The War Chief of the Six Nations | Page 8

the
sea. England, they said, was taxing them unjustly and posting soldiers
in their chief cities to carry out her will. They were by no means
disposed to submit. As early as 1770 a mob in Boston attacked an
English guard and drew upon themselves its fire, which caused
bloodshed in the city's streets. This was the prelude of the American
Revolution. A brief lull came in the storm. But as Britain still insisted
on the right to tax the colonies and made an impost on tea the test of
her right, rebels in Boston accepted the challenge and were inflamed to
violence; they swarmed on a tea-ship which had entered the bay,
dragged the packets from the hold, and cast them into the waters of the
harbour. When news of this act of violence reached England,
parliament passed a bill providing for the shutting up of the port of
Boston and removing the seat of government to Salem. In 1774 General
Gage, the recently appointed governor of Massachusetts, placed the
colony under military rule, and it was cut off from the rest of the
country. The signal for revolt was thus given, and a general revolution
soon followed.
The colonists immediately divided into two parties; on the one side
were those who felt that they must obey what they thought to be the
call of liberty; on the other were those who had no desire, and felt no
need, to follow a summons to insurrection against His Majesty the King.
The red man began to see clearly that the whites, the 'Long Knives,'
brethren of the same race, would soon be at one another's throats, and
that they, the natives, could not remain neutral when the war broke out.
During these alarming days Sir William Johnson died, when scarcely
sixty years of age. He had seen that the break with the motherland was
coming, and the prospect was almost more than he could bear. On the

very day of his death he had received dispatches from England that
probably hastened his end. He was told, under the royal seal, of the
great peril that lay in store for all the king's people, and he was urged to
keep the Six Nations firm in their allegiance to the crown. On that
morning, July 11, 1774, the dying man called the Indians to council,
and spoke what were to be his parting words to the tribes. They must,
he said, stand by the king, undaunted and unmoved under every trial. A
few hours later the gallant Sir William Johnson, the friend of all the
sons of the forest, the guide and helper of Joseph Brant, had breathed
his last. His estates and titles were inherited by his son John Johnson,
who was also promoted to the rank of major-general in the army. The
control of Indian Affairs passed into the hands of his son-in-law,
Colonel Guy Johnson, an able man, but less popular and wanting the
broad sympathies of the great superintendent. Brant was at once made
secretary to Guy Johnson, and to these two men Sir William's work of
dealing with the Indians now fell. Their task, laid on them by their king,
was to keep the Six Nations true to his cause in the hour when the
tomahawk should leave its girdle and the war fires should again gleam
sullenly in the depths of the forest.
Joseph Brant set about this work with restless energy. He was no longer
the stripling who had gone away to the West that he might aid in
bending the pride of Pontiac. Ten years had passed, and now he was a
mature man with an ever-broadening vision. Some time during these
years he had reached the position among his tribesmen which he long
had coveted. He had been recognized by the Mohawks as one of their
chieftains. This honour he had won by right not of birth but of merit,
and for this reason he was known as a 'Pine-tree Chief.' Like the
pine-tree, tall and strong and conspicuous among the trees of the forest,
he had achieved a commanding place in the Mohawk nation. True, he
was a chief merely by gift of his tribe, but he seems, nevertheless, to
have been treated with the same respect and confidence as the
hereditary chiefs. He rejoiced in his new distinction. Evil days were
ahead, and he was now in a position to do effective work on behalf of
his people and of the British when the inevitable war should break out.
A still greater honour was in store for him. When war was declared he
at once became recognized as the war leader of the Six Nations--the

War Chief. The hereditary successor of King Hendrick, who was slain
at Lake George in 1755, was Little