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 Abraham; but Little

Abraham, it appears, desired to remain neutral in the