George Henry Martin Johnson

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

George Henry Martin Johnson (Onwanonsyshon) (October 7, 1816 – February 19, 1884) was a chief of the Six Nations and an interpreter.

He was born at Bow Park on the Grand River near Brantford in 1816, the son of John Smoke Johnson and Helen Martin, and was educated at the Mohawk Institute. In 1838, he was hired by the Reverend Adam Elliot as an interpreter and, in 1840, he became interpreter for the Anglican mission there. In 1853, he married Emily Susanna Howells, a cousin of American author William Dean Howells. Johnson became friends with Jasper Tough Gilkison, superintendent to the Six Nations, and was appointed government interpreter. Around the same time, he had been elected as a chief of the Six Nations, succeeding his mother's brother, Henry Martin. For Johnson's efforts to control the theft of timber and sale of alcohol on the reserve by unscrupulous non-native men, he was badly beaten in 1865 and then shot in 1873.

He died on his estate Chiefswood on the Grand River near Brantford in 1884.

His daughter Emily Pauline became a well-known poet and lecturer.