1896-97-] BRANT IN THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION. 245 



greatly increased in value as the white settlements extended, and the 

 land-hunger of their neighbours at length became so powerful that they 

 had recourse to the most shameful expedients to dispossess the Indians^ 

 When Tryon received the Mohawks of Canajoharie at Johnson Hall on 

 the occasion of his visit to that part of the valley, Brant, addressing him 

 in their name, said : " We have often been deceived and defrauded of 

 large tracts, but that which at present gives us most concern is the little 

 tract which surrounds us, on which we live, and of which we are now 

 likely to be deprived. It was surveyed one moonlight night and a 

 patent procured for it, by Mr. Livingston, without our knowledge." 



The property of the Lower Mohawks was menaced in a very similar 

 manner. The singular old charter of the town of Albany authorized 

 that Corporation to take a thousand acres of land from the Mohawks. 

 This claim had remained in abeyance for half a century, but it was now 

 revived and put forward as a pretext for seizing the very lands they cul- 

 tivated and had built their dwellings on. 



Sir William Johnson's death in 1774 removed the chief barrier against 

 the aggression of the whites. These claims were then pressed with 

 greater vigour, and the Indians became sensible that unless they could 

 secure the intervention of the Crown their prospect of retaining their 

 lands would be slender. They also perceived that as the province 

 became more disturbed and the royal authority grew weaker, the 

 activity of their enemies increased. 



Brant had not remained a careless spectator of the fierce revolutionary 

 agitation seething around them and threatening their ruin. His friend. 

 Colonel Daniel Claus, has described his attitude in a highly character- 

 istic passage. " At the commencement of the unhappy disputes between 

 Great Britain and her colonies, he made shrewd and strict enquiries into 

 the reason of the complaints of the Americans, among whom he chiefly 

 resided, and from whom he heard nothing but forging of chains and 

 intended tyranny against them, at the same time seeing no apparent 

 alteration or putting such complaints of tyranny into execution of it, 

 agitated his mind so far as to determine on a voyage to Great Britain in 

 order to try what he could find out there of the matter, plainly foreseeing 

 how much the Indians in general were concerned in such a quarrel, well 

 knowing how ignorant they were as to the disputes in question." 



The first trace of actual activity on his part is discovered in a letter 

 written by him in the name of Aaron, John, and another Mohawk chief, 

 in May, 1775, to the chiefs of the Oneidas urging them to come to the 

 assistance of Colonel Guy Johnson, who had succeeded his uncle, Sir 



