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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 March 2016
Among emigrants, the canny and the politic have often risen to some influence. It is flattering to believe that such people made a difference. But for most, ubi panis, ibi patria — conformity and loyalty were the natural price of daily bread and the essential cost of any real eminence. Even constructive opposition presupposed this. Those who thought otherwise were marginalised, sensibly enough, by their hosts.
White savage: William Johnson and the Invention of America. By Fintan O’Toole. Pp xi, 402, maps, illus. London: Faber & Faber. 2005. £20.
1 The papers of Sir William Johnson, ed. Sullivan, James, Flick, Alexander C., Hamilton, Milton W. and Cory, Albert (14 vols, Albany, 1921–65)Google Scholar. O’Toole also uses the O’Callaghan collections (below, nn 3 and 7); the compiler was an Irish immigrant physician, untrained as a historian, but much crucial material, including many Johnson papers destroyed by fire in 1911, survives only in his publications.
2 Snow, Dean R., The Iroquois (Oxford, 1994), pp 52–150Google Scholar; Snow, Dean R., Gehring, C.T. and Starna, W.A. (eds), In Mohawk country: early narratives about a native people (Syracuse, 1996), pp 1–249Google Scholar.
3 Jennings, Francis, Empire of fortune: crown, colonies and tribes in the Seven Years War in America (New York & London, 1988), pp 264–5, 440, 451–2Google Scholar. He quotes Johnson writing to the Board of Trade, 10 Sept. 1756: ‘The Indians are naturally a mercenary people. I apprehend it is best to make a sure Bargain and give to those Indians only who will act with us and for us, which is the method I propose for the future’ (ibid., p. 105 n. 109, quoting E. B. O’Callaghan (ed.), Documentary history of the state of New York (4 vols, Albany, 1844–51), ii, 735).
4 O’Toole, White savage, p. 272; Richter, Daniel K., Facing east from Indian country (Cambridge, Mass., 2001), p. 211Google Scholar; Jennings, Francis, The creation of America (Cambridge, Mass., 2000), p. 216Google Scholar; Haan, Richard L., ‘Covenant and consensus: the Iroquois and the English, 1676–1760’ in Richter, Daniel K. and Merrell, James H. (eds), Beyond the covenant chain: the Iroquois and their neighbors in Indian North America, 1600–1800 (Syracuse, 1987), pp 56–7, 179–80 n. 36Google Scholar.
5 Jennings, Francis, ‘Sir William Johnson’ in American national biography (24 vols, Oxford & New York, 1999), xii, 139Google Scholar. The evidence is reviewed by Hamilton, M.W., ‘Sir William Johnson’s wives’ in New York History, xxxviii (1957), pp 18–28Google Scholar.
6 Jennings, ‘Sir William Johnson’.
7 O’Callaghan (ed.), Documentary history of the state of New York; idem, with Berthold Fernow (eds), Documents relative to the colonial history of the state of New York (15 vols, Albany, 1853–87). Dr O’Callaghan had fled to New York from Montreal after the radical reformer Louis Papineau, whom he had supported, turned to revolt in 1837. For Sullivan et al. see n. 1.
8 Pound, Arthur and Day, R.E., Johnson of the Mohawks (New York, 1930)Google Scholar; Hamilton, M.W., Sir William Johnson, colonial American, 1716–1765 (Port Washington, N.Y., 1976)Google Scholar.
9 Gwyn, Julius, ‘Sir William Johnson’ in Dictionary of Canadian biography, iv: 1771–1800 (Toronto, 1979), pp 394–8Google Scholar; idem, The enterprising admiral (Montreal, 1974).
10 Jennings, Francis, The ambiguous Iroquois empire (New York, 1984)Google Scholar; idem (ed.), History and culture of Iroquois diplomacy (Syracuse, 1985); idem, Empire of fortune; idem, Creation of America; Snow, Iroquois; Graymont, Barbara, The Iroquois in the American Revolution (Syracuse, 1972)Google Scholar; Kelsay, Isabel T., Joseph Brant, 1743–1807 (Syracuse, 1984)Google Scholar.
11 Dictionary of Canadian biography entries (apart from that of Gwyn on Johnson himself) which summarise and reference this literature include those on Sir John Johnson, Guy Johnson, Thayendanegea [Joseph Brant], Molly Brant and Daniel Claus. Confusingly, there was a second Mohawk line of Johnsons, now the subject of an exhibit in the native peoples section of the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto. These were protégés of the Johnsons. Takahionwake (Jacob Johnson) was baptised in Sir William’s presence at Fort Niagara, and his descendants were confirmed in use of the name, but were otherwise no relations: see ibid., xi, 453.
12 Johnson to James Abercromby, 17 May 1758 (Papers of Sir William Johnson, ed. Sullivan et al., ix, 903).
13 Iroquois numbers computed by D. R. Snow and W. A. Starna, summarised in Snow, Iroquois, pp 96, 100, 110; populations of New York colony from U.S. Bureau of the Census, Historical statistics of the United States, series Z 1–19 and Z 98–104 (pagination varies by edition, but series numbers do not).
14 ‘Journal of Warren Johnson, 1760–1761’ in Snow, Gehring & Starna (eds), In Mohawk country, p. 263 (25 Jan. 1761).
15 Ibid.
16 SirJohnson, John, The North American Johnsons: a short history of triumph and tragedy (London & Geneva, 1963), pp 73–4Google Scholar; cf. O’Toole, White savage, pp 310–12.
