken part in that lamentable tragedy. It is certain, however, that, there was 

 never more than a few weeks' iuterregnum between the death of an Indian chief and 

 the appointment of his .successor, and Seneca tradition is silent as to any intervening 

 bearer of the council brand, although, indeed, there may have been one. Colonel 

 Proctor, who was delegated by President Washington in 1791 to treat with the Indians, 

 visited the Senecas at Buffalo Creek in the spring of that year. The Young King 

 was then apparently the leading man of his nation, or second only to the great war 

 chief, Corn planter. He seemed to be largely under the influence of Colonel Butler 

 and the British. Proctor says that " Young King was fully regime'ntaled as a colo- 

 nel ; red, faced with blue, as belonging to some royal regiment, and equipped with 

 a pair of the best epaulets, so that," he adds, " from his after conduct it may not 

 appear extraordinary when the King has thrown in his opposition to my errand, 

 he being paid so well for his influence over the Indian nations as to carry his favorite 

 point in question."* Red Jacket is mentioned by Colonel Proctor as the "young 

 prince of the Turtle tribe," and allusion is made to his engaging countenance and 

 remarkable gifts of oratory. It is natural to infer that Young King was the senior 

 of Red Jacket, and old enough to have followed his patron, Colonel Butler, to the 

 bloody field of Wyoming. Captain Pollard, a noted Seneca chief, affirmed that 

 Young King led the Indians on that occasion. t Indian youths of comparatively 

 tender years, often enrolled themselves in the ranks of a war party and won an en- 

 viable name for their enterprise and valor. 



Young King during the war of 1812 espoused the cause of the United States against 

 the British, and in one engagement was seriously wounded. 



In his earlier days he was addicted to intemperance, but on his conversion to Chris- 

 tianity he became a zealous advocate of temperance, as well as the leading promoter 

 of education and progress in his tribe. During his more reckless days, in a brawl — 

 where the testimony shows he was not the aggressor — he lost an arm and suffered 

 other mutilation, and yet to the last his gigantic figure and commanding features 

 wore the grandeur of a desolated and battered Colossus. 



" He was the first man who built a rod of feuce on the Buffalo Reservation, where 

 the missionaries first resided ; and often in the cold winter days would be seen on 

 Saturday crossing the creek in his little canoe, to see if the church were supplied 

 with fuel for the Sabbath, and if it were not, with his one hand wielded the ax and 



* History of Buffalo and the Senecas, vol. 1, page 423, Appendix, 

 t American Historical Record, vol. 1, page 116. 



