Native American History by Judith Nies

Author:Judith Nies [Nies, Judith]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-81405-0
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2012-03-14T04:00:00+00:00

But Brant with the British, like Chief Pontiac with the French, was to choose the losing side. His request that the English guarantee the return of the lands his people had lost on the Mohawk and Susquehanna Rivers assumed that the British would never lose in the rebellion of the 13 colonies. Would Brant commit, the English secretary wanted to know, the resources of the Six Nations in support of the British government in the war against the American colonies? Although it was not in Brant’s power to do so, he assured the British secretary that he would.

The subsequent debate within the Iroquois League on which side to support in the American War of Independence was to be its last. Action within the confederacy required consensus. But there was none. Under Brant’s leadership, the Mohawks and Senecas supported the British; the Oneidas and Tuscaroras supported the colonies; the Cayugas and Onondagas wanted to remain neutral. When war came, they each supported opposing sides. Of Brant’s behavior as a colonel in the British army, Indian author Frank Waters has written: “Wholly dedicated to the British Crown … he hurled himself into the Revolutionary War with savage ferocity. The frightful massacre at Wyoming [Pennsylvania] … Cherry Valley … the attack on Minisink … Oriskany … swift raids throughout the Mohawk Valley and on the New York–Pennsylvania border. And with everyone, his reputation for bloody violence and savagery increased until he became known as ‘Monster Brant’ to every settler on the frontier.”

Brant’s own nature seemed to be split into halves, one English, the other Mohawk. Putting aside the traditions of the Iroquois confederacy and his devout translation of the Gospels, he revenged himself for the colonists’ greed. The raids of the Mohawks and Senecas were feared and “Monster Brant” was a terrifying figure on the frontier. The end came in the Battle of Johnstown when George Washington dispatched 4,000 troops to defeat the combined force of the English and Brant’s Mohawks and Senecas. The American troops devastated the Mohawk Valley and all the Iroquois villages in it. They wiped out a sophisticated civilization, as one of Washington’s generals wrote: “The Indians live much better than most of the Mohawk River farmers, their Houses very well furnished with all necessary Household utensils, great plenty of Grain, several horses, cows, and wagons.”

When the war was over Brant went to Canada, where the British Crown gave him a grant of land in Ontario. A few years later the British also gave a land grant to the warriors who had fought with him. This would prove the background for the claims of two Six Nations confederacies, one in New York and the other in Canada.

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