A plaque at the site of Thayendanegea's statue reads as follows:
"Thayendanegea (Joseph Brant)
(1742–1807)
A notable Mohawk warrior and statesman, and principal war chief of the Six Nations, he led his people in support of the British. After the war, he brought his people to Canada to settle near where Brantford now stands."
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In 1775, 'Thayendanegea ( Joseph Brant)' was appointed departmental secretary with the rank of Captain for the new British Superintendent's Mohawk warriors from Canajoharie. In April 1775, the American Revolution began with fighting breaking out in Massachusetts, and in May 1775, Brant traveled to a meeting at German Flatts to discuss the crisis. While traveling to German Flatts, Brant felt first-hand the "fear and hostility" held by the whites of Tryon Country who hated him both for his tactics against Klock and as a friend of the powerful Johnson family. Guy Johnson suggested that Brant go with him to Canada, saying that both their lives were in danger. When Loyalists were threatened after the war broke out in April 1775, Brant moved to the Province of Quebec, arriving in Montreal on July 17. The governor of Quebec, General Guy Carleton, personally disliked Johnson, felt his plans for employing the Iroquois against the rebels to be inhumane, and treated Brant with barely veiled contempt. Brant's wife Susanna and children went to Onoquaga in south central New York, a Tuscarora Iroquois village along the Susquehanna River, the site of present-day Windsor.
On November 11, 1775, Guy Johnson took Brant with him to London to solicit more support from the government. They hoped to persuade the Crown to address past Mohawk land grievances in exchange for their participation as allies in the impending war.Brant met George III during his trip to London, but his most important talks were with the colonial secretary, George Germain. Brant complained that the Iroquois had fought for the British in the Seven Years' War, taking heavy losses, yet the British were allowing white settlers like Klock to take away land from them. The British government promised the Iroquois people land in Quebec if the Iroquois nations would fight on the British side in what was shaping up as open rebellion by the American colonists. In London, Brant was treated as a celebrity and was interviewed for publication by James Boswell. He was received by King George III at St. James's Palace. While in public, he dressed in traditional Mohawk attire. He was accepted as a Mason and received his ritual apron personally from King George.
Brant returned to Staten Island, New York in July 1776. He participated with Howe's forces as they prepared to retake New York. Although the details of his service that summer and fall were not officially recorded, Brant was said to have distinguished himself for bravery. He was thought to be with Clinton, Cornwallis, and Percy in the flanking movement at Jamaica Pass in the Battle of Long Island in August 1776. He became lifelong friends with Lord Percy, later Duke of Northumberland, in what was his only lasting friendship with a white man.
On his return voyage to New York City, Brant's ship was attacked by an American privateer, during which he used one of the rifles he received in London to practice his sniping skills. In November, Brant left New York City and traveled northwest through Patriot-held territory. Disguised, traveling at night and sleeping during the day, he reached Onoquaga, where he rejoined his family. Brant asked the men of Onquaga to fight for the Crown, but the warriors favored neutrality, saying they wished to have no part in a war between white men. In reply, Brant stated that he had received promises in London that if the Crown won, Iroquois land rights would be respected while he predicated if the Americans won, then the Iroquois would lose their land, leading him to the conclusion that neutrality was not an option.[66] Brant noted that George Washington had been a prominent investor in the Ohio Company, whose efforts to bring white settlement to the Ohio river valley had been the cause of such trouble to the Indians there, which he used to argue did not auger well if the Americans should win. More importantly, one of the "oppressive" acts of Parliament that had so incensed the Americans was the Royal Proclamation of 1763, forbidding white settlement beyond the Appalachians, which did bode well for Indian land rights should the Americans.
Brant's own relations with the British were strained. John Butler who was running the Indian Department in the absence of Guy Johnson had difficult relations with Brant.[68] Brant found Butler patronizing while Brant's friend Daniel Claus assured him that Butler's behavior was driven by "jealousy and envy" at the charismatic Brant. At the end of December, Brant was at Fort Niagara. He traveled from village to village in the confederacy throughout the winter, urging the Iroquois to enter the war as British allies. Many Iroquois balked at Brant's plans. In particular, the Oneida and Tuscarora gave Brant an unfriendly welcome. Joseph Louis Cook, a Mohawk leader who supported the rebel American colonists, became a lifelong enemy of Brant's.
The full council of the Six Nations had previously decided on a policy of neutrality at Albany in 1775. They considered Brant a minor war chief and the Mohawk a relatively weak people. Frustrated, Brant returned to Onoquaga in the spring to recruit independent warriors. Few Onoquaga villagers joined him, but in May he was successful in recruiting Loyalists who wished to retaliate against the rebels. This group became known as Brant's Volunteers. Brant's Volunteers consisted of a few Mohawk and Tuscarora warriors and 80 white Loyalists.Paxton commented it was a mark of Brant's charisma and renown that white Loyalists preferred to fight under the command of a Mohawk chief who was unable to pay or arm them while at the same time that only a few Iroquois joined him reflected the generally neutralist leanings of most of the Six Nations. In June, he led them to Unadilla to obtain supplies. There he was confronted by 380 men of the Tryon County militia led by Nicholas Herkimer. Herkimer, a Palatine who once been Brant's neighbor and friend and the talks were initially friendly.However, Herkimer's chief of staff was Colonel Ebenezer Cox, the son-in-law of Brant's archenemy Klock, and he continually made racist remarks to Brant, which at one point caused Brant's Mohawk warriors to reach for their weapons.[75] Brant and Herkimer were able to defuse the situation with Brant asking his warriors to step outside while Herkimer likewise told Cox to leave the room.[76] Herkimer requested that the Iroquois remain neutral but Brant responded that the Indians owed their loyalty to the King. They hoped to evict the European settlers from their territory."
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