Editing Joseph Brant (section)

==Seven Years' War and education==
{{further|Great Britain in the Seven Years' War}}
Starting at about age 15 during the [[French and Indian War]] (part of the Seven Years' War), Brant took part with Mohawk and other Iroquois allies in a number of British actions against the French in [[Canada (New France)|Canada]]: [[James Abercrombie (general)|James Abercrombie]]'s 1758 expedition via [[Lake George (lake), New York|Lake George]] that [[Battle of Carillon|ended in utter defeat at Fort Carillon]]; Johnson's 1759 [[Battle of Fort Niagara]]; and [[Jeffery Amherst]]'s 1760 expedition to [[Montreal]] via the [[St. Lawrence River]]. He was one of 182 Native American warriors awarded a silver medal from the British for his service.

At [[Fort Carillon]] (modern Ticonderoga, New York), Brant and the other Mohawk warriors watched the battle from a hill, seeing the British infantry being cut down by the French fire, and returned home without joining the action, being thankful that Abercrombie had assigned the task of storming the fort to the British Army and keeping the Mohawks serving only as scouts.{{sfn|Paxton|2008|p=23}} However, the expedition to Fort Carillon introduced Brant to three men who were figure prominently later in his life, namely [[Guy Johnson]], [[John Butler (Ranger)|John Butler]], and [[Daniel Claus]].{{sfn|Paxton|2008|pp=23–24}} At about the same time, Brant's sister, Molly moved into Fort Johnson to become Johnson's common-law wife.{{sfn|Paxton|2008|pp=24–25}} The Iroquois did not see anything wrong with the relationship between the twenty-something Molly and the forty-five year old Johnson, and shortly before moving into Fort Johnson, Molly gave birth to a son, Peter Warren Johnson, the first of the eight children she was to have by Sir William.{{sfn|Paxton|2008|p=24}}

During the siege of Fort Niagara, Brant served as a scout. Along with a force of British Army soldiers, New York militiamen, and other Iroquois warriors, he took part in an ambush of a French relief force at the [[Battle of La Belle-Famille]], which may have been the first time that Brant saw action.{{sfn|Paxton|2008|pp=26–27}} The French force, while marching through the forest towards Fort Niagara, were annihilated during the ambush. On July 25, 1759, Fort Niagara surrendered.{{sfn|Paxton|2008|p=27}} In 1760, Brant joined the expeditionary force under [[Jeffery Amherst, 1st Baron Amherst|General Jeffrey Amherst]], which left [[Fort Oswego]] on August 11 with the goal of taking Montreal.{{sfn|Paxton|2008|p=27}} After taking [[Fort Lévis]] on the St. Lawrence, Amherst refused to allow the Indians to enter the fort, fearing that they would massacre the French prisoners in order to take scalps, which caused the majority of the Six Nations warriors to go home, as they wanted to join the British in plundering the fort.{{sfn|Paxton|2008|p=27}} Brant stayed on and in September 1760 helped to take Montreal.{{sfn|Paxton|2008|p=27}}

In 1761, Johnson arranged for three Mohawk, including Brant, to be educated at [[Eleazar Wheelock]]'s "[[Moor's Charity School|Moor's Indian Charity School]]" in Connecticut. This was the forerunner of [[Dartmouth College]], which was later established in [[New Hampshire]].  Brant studied under the guidance of Wheelock, who wrote that the youth was "of a sprightly genius, a manly and gentle deportment, and of a modest, courteous and benevolent temper".{{sfn|Paxton|2008|p=29}} Brant learned to speak, read, and write English, as well as studying other academic subjects.{{sfn|Paxton|2008|p=29}} Brant was taught how to farm at the school (considered to be woman's work by the Iroquois), math and the classics.{{sfn|Paxton|2008|pp=28–29}} Europeans were afterwards astonished when Brant was to speak of the ''[[Odyssey]]'' to them. He met [[Samuel Kirkland]] at the school, later a [[missionary]] to Indians in western New York. On May 15, 1763, a letter arrived from Molly Brant at the school ordering her younger brother to return at once, and he left in July.{{sfn|Paxton|2008|p=29}} In 1763, Johnson prepared for Brant to attend [[King's College (New York)|King's College]] in [[New York City]].

The outbreak of [[Pontiac's Rebellion]] upset his plans, and Brant returned home to avoid hostility toward Native Americans. After Pontiac's rebellion, Johnson did not think it safe for Brant to return to King's College. The ideology behind Pontiac's war was of a pan-Indian theology that at first appeared in the 1730s being taught by various prophets, most notably the [[Lenape]] prophet [[Neolin]], which held the Indians and whites were different peoples created by the Master of Life who belonged on different continents and urged the rejection of all aspects of European life.{{sfn|Paxton|2008|p=30}} In Kanienkeh, the Mohawks had sufficiently good relations with their Palatine and Scots-Irish neighbours that Neolin's anti-white message never caught on.{{sfn|Paxton|2008|p=30}} Pontiac's War caused panic all over the frontier as the news that various Indian tribes had united against the British and were killing all whites, causing terrified white settlers to flee to the nearest British Army forts all over the frontier.{{sfn|Paxton|2008|p=31}} Johnson as the superintendent of northern Indian affairs was heavily involved in diplomatic efforts to keep more Indian tribes from joining Pontiac's war, and Brant often served as his emissary.{{sfn|Paxton|2008|p=29}} During Pontiac's rebellion, leaders on both sides tended to see the war as a racial war in which no mercy was to be given, and Brant's status as an Indian loyal to the Crown was a difficult one.{{sfn|Paxton|2008|pp=29–30}} Even his former teacher Wheelock wrote to Johnson, asking if it was true that Brant "had put himself at the Head of a large party of Indians to fight against the English".{{sfn|Paxton|2008|p=29}} Brant did not abandon his interest in the Church of England, studying at a missionary school operated by the Reverend Cornelius Bennet of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, in Canajoharie.{{sfn|Paxton|2008|p=29}} However, in Mohawk society, men made their reputations as warriors, not scholars, and Brant abandoned his studies to fight for the Crown against Pontiac's forces.{{sfn|Paxton|2008|pp=29–30}}

In February 1764, Brant went on the warpath, joining a force of Mohawk and Oneida warriors to fight for the British.{{sfn|Paxton|2008|p=31}} On his way, Brant stayed at the village of [[Oquaga]], whose chief Issac was a Christian, and who became Brant's friend.{{sfn|Paxton|2008|p=31}} Brant may have had an ulterior motive when staying with Issac or perhaps romance blossomed, for Issac's daughter was soon to become his wife.{{sfn|Paxton|2008|p=31}} In March 1764, Brant participated in one of the Iroquois war parties that attacked Lenape villages in the [[Susquehanna River|Susquehanna]] and [[Chemung River|Chemung]] valleys. They destroyed three good-sized towns, burning 130 houses and killing the cattle.{{sfn|Paxton|2008|p=31}} No enemy warriors were seen.{{sfn|Kelsay|1984|p=102}} The [[Algonquian languages|Algonquian]]-speaking Lenape and [[Iroquois]] belonged to two different language families; they were traditional competitors and often warred at their frontiers.