John Norton (Mohawk Chief) - As A Mohawk Chief

As A Mohawk Chief

Norton was especially inspired by the Mohawk chief, Joseph Brant (Thayendanega). Norton acquired the Mohawk language and culture, and was adopted into the community as Thayendanega's nephew and appointed a "Pine Tree Chief" according to Iroquois custom in a public ceremony. Norton led a handful of Six Nations warriors into battle in Tecumseh's offensive against the Americans at Tippecanoe. When the War of 1812 between Britain and the United States began Norton was quick to join General Isaac Brock at Detroit, despite the official neutrality of the Canadian Six Nations. Following Brock's success at Detroit, more Six Nations Iroquois joined the British, and their timely arrival at Queenston Heights, under the leadership of Major Norton, John Brant (Joseph's son), and Lieutenant Kerr of the Indian Department, was crucial to British victory.

Following Queenston Heights, John Norton continued to lead increasingly numerous Iroquois contingents into several of the war's most significant battles. His journal, published under the title The Journal of Major John Norton, 1816, offers one of the most thorough firsthand accounts of the War of 1812 as well as a rare firsthand account of life among the Cherokees around 1809-1810, at the start of their final golden age before the Trail of Tears. Norton's journal was not a private diary, but rather intended for publication.

Historian Carl Benn addresses the question of "how Mohawk" John Norton was and how "Mohawk" his journal account of the War of 1812 is, since his formative years were spent in the Scotland and he had Cherokee and Scottish parents. Benn concludes that "by the Mohawk standards of the period, John Norton was a Mohawk," while noting that "some of his adversaries used his origins to defame him."