PREFACE vii CHRONOLOGICAL OUTLINE xi I. THE FIRST SETTLERS OF THE MOHAWK VALLEY 1 II. JOHNSON AS AN INDIAN TRADER 11 III. THE SIX NATIONS AND THE LONG HOUSE 35 IV. THE STRUGGLE FOR A CONTINENT 61 V. A CHAPTER IN THE STORY OF LIBERTY 80 VI. A TYPICAL FRONTIER FIGHT WITH INDIANS 92 VII. AT THE ANCIENT PLACE OF TREATIES 109 VIII. THE BATTLE OF LAKE GEORGE 132 IX. BRITISH FAILURES PREPARING FOR AMERICAN 146 INDEPENDENCE X. THE “HEAVEN-BORN GENERAL” 167 XI. DECLINE OF THE INDIAN AS A POLITICAL FACTOR 178 XII. LIFE AT JOHNSON HALL 194 XIII. JOHNSON’S FAMILY; LAST DAYS; EUTHANASIA 206 INDEX 223 CHAPTER I. THE FIRST SETTLERS OF THE MOHAWK VALLEY. THE MOHAWK VALLEY was first settled by men escaping from feudalism. The manor-system, a surviving relic of the old days of lordship and villeinage, had long cursed England, Germany, and Holland, though first outgrown and thrown off in the latter country. It was from this system, almost as much as from Church laws, that the Pilgrim Fathers were glad to escape and find free labour as well as liberty of conscience in Holland,—the land where they “heard,” and found by experience, “that all men were free.” The Netherlands was the political training-school of the Pilgrims, and of most of the leaders of the Puritans, who before 1640 settled New England. In America they were more fortunate than their more southern neighbours, in that they were freed from the semi-feudalism of the Dutch Patroons and the manor-lords of Maryland and Virginia. The Hollanders, on coming to New Netherland and settling under the Patroons, enjoyed far less liberty than when in their own country. They were practically under a new sort of feudalism unknown in their “Patria.” Their Teutonic instincts and love of freedom soon, however, drove them to relinquish their temporary advantages as manor-tenants, and to purchase land from the Indians and settle in the “Woestina,” or wilderness. These Dutch farmers cheerfully braved the dangers and inconveniences of “the bush,” in order to hold land in fee simple and be their own masters.