all the treaties thus far concluded with the
tribes by the Americans, were one-sided and unfair, made at the American
forts, and at the cannon's mouth.

A powerful figure now arose among the savages of the north. Joseph Brant
was a principal chief of the Mohawk tribe of the Six Nations of New
York. His sister Molly was the acknowledged wife of the famous British
Indian superintendent, Sir William Johnson. In his youth he had been
sent by Johnson to Doctor Wheelock's charity school at Lebanon,
Connecticut, where he learned to speak and write English and acquired
some knowledge of history and literature. In the war of the revolution
the Mohawks sided with England, and Brant was given a colonel's
commission. He remained after the war a pensioner of the British
government, and General Arthur St. Clair is authority for the statement
that he received an annual stipend of four hundred pounds sterling.

The Mohawks had been terribly shattered and broken by the revolution,
but they still retained that ascendency among the tribes that resulted
from their former bravery and prowess. In the mind of Brant there now
dawned the grand scheme of forming a confederacy of all the northwestern
tribes to oppose the advance of the American settlements. The first
arbitrary assumptions of the continental congress gave him a great
leverage. They had assumed to exercise an unlimited power of disposal
over the Indian lands. The surveyors of the government were advancing
west of the Pennsylvania line and staking off the first ranges. Now was
the opportune time to fan the flame of savage jealousy, and stand with
united front against the foe.

It is probable that Brant took part in the grand council held at
Coshocton in 1785, and reported to Captain John Doughty by Alexander
McCormick. The account of McCormick relates that there "were present the
chiefs of many nations," and that "the object of this council was to
unite themselves against the white people." There was an excited
activity on the part of McKee, Elliott, Caldwell and Girty and they were
endeavoring to keep the tribes away from the American treaties. The
newspapers of London in speaking of Brant's arrival in England in the
latter part of the same year, gave accounts of his lately having
presided over a "grand congress of confederate chiefs of the Indian
nations in America," and said that Brant had been appointed to the chief
command in the war which the Indians meditated against the U