JOHNSON, Sir dotty (1742-1830). An Ameri can Tory leader, the son of Sir William Johnson (q.v.), upon whose estate on the Mohawk River in New York be was born. He was educated at Albany and at New York, and took part with his father in the French and Indian War. Ho was knighted in I765, and in 1774 succeeded to the baronetcy which had been granted to his father. Ile retained a great deal of his father's remarkable influenee over the Indians, and it was due to this, and to the exertions of Joseph Brant (q.v.), Sir William's that the tribes of the Iroquois Nation, with the excep tion of the Oneidas and the Tuscaroras, allied themselves with the British at the outbreak of the Revolution. There was a strong Tory ele ment in central New York, and this element Sir John undertook to rally about the standard of Great Britain. organizing the famous loyalist corps known as the 'Queen's Own American Regi ment,' or, more familiarly, as the 'Royal Greens,' of which he himself became colonel. With these troops, in July. 1777, he joined Saint Leger at Oswego, and took part in the siege of Fort Stanwix (q.v.), and the battle of Oriskany (q.v.) on August Pith following. Later in the same day on which 'Herkimer was repulsed in Ids attempt to raise the siege, a brilliant sortie of the fort's garrison under Marinas Willett com pelled Johnsbn to withdraw across the Mohawk, leaving his camp and equipage in the hands of the Americans. The advnnec of Arnold to the
relief of the fort, and the defection of a large part of their Indian allies, caused Saint Leger and Johnson to abandon the siege on August 22d and retreat northward toward Oswego, thus ren dering impossible the proposed cooperation with Burgoyne. During the next two years Johnson continued to direct operations in northern and central New York, and the suecession of raids of the Butlers and Brant with their bands of Indians and Tories, resulting in the massacres in the Wyoming and Cherry valleys, form one of the most unpleasant chapters of the American Revolution. When in the summer of 1779 Wash ington determined to put a stop to these outrages, he sent General •Sullivan at the head of 5000 troops into the region. This force met Sir John Johnson and the Butlers at Newtown (now Elmira) on August 29, 1779, and decisively de feated them. This defeat and the devastation of the Iroquois towns that followed put a stop to the Tory regime in the district, and Sir John retired to Montreal. At the close of the war his large estates were confiscated. He lived the rest of his life in Canada, where for many years he was superintendent-general of Indian affairs in British North America. Consult Stone, Life of Brant (New York. 1S3S; Albany, 1S65).