num_pages: 416
description: A provocative new biography of the man who forged America's alliance with the Iroquois.William Johnson was scarcely more than a boy when he left Ireland and his Gaelic, Catholic family to become a Protestant in the service of Britain's North American empire. In New York by 1738, Johnson moved to the frontiers along the Mohawk River, where he established himself as a fur trader and eventually became a landowner with vast estates; served as principal British intermediary with the Iroquois Confederacy; command British, colonial, and Iroquois forces that defeated the French in the battle of Lake George in 1755; and created the first groups of "rangers," who fought like Indians and led the way to the Patriots' victories in the Revolution.As Fintan O'Toole's superbly researched, colorfully dramatic narrative makes clear, the key to Johnson's signal effectiveness was the style in which he lived as a "white savage." Johnson had two wives, one European, one Mohawk; became fluent in Mohawk; and pioneered the use of Indians as active partners in the making of a new America. O'Toole's masterful use of the extraordinary (often hilariously misspelled) documents written by Irish, Dutch, German, French, and Native American participants in Johnson's drama enlivens the account of this heroic figure's legendary career; it also suggests why Johnson's early multiculturalism unraveled, and why the contradictions of his enterprise created a historical dead end.
language: English
title: White Savage: William Johnson and the Invention of America
titlecomplete: White Savage: William Johnson and the Invention of America
characters: General Daniel Webb, George II of Great Britain and Ireland, Seth Pomeroy, Charles Edward Stuart, Guy Johnson, George III of Britain and Ireland, George Croghan, Catharine Weisenberg, William Shirley, Pontiac, Hendrick Tejonihokarawa, Joseph Brant, Hendrick Theyanoguin, Robert Rogers, George Clinton, Cadwallader Colden, Jean Erdman, Baron Dieskau, Christopher Johnson, Pierre Pouchot, Nickus Karaghiagdatie, Molly Brant, John Johnson, Kakhswenthioni, Louis-Joseph de Montcalm, Teedyuscung, William Johnson, Jeffery Amherst, 1st Baron Amherst, Anne, Queen of England, Scotland and Ireland, Simon Fraser of Lovat, Roland-Michel Barrin de La Galissonière, Jean Théophile Desaguliers, Thomas Pownall, Daniel Claus, Thomas Gage, James de Lancey, Henry Bouquet, Edward Braddock, Peter Warren
genres: Nonfiction, Biography, American History, History
ratings_count: 87
places: Fort William Henry, Lake George, North America, Ireland, North America, Lake George, New York, County Meath, Iroquois Confederacy, North America, New York (State), Mohawk River, North America
publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux