Long before the European invasion of North America, a great visionary known as Deganawida and his spokesperson, the great Mohawk orator Hiawatha, united five Iroquois-speaking nations into a confederacy, the League of Five Nations. The nations of this confederacy refer to themselves as Haudenosaunee (People of the Longhouse).
Thayendanegea (he places two bets), who would be later known as Joseph Brant, was born in 1742 in the Ohio Valley while his parents, Tehowaghwengaraghkwin and Margaret, were on a hunting trip. His father died shortly after he was born, and his mother later married the Mohawk chief Nikus (also spelled Nichaus) Brant. His older sister, Molly Brant, married Sir William Johnson, so growing up he was a frequent visitor in the Johnson home.
In 1755, France and England escalated their struggle for control of the North American continent into a war (the French and Indian War or the Seven Years War). In New York, British trader William Johnson asked the Mohawk for help in organizing a raid to Lake George. Chief Hendrick led the Mohawk warriors. Joseph Brant, who was just 13 at this time, joined the Mohawk warriors. In 1759, Johnson led a raid against Fort Niagara on Lake Ontario and Joseph Brant joined him.
In 1761, Joseph Brant and two other young Mohawk men, Negyes and Center, were sent to Moor’s Indian Charity School in Connecticut. The Indian boys who attended the school founded by Eleazar Wheelock were to be separated from their own culture and given a classical education in Latin and Greek. All of the young Mohawk men kept their horses ready so that they could flee back to their own country. Center and Negyes soon returned home, but Brant stayed on to improve his written Mohawk and to learn spoken and written English. In her biographical sketch in Notable Native Americans, Lisa Wroble writes:
“While at Wheelock’s school Brant became a Christian convert and spent time translating parts of the Bible into Mohawk.”
In 1763, Joseph Brant returned to New York from school in Connecticut at the request of his sister Molly. According to Brant’s biographer James O’Donnel, in American Indian Leaders: Studies in Diversity:
“Some traditional accounts suggest that Molly was upset because her brother had to do women’s work in the garden.”
In 1763, the war between France and England formally ended with the Treaty of Paris. However, a new war quickly emerged when the Ottawa chief, Pontiac, led an uprising of Shawnee, Delaware, and Ojibwa against the European intruders. Joseph Brant once again joined with the British forces to end this indigenous rebellion.
Following Pontiac’s Rebellion, Joseph Brant worked with John Stuart, an Anglican missionary, translating religious texts into Mohawk. He also acted as an interpreter for Sir William Johnson in dealing with the Iroquois. In 1774, Guy Johnson became the British superintendent of Indian affairs when his uncle Sir William Johnson died. At this time, Joseph Brant became his interpreter and personal secretary.
When the American Revolution broke out in 1775, Joseph Brant accompanied Guy Johnson to England where he met a number of notable people, including King George III. In his book Who Was Who in Native American History: Indians and Non-Indians From Early Contacts Through 1900, Carl Waldman reports:
“As legend has it, Joseph Brant did not kneel before the king and grandiosely kiss the queen’s hand.”
He returned to New York in 1776. Carl Waldman reports:
“He was soon commissioned a colonel by the British and traveled among the Iroquois tribes to win them over to the Loyalist cause.”
In 1777. the British met with many of the Iroquois nations at Oswego and formally asked them to go to war against the rebellious colonies. In the Iroquois warriors’ council, Joseph Brant argued in favor of going to war, while the Seneca leaders Red Jacket, Handsome Lake, and Cornplanter felt that this was a family quarrel among the Europeans and Iroquois interference would be a mistake.
During the Revolutionary War, Joseph Brant led his pro-British Mohawk warriors in a number of battles and skirmishes. In one instance, Brant’s party of 100 Mohawk warriors encountered a significantly larger American force. In this case, Brant chose to talk rather than fight. According James O’Donnel:
“Although this conference resulted in little concrete achievement, it was evidence of Brant’s stature and diplomatic skill in avoiding what might have been a disastrous engagement.”
In Pennsylvania, Joseph Brant raised the British flag over the Iroquois village of Oquaga and used it as his military headquarters. After Brant and his pro-British forces had left the town, the Americans attacked. They burned about 40 houses and destroyed 2,000 bushels of corn. The only house left standing was the one that belonged to Oneida chief Good Peter (Peter Agwrondougwas). When the American forces found several small children hiding in the corn fields, they ran them through with their bayonets and then held them up to watch them squirm.
In New York in 1779, a small party of Mohawks under the leadership of Joseph Brant together with a few of their British allies attacked the settlement of Minisink to obtain provisions. One of the Americans, Captain John Wood, was about to be killed when he inadvertently gave the Master Mason’s sign of distress. Brant, a Mason, saw the sign, pushed the warrior aside, and gave Wood the Master Mason’s grip. The following day, Wood confessed to Brant that he was not a Mason. Historian Barbara Graymont, in her book The Iroquois in the American Revolution, records:
“When Wood returned from captivity many years later, one of his first acts was to apply for membership in the Masonic lodge.”
In 1783, the Treaty of Paris formally ended the Revolutionary War and gave the United States its independence. Many of the Mohawks who had fought for the British left the United States and settled in Canada. Joseph Brant accepted new lands along the Grand River in Ontario, just north of Lake Erie for the Iroquois League of Six Nations who had remained loyal to the British during the American Revolution. The land was viewed as compensation for their loss of land in New York.
Initially a group of 1,842 Loyalists settled in Ontario with Joseph Brant. The group included members from all six of the Iroquois League (though most were Mohawk and Cayuga) as well as some Delaware, Nanticoke, Tutelo, Creek, and Cherokee. The migrants settled in small tribal villages along the Grand River.
In his biographic sketch in the Encyclopedia of North American Indians, John Sugden writes:
“At his new home on the Grand River, Brant exhibited the ambiguities of a man rooted in contrasting cultures. He encouraged the Indians to improve their economy, adopt Christianity, and support British schooling.”
At the same time, he encouraged Native ceremonies and was proud of his Indian heritage.
The Mississauga sold their land claims to Joseph Brant so that the Mohawks could have clear title to their new territory. Mississauga leader Pokquan announced:
“We are Indians, and consider ourselves and the Six Nations to be one and the same people, and agreeable to a former, and mutual agreement, we are bound to help each other.”
In Ontario, Joseph Brant and others built the Mohawk Chapel (Anglican). The new church housed the Queen Anne Silver Communion Plate and Bible. Brant also finished translating the Book of Common Prayer and Gospel of Mark into the Mohawk language.
Joseph Brant wanted to consolidate all of the Iroquois at his reserve in Ontario. Brant felt that the British Empire would serve the Iroquois better than the new American government. The chiefs of the League of Six Nations met and discussed Brant’s invitation. The chiefs then entrusted the decision to the clan matrons. The clan mothers decided that the Six Nations should divide, with half in Canada and half in the United States.
In Canada, Joseph Brant often traveled to Montreal to negotiate with the government on behalf of the First Nations. In addition, he also crossed into the United States to discuss Indian issues. For example, in 1787, he met with Indian leaders and American negotiators in Detroit, Michigan. Joseph Brant recounted Indian history to the other Indian leaders and told them:
“The Interests of Any One Nation Should be the Interests of us all, the Welfare of the one Should be the Welfare of all the others.”
In 1792, two Mohawk men—Hendrick and Kellayhun—murdered a French Canadian trader in Ontario. The British military commander demanded that the chiefs surrender the two men so that they could stand trial under British law. Instead of surrendering the men, the chiefs asked that they be allowed to cover the grave with gifts for the relatives of the deceased. According to Joseph Brant:
“We have forms and Ancient Customs which we look upon as Necessary to be gone through as the Proceedings in any Court of Justice.”
From the Indian view, to accept British legal jurisdiction would be to deny their own sovereignty. The British, on the other hand, viewed the Indians as British subjects and therefore subject to British law. The case was suspended rather than dropped.
In 1793, John Graves Simcoe, the lieutenant governor of Upper Canada, drafted the Simcoe Patent which stipulated that all land transactions of the Iroquois Six Nations had to be approved by the Crown. Simcoe insisted that Indians had always mishandled their land. Joseph Brant and the other Iroquois chiefs, however, rejected this concept. According to Brant:
“It seems natural to Whites to look on lands in the possession of Indians with an aching heart, and never to rest ‘till they have planned them out of them.”
The Iroquois sold or leased several large blocks of land to non-Indians. In her chapter in the Handbook of North American Indians, Sally Weaver reports:
“Brant felt that White farmers and merchants would be useful models from which the Iroquois could more rapidly adopt agricultural skills replacing the hunting economy that could not be sustained in the valley.”
In 1795, Isaac Brant, the eldest son of Joseph Brant, killed a deserter from the American army. Historian Alan Taylor, in his book The Divided Ground: Indians, Settlers, and the Northern Borderland of the American Revolution, notes:
“Young Brant possessed a ferocious temper, especially while drinking.”
Furious because a saddle had been not completed on time, he buried a tomahawk in the deserter’s brain. Brant was convicted of murder by a jury, but the Iroquois chiefs insisted that the victim’s grave be covered instead. While the British military commander wanted to send in troops to retrieve Isaac Brant, the governor, wishing to avoid bloodshed, delayed. The situation was resolved when Isaac Brant attacked his father in a drunken rage and Joseph Brant killed his son in self-defense.
In 1795, Joseph Brant was authorized by the Six Nations to sell large blocks of land directly to speculators who were lusting after the fertile land. The land was sold for 18 times what the government had offered for it.
In 1796, with the death of Wabakinine, the Mississouga named Joseph Brant to speak for them.
In 1798, Joseph Brant convened a muster of 400 Indian warriors and a settler militia company. Historian Alan Taylor reports:
“Proud of the martial display, Brant had a story printed in the province’s lone newspaper, the better to advertise his military importance to the colony.”
Joseph Brant died on his estate near Brantford, Ontario in 1807. According to James O’Donnel:
“He could function in either society, yet the whites would never admit him freely to their society save as a curiosity, and he was no longer an Iroquois in the purest sense.”
John Sugden writes:
“Joseph Brant was tall, muscular, and fine featured. Ambitious and vain, he was also generous, humane, and dedicated not only to the Mohawks but also to Indians in general. Equally at home on the battlefield or in council, he was a man of rare energy and vision.”
He was buried at the Mohawk Chapel which he helped build.
Indians 101
Twice each week Indians 101 explores various American Indian topics. More American Indian biographies from this series:
Indians 201: Red Jacket, Seneca leader
Indians 101: Sacagawea (Sacajawea)
Indians 101: Big Foot and the Wounded Knee Massacre
Indians 101: Kennekuk, Kickapoo Leader and Prophet
Indians 101: Looking Glass, Nez Perce Chief
Indians 101: Gertrude Simmons Bonnin, Writer, Musician, and Activist
Indians 101: Susette La Flesche, Indian Activist
Indians 201: Mourning Dove, first American Indian woman novelist