BRANT.

POSEPH BRANT-or Thayendanegea, as he delighted to write himself—was born in the year 1742—a full-blooded Mohawk of the Wolf tribe. Being the son of a chieftain, he commenced his career as a warrior at an early age, and when a lad of thirteen was present with his elder brothers at the memorable battle of Lake George, when Baron Dieskau fell mortally wounded.

Some years after this, when Sir William Johnson, having lost his first wife, took Brant's sister-Miss Molly-under his protection, as is mentioned in the interesting memoir of Mrs. Grant, of Laggan, the baron, in patronizing the other members of the family, sent Joseph to the missionary school of Dr. Wheelock, in Connecticut; upon returning from which, at the expiration of two or three years, Sir William assigned him a share of his duties in the extensive Indian agency which he conducted. We find Brant next in the field in the campaign of the English, with Pontiac, the celebrated Tawaw or Ottawa chief of Michigan, who at one time so nearly annihilated the British power in the northwest. In this war-according to the narrative of President Wheelock, published in 1767-" he behaved so like the Christian and the soldier as to give him great esteem." In the former character, we find him soon after the close of this campaign aiding an Episcopal clergyman in translating the Book of Common Prayer in the Mohawk language, and regularly received the communion in the church.

Upon the death of Sir William Johnson, who was succeeded in his title and estate by his son John-the celebrated British partisan of the revolution-and in his superintendency of the Indian department by his son-in-law, Col. Guy Johnson, Brant was advanced to the important post of secretary of the superintendentthus embodying in his own person the influence of an Indian chief, and the actual conduct of the affairs of the agency of the confederate Six Nations and their allies.

The talents of Brant in this capacity seem to have been of great use to his principal, in his difficult task of keeping the Indians loyal to the British Crown when the revolution broke out a few years afterward. Upon the first popular commotion, Guy Johnson, who at an early day embroiled himself with his neighbors, by intruding with a band of armed retainers into an assemblage of the people, retired with his secretary from his seat of Guy Park, on the Mohawk, to Oswego, where he convened the grand council of the Six Nations, and commenced that tampering with their neutrality which ultimately led all of the Cantons, except the Oneidas, to take up arms for the [Crown. From hence the superintendent crossed to Canada, with Brant and other leading chieftains, whose loyalty was further confirmed by an interview with Sir Guy Carleton, afterward Lord Dorchester.

Sir John Johnson had, in the meantime, fortified the Daronial hall at Johnstown with swivels, and raised a band among his tenantry, consisting chiefly of Catholic Scotch Highlanders, which force, amounting to some five hundred armed retainers, enabled him to set the country people at defiance, and insult the magistrates of the county with impunity. To break up this nest of the disaffected, General Schuyler was detached by the Continental Congress with a force of three thousand militia. The Indians along the Mohawk seemed disposed to interfere with the summary ousting of their friends, but Col. Guy Johnson, with Brant and their other principal leaders, being absent in Canada, they did not venture upon doing more than remonstrate with General Schuyler, who, after persuading them that his objects were entirely "peaceable," advanced upon Johnstown, and called upon the baronet to break up his band of retainers, surrender his arms, and give eight hostages for the good behavior of the tenantry. Among the terms of surrender the following reads very quaintly at this day :

"Secondly. General Schuyler, out of personal respect for Sir John, and from a regard to his rank, consents that Sir John shall retain for his own use a complete set of armor, and as much powder as may be sufficient for domestic purposes."

The parley lasted for several days, Johnson evidently wishing to gain time, but was at last brought to a summary conclusion by Schuyler's sending Colonel Duer and two other gentlemen with his ultimatum, and enclosing a passport for Lady Johnson, desir

ing her instantly to leave the hall. In the last copy of terms, we find this reply to one of Johnson's stipulations :

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General Schuyler never refused a gentleman his side arms." The parley commenced on the sixteenth of the month, and on the twentieth Gen. Schuyler paraded his troops, and the Highlanders, having marched out and grounded their arms, "were dismissed, with an exhortation to remain peaceable, and with an assurance of protection if they did so."

Sir John, however, did not observe the compact of neutrality nor the obligations of his parole. He soon after fled to Canada under the escort of a party of Mohawks, was immediately commissioned a colonel in the British service, and from the loyalists of Tyron county raised a command of two battalions, being that desperate band of tories afterward so well known in the revolutionary warfare of New York, as "Johnson's Greens," whose colors were adopted by Brant, and with whom he fought side by side upon the bloody field of Oriskany.

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Brant, in the meantime, had sailed for England in company with Captain Tice, a British officer, where we find him most oddly placed as the intimate friend of James Boswell and the Earl of Warwick. He sat for his portrait to Romney for the earl, and Bozzy" appears to have subsequently corresponded with him.. His loyalty being strengthened by an interview with George the Third, at which he presented himself in full Indian costume, Brant reëmbarked again for America, where he was privately landed somewhere in the neighborhood of New York, whence he performed a very hazardous journey to Canada, having, of course, to steal his way through a hostile population until he could hide himself in the forests beyond Albany. "He had taken the precaution, however, in England, to provide evidence of the identity of his body in case of disaster, or of his fall in any of the battles he anticipated, by procuring a gold finger-ring with his name engraved thereon at full length."

Within a few weeks after retouching his native shores, Brant, now a regular commissioned captain in the British service, had an opportunity of taking up the hatchet in earnest. He led a force of six hundred Indians in the affair of the Cedars, and in this, his first field against the patriot forces, exhibited that humanity after victory which repeatedly distinguished him afterward. The late

Colonel M'Kinstry, of Livingston's Manor, whose intimacy continued with the chief until the decease of the latter, was rescued by him from torture and death, when wounded and a prisoner in the hands of the Indians.

PHILIP.

DETACOM was the hereditary chief of the Narragansets, who owned the land around the bay which bears their name, and his home was Mount Hope,-now Bristol. On account of his unbounded ambition and his beauty and imperious disposition, he was called King Philip by the English, and he was more generally known by this than by his own name. The tribe he ruled was peculiarly intelligent, increased in numbers and in strength, and studied the arts of peace and war, and Philip made himself intimately acquainted with the strength, policy and designs of the colonists.

war.

In 1671 Philip was discovered to be making preparations for His tribe was already well provided with fire arms obtained from the British. The English charged him with wrong designs, which he denied, and it was only when proof of the discovery of his plot to murder the inhabitants and burn the town was given to him, that he admitted it, and new treaties were drawn up and signed by him. For a time all was peaceful again, but in 1674 the old fire burst out in terrible fury. The first act was the murder of John Sassamon, an Indian who had been converted to the Christian faith. Obtaining knowledge of Philip's plot, he warned the Governor of Plymouth, and though he enjoined secresy upon the English, knowing well that his life would pay the penalty of his friendly act, it was discovered and he vilely murdered. Philip was charged with his murder, and denied it, but the body was found, the murderer arrested, tried, and executed. Philip de