Fish Carrier

Fish Carrier or "Ojageght," which translates to English as "he is carrying a fish by the forehead strap," was a Haudenosaunee chief of the Cayuga people. He supported the British during the American Revolution, participating in the Battle of Wyoming in 1778 and the Battle of Newtown in 1779.

American Revolutionary War

Although the Encyclopedia of Native American Biography states that Fish Carrier “supported the patriot cause,” historians Barbara Graymont and Max Mintz both record that Fish Carrier was allied with the British, and led the Cayuga contingent against the Americans at the Battle of Wyoming and the Battle of Newtown. At a council held at Irondequoit in July 1777, the Cayuga and Seneca had abandoned their neutrality and had "taken up the hatchet" against the Americans. Fish Carrier accepted the war belt on behalf of the Cayuga, and likely participated in the Siege of Fort Stanwix and the Battle of Oriskany later that summer. this was not the case for the Cayuga whose villages were destroyed in September 1779. The Cayuga fled to Fort Niagara and the following spring moved to Buffalo Creek.

Fish Carrier participated in a number of raids in 1780 including the August 1780 raid on the Canajoharie district led by Joseph Brant. Fifty-three houses were burned as well as barns, a gristmill, a church, and two small forts.

Fish Carrier attended meetings between Indian Commissioner Timothy Pickering and representatives of the Haudenosaunee at Tioga Point in November 1790 and at Painted Post (Newtown) in July 1791. He was an advisor to Red Jacket during the meeting at Buffalo in April 1791 with Colonel Thomas Proctor.

In March 1792, Fish Carrier was with a delegation of Seneca and Cayuga that met with George Washington in Philadelphia. Fish Carrier, Red Jacket, Cornplanter, Blacksnake and two others were presented with large oval silver peace medals.

Fish Carrier was one of the signatories of the November 1794 Treaty of Canandaigua that established perpetual “peace and friendship” between the Haudenosaunee and the United States, and acknowledged the sovereignty of the Haudenosaunee within their lands.

Name Fish Carrier’s name in Cayuga is transcribed as “Oo-jau-gent-a” on the Treaty of Canandaigua, as “Ogageghte” on a document dated August 1789. as “Ho-ja-ga-ta” by ethnologist Lewis H. Morgan.

Family Fish Carrier had three children, a daughter and two sons. After Fish Carrier's death at Buffalo Creek, his family moved to the Six Nations of the Grand River reserve in Upper Canada (Ontario). Morgan visited the reserve in 1850 and purchased a conch shell breastplate that had belonged to Fish Carrier for five dollars from Peter Fish Carrier, Fish Carrier's son.