Joseph Brant

Joseph Brant (1742-1807) was a Mohawk chief and ally of the British during the American Revolution. He was instrumental in moving the Mohawks to Canada following the winning of American independence.

Joseph Brant was born in the Ohio Valley and was called Thayendanegea ("he who places two bets"). His father was a sachem of the Iroquois Confederacy, to which the Mohawks belonged; however, Brant's mother was not a Mohawk, and as descent in the tribe was matrilineal, he never rose to the rank of sachem, although he did become a war chief.

As a boy, Brant attracted the protection of Sir William Johnson, British Indian superintendent, whom he accompanied on an expedition in 1755. Six years later, at 19, Brant was sent to Moor's Charity School in Lebanon, Conn., for an education. There he was converted to the Anglican Church and in 1763 left the school to work as an interpreter for a missionary. Thereafter he was constantly caught between a desire to convert his tribe to white ways and to lead them in war against the whites.

In 1764 Brant left the missionary, whom he had helped to translate religious tracts into the Mohawk language, to join the Iroquois contingent fighting under Chief Pontiac. Ten years later, when Guy Johnson, son-in-law of Sir William Johnson, became Indian superintendent, Brant became his secretary. At the outbreak of the American Revolution, Brant used his influence to persuade the Iroquois to join the British side and to discredit the Reverend Samuel Kirkland, a missionary who had succeeded in persuading the Oneida and Tuscarora (tribes in the Iroquois Confederacy) to join with the Americans.

Brant was war chief of the Mohawks when he met Sir Guy Carleton at a conference in Montreal. Brant was commissioned a captain and sent to England to be presented at court as a Native American ally of the Crown. Returning to the New World, he fought as commander of a Native American contingent at the Battle of Long Island in 1776 and was with St. Leger's expedition at the Battle of Oriskany in 1777.

Between 1778 and 1780 Brant led his Indian troops on raids in the Mohawk Valley, southern New York, and northern Pennsylvania, warning his followers that an American victory would mean destruction for all Native Americans. He and his followers were accused of perpetrating massacres such as those at Cherry Valley in 1778 and at Wyoming in 1779; though Brant always claimed that he did not join in these bloody aspects of the fighting, his troops were responsible for some reprehensible killings.

At the close of the American Revolution, Brant frustrated the attempt of Red Jacket, a rival Mohawk chief, to negotiate a peace treaty with the United States. Later he unsuccessfully attempted such a negotiation himself, whereupon he persuaded Governor Haldimaud of Canada to assign the Mohawks a reservation on the Grand River in Upper Canada. His journey to England in 1785 was successful in attaining an indemnification for the Mohawks for their losses during the war. He also made a trip to Philadelphia during which he was unsuccessful in negotiating peace with the United States.

Brant's later years were spent translating the New Testament and other religious documents into Mohawk and promoting Native American acceptance of the white man's ways. He was able to prevent speculators from getting the Mohawk lands on the Grand River, but his last years were saddened by the actions of his dissolute eldest son and by his quarrels with his rival, Red Jacket. He died on Nov. 24, 1807, at the Grand River Reservation.

Further Reading

The best recent work on Brant is Harvey Chalmers, in collaboration with Ethel Brant Monture, Joseph Brant: Mohawk (1955). Another useful work is Louis Aubrey Wood, The War Chief of the Six Nations: A Chronicle of Joseph Brant (1914). See also Alexander C. Flick, ed., History of the State of New York, vol. 4: The New State (1933); Ethel Brant Monture, Canadian Portraits: Brant, Crowfoot, Oronhyatekha—Famous Indians (1960); and Dale Van Every, A Company of Heroes: The American Frontier, 1775-1783 (1962). □

Brant, Joseph (1742–1807), British army officer and Mohawk leader.Brant was the son of a Mohawk chief and a woman of mixed English and Indian descent. After his father's death, Brant lived with his sister's husband, William Johnson, superintendent of Indian affairs north of the Ohio River from 1755 to 1774. This experience, combined with attendance at a Christian school in Connecticut, prepared him for work as a bicultural mediator between the English and Iroquois in the years leading up to the American Revolution.

When the Revolutionary War broke out, Brant traveled to England, and was commissioned captain, and expressed his allegiance to the British crown. He returned to the Hudson River Valley and rallied the Iroquois to the loyalist cause, leading highly effective expeditions against Americans living in the region. These brought harsh retaliation from American forces under Gen. John Sullivan in 1779. Brant continued to resist even after British troops ceased hostilities. The English rewarded him and a number of Mohawks for their services with a tract of land in Ontario, where Brant eventually died. Brant's leadership and skills as a mediator enabled him and his followers to carve out a degree of autonomy while facing Anglo‐American expansionist pressures.

Bibliography

Barbara Graymont , The Iroquois in the American Revolution, 1972.
Isabel Thompson Kelsay , Joseph Brant, 1743–1807: Man of Two Worlds, 1984.

James D. Drake

Joseph Brant 1742–1807, chief of the Mohawk. His Mohawk name is usually rendered as Thayendanegea. He served under Sir William Johnson in the French and Indian War, and Johnson sent him (1761) to Eleazar Wheelock's school for Native Americans in Lebanon, Conn. Brant served (1763) under Johnson again in Pontiac's Rebellion . In the American Revolution he did much to bind the indigenous people to the British and Loyalist side. He fought (1777) at Oriskany in the Saratoga campaign. In 1778, leading the Native American forces, he joined Walter Butler , and together they raided Cherry Valley, where they massacred the defenseless inhabitants. He was an able leader in other raids. After the Revolution, failing to get a settlement of the Native American land question in the United States, he got lands and subsidies for his people in Canada around the present Brantford, Ont. A zealous Christian, he preached Christianity, translating the Book of Common Prayer and the Gospel of Mark into the Mohawk language.

Bibliography: See biographies by J. W. Jakes (1969), H. C. Robinson (1971), and I. T. Kelsay (1984).

Brant, Joseph (1742–1807)also known as Thayendanegea Mohawk Indian chief, commissioned captain in British army, and war leader of the pro-British Iroquois, born in the Ohio country. A protégé of the British superintendent of Indian affairs Sir William Johnson, Brant served the British in the French and Indian War (1754–63) and Pontiac's Rebellion (1763–66). In the Revolutionary War, he led Mohawk and Loyalist followers in Lt. Col. Barry St. Leger's expedition to besiege Fort Stanwix. With intelligence from his sister Mary Brant, he ambushed American rebel forces at the Battle of Oriskany (1777). After the war, he obtained the Six Nations Reserve for the resettlement of Mohawk and others of the Six Nations on the Grand River near Brantford, Ontario. Nearly 2,000 Indians followed Brant there in 1785.

Brant, Joseph (1742–1807), Mohawk Indian chief, educated at Eleazer Wheelock's school, was the principal leader of Indian troops for the British during the Revolutionary War, and for his work was cordially received in England. Although he did not participate in the Wyoming Valley Massacre in Pennsylvania, as is frequently stated, he was responsible for similar attacks. He translated parts of the Bible into his own tongue (1787). He is treated in a life by W.L. Stone and in Hoffman's Greyslaer.

Brant, Joseph (1742–1807) Mohawk chief. He served in the French and Indian Wars (1754–63) and in Pontiac's Rebellion (1763–66). He attended an Anglican school and became an interpreter for missionaries. In return for securing an alliance between the Iroquois and the British, Brant gained a commission in the British Army in 1775. He fought with great courage for the British during the American Revolution.