Part one of a three-part examination of the Mohawk War Chief Thayendanegea (Joseph Brant) and his fight against the American colonies.
Chief Joseph’s War: The Making of a Legend
Jeffrey R Gudzune, M.A.
The American Revolution decimated the Iroquois Confederacy. This devastation was the result of a brutal scorched earth campaign affected against the Six Nations without mercy and irrespective of neutrality status. Though it would be uncharacteristic of objective history to apply twenty-first century morals to the eighteenth century, the revolutionary United States acted in a way totally unbecoming of a would be nation. The feeling of the American government at the time was that this action would bring the Iroquois to heel and force them to end their alliance with the British. As colonial leaders soon discovered, the Continental Army only raised the ire of the Iroquois and generated more bloodshed. By the end of the war, the borderlands between the Iroquois Confederacy and the states of New York and Pennsylvania was an abandoned wasteland of burned out villages and ravaged fields. The architect of the Iroquois resistance and of the subsequent retaliatory strikes was a man who had once protected the very colonies that sought to destroy him—Thayendanegea, Chief Joseph Brant, of the Mohawk Nation.
How did Chief Joseph become an ally of the British? How did his involvement in the Seven Years’ War prepare him for his campaign of open warfare against the colonies? To answer these questions it is important to understand why the Iroquois remained loyal to Britain and how much that loyalty meant to the Mohawk Nation. Furthermore, it is important to acknowledge the personal relationship between Brant and one of the crown’s most influential officials in the colonial administration—Sir William Johnson, the Northern Superintendent of Indian Affairs. This three-part examination of the life of the most feared and respected Iroquois warrior will explore Chief Joseph’s early attachment to the British, his growth into a formidable warrior, and the rationale behind his transformation from a protector of the colonies into their enemy.
Born in Ohio in 1742, Thayendanegea (meaning, "he places two bets") was educated in the ways of the Iroquois and the ways of the white man. While still in his formative years, he studied at Eleazar Wheelock’s Indian School, located in Connecticut (later renamed Dartmouth College). Having enjoyed a long and peaceful relationship with the Mohawk Nation, the American colonies soon sought their assistance when France invaded from Canada and threatened to undermine British domination of North America. As a general policy of the Iroquois Confederacy, open war can only be decided by a unanimous vote of the entire federation. As in previous conflicts where the colonies were concerned, the Six Nations did not reach a unanimous decision. However, the individual members of the confederacy determined their own stance on the war. The Mohawk Nation decided to fight for the British, with whom they had always maintained peaceful relations (although several hundred Mohawks who had earlier converted to Catholicism allied with France along with the Abenakis, Potawatomis, and Ottawas).
At the age of thirteen, Thayendanegea joined his fellow Mohawks in an effort to repulse the French advance. He fought bravely at the battle of Crown Point in 1755 and continued to hold his position while the colonial militiamen fled in the chaos of battle. Mourning their deceased brothers on both sides, the Mohawks withdrew from active combat and adopted a policy of neutrality. This did not mean that the Mohawks had abandoned the British. In fact, they continued to express their support for their British allies while not actively compromising their neutrality. Thayendanegea remained loyal to the British during this period of time as well. It was during the fighting at Crown Point that he gained one of his closet British allies, a man who would be his patron throughout his early life—Sir William Johnson.
