Joseph Brant (abt. 1742 - 1807)

Born about Mar 1742 in Ohio Country near the Cuyahoga River, Pays d'en Haut, Nouvelle-France

Ancestors

Husband of Margaret Neggen (Aoghyatonghersera) Brant — married 22 Jul 1765 (to 1771) in Canajoharie, New York

Descendants

Died 24 Nov 1807 at about age 65 in Burlington Bay, Upper Canada

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Joseph Brant is Notable.

Joseph was Mohawk.

Joseph Brant was a United Empire Loyalist.
UEL Status:Proven
Date: Undated

Biography

"He was a very forward thinker, a thoughtful gentleman who understood the world was changing around him."
-- Rick Monture, Director of Indigenous Studies at McMaster University^[1]

Thayendanegea (pronounced, Tai-yen-da-nay-geh), also known as Joseph Brant, was a Mohawk interpreter, translator, war chief, and statesman.^[2]

Born in March 1742/43^[3] in Ohio Territory^[4] near the Cuyahoga River (near present day Cleveland, Ohio)^[5], he was the son of Peter Tehowaghwengaraghkwin and Margaret Owandah, and through his mother was a member of the Wolf Clan. After his father’s death, his mother raised Brant and his sister Mary (Molly) in Canajoharie, a Mohawk village in the province of New York. The area had been settled by Palatine, Scottish, and Irish immigrants and Brant grew up in a multicultural, multilingual society.^[6]

Brant’s family was closely associated with Sir William Johnson, the influential merchant and British Superintendent for Indian Affairs. During the Seven Years’ War, Brant was with Johnson at the siege of Fort Niagara. In 1761, Johnson arranged for the 19-year-old Brant to spend two years at Eleazar Wheelock's school in Connecticut, where he learned to read and write in English and studied other academic subjects. On his return to the Mohawk Valley, he acted as an interpreter for Johnson and his successor, owned a farm near Canajoharie, and operated a small store. In 1765 he married Margaret, an Oneida woman, who died in 1771 from tuberculosis. They had two children, Isaac and Christiana.^[7][6]

During the American War of Independence, Joseph and Molly Brant and their followers were staunch supporters of the British and played a significant role in the Loyalist offensive. Joseph, greatly admired as a warrior, was made a captain by the British in 1780.^[7] As the British began losing the war and their Indigneous allies began to worry about the loss of their lands in New York, Brant suggested establishing a colony of Six Nations (Haudenosaunee) Loyalists in Upper Canada (Ontario) as a bulwark against American expansion. Sir Frederick Haldimand agreed and purchased a tract of land on the Grand River from the Mississauga. The Six Nations Loyalists began arriving in 1784. ^[8]

At the Grand River, the community’s chiefs entrusted Brant with negotiating with government officials in England and Canada. He helped set up a school and a church in the settlement and translated Church of England liturgical material and portions of the Bible into the Mohawk language.^[9] Although he found aspects of non-Indigneous culture admirable (education, agriculture, technology), he found its class divisions, prisons, and harsh laws appalling. “Cease, too, to call other nations savage, when you are tenfold more the children of cruelty than they,” he once wrote.

About 1779 Brant married Catharine "Adonwentishon." They had seven children. For farm and household labor, he used slaves captured during his raids as well as an African-American girl he purchased.

Marriages and families:[1]^[10]

Croghan married in the 1740s and had a daughter, Susannah Croghan. He later married again, while serving as Deputy Indian agent to Sir William Johnson, British Superintendent of Indian Affairs in the Northern District. His second wife was a Mohawk woman, Catherine (Takarihoga), daughter of Mohawk chief Nickus Peters (Karaghaigdatie). Their daughter Catherine (Adonwentishon) Croghan (1759-1837) would assume her mother's hereditary role as head of the Turtle clan. She later was the third wife of Joseph Brant, the prominent Mohawk war leader who led his people during their migration and settlement in Canada on lands granted by the Crown after the American Revolutionary War. Brant's sister Molly was a long-term consort of Sir William Johnson, so Croghan was doubly connected to influential British and Mohawk families in the East. Elizabeth Brant, a daughter of Joseph Brant and Catherine (Adonwentishon) Crogan, married William Johnson Kerr, a grandson of Sir William Johnson and Molly Brant.

Brant died in 1807 at his home in what is now Burlington, Ontario.^[2]

"While Brant was at once an officer in the British army, a Freemason, and an Anglican, he was also Thayendanegea, a Mohawk "Pine Tree" Chief who never abandoned his people and their struggle to secure and maintain an independent homeland in Upper Canada."^[11]

Joseph Brant was a prolific writer. His correspondence is scattered among many British Colonial archives, and a major collection is found in the Draper manuscripts at the Wisconsin Historical Society Archives.^[12]

Legacy and Honours

• Using a slightly different spelling, the township of Tyendinaga and the Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory in Ontario, Canada, are named for him.
• The City of Brantford and the County of Brant, Ontario, are located on his land grant and are named for him, as is the town of Brant, New York.
• Joseph Brant Hospital, Joseph Brant Museum, and Brant Street in Burlington, Ontario, are named in his honour.^[6]
• In 1972, Brant was designated a National Historic Person by the Government of Canada.^[13]

Research Notes

Sources

1. ↑ John Bkila, "Historian says revisiting Joseph Brant’s legacy important to Burlington and Ontario ," Burlington Post, 27 February 2017, web archives (https://www.insidehalton.com/community-story/7161324-historian-says-revisiting-joseph-brant-s-legacy-important-to-burlington-and-ontario/ : 30 April 2019); quoting Rick Monture, associate professor of Indigenous Studies at McMaster University
2. ↑ ^{2.0 2.1} Barbara Graymont, “THAYENDANEGEA,” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 5, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–, accessed October 11, 2017, http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/thayendanegea_5E.html.
3. ↑ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Brant
4. ↑ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ohio_Country
5. ↑ Map, from Chronicles of New France
6. ↑ ^{6.0 6.1 6.2} Wikipedia contributors, "Joseph Brant," Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Joseph_Brant&oldid=892471074 (accessed April 30, 2019).
7. ↑ ^{7.0 7.1} The Canadian Encyclopedia, Historic Canada, (https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/joseph-brant : accessed 30 April 2019), "Joseph Brant (Thayendanegea)."
8. ↑ Ray, Arthur. An Illustrated History of Canada’s Native People. Toronto: Key Porter, 1996, p. 130-33
9. ↑ WorldCat Author Page for Joseph Brant, https://www.worldcat.org/search?q=au%3ABrant%2C+Joseph%2C&qt=hot_author , accessed18 Apr 2022
10. ↑ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Croghan
11. ↑ Monture, Rick. We Share Our Matters. Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 2014, p. 30
12. ↑ https://www.worldcat.org/title/draper-manuscripts-joseph-brant-papers-1710-1879/oclc/173701785
13. ↑ Directory of Federal Heritage Designations, online, (https://www.pc.gc.ca/apps/dfhd/page_nhs_eng.aspx?id=1246 : accessed 30 April 2019), citing "Thayendanega (Joseph Brant) National Historic Person"

• Some descendants of Joseph Brant, Author: J. Ojijatekha Brant-Sero, Publisher:Ontario Historical Society, Toronto, Ont., 1899, https://www.google.com/books/edition/Ontario_History/qAUVAAAAYAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=Joseph+Brant&pg=PA113&printsec=frontcover, Pg. 113.
• The History of the County of Brant, Ontario: Containing a History of the County: Its Township, Cities, Towns, Schools .... Canada: Warner, Beers & Company, 1883., pg. 130, https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_History_of_the_County_of_Brant_Ontar/TYaQkzcKWbkC?hl=en&gbpv=1
• Find a Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/10474/joseph-brant : accessed 18 April 2022), memorial page for Joseph “Thayendanegea” Brant (c.Mar 1743–24 Nov 1807), Find a Grave Memorial ID 10474, citing Mohawk Chapel Cemetery, Brantford, Brant County Municipality, Ontario, Canada ; Maintained by Find a Grave .

See also:

• American Battlefield Trust, Rev War, Biography, Joseph Brant, https://www.battlefields.org/learn/biographies/joseph-brant , accessed 18 Apr 2022.
• Loyalist Directory, Section B
• Principal Events in The Life of The Indian Chief Brant, The New England Historical & Genealogical Register (NEHGS, Boston, Mass., 1848) Vol. 2, Page 345-348. Vol. 3, Page 59-64.
• Kelsay, Isabel Thompson. Joseph Brant: 1743-1807, man of two worlds. Syracuse, N.Y., Syracuse University Press, 1984.
• Life of Joseph Brant-Thayendanegea: by Stone, William L. (William Leete), 1792-1844, New York, A. V. Blake, 1838, https://archive.org/details/lifejosephbrant03stongoog , accessed 1 Sep 2022.
• Life of Capt. Joseph Brant (Thayendanegea) an account of his re-interment at Mohawk, 1850 and of the corner stone ceremony in the erection of the Brant Memorial, Ke-che-ah-gah-me-qua, Brantford, 1886, Brantford Library Digital Collections. https://history-api.brantfordlibrary.ca/Document/View/a4983fb9-6693-43ad-ada9-61a493ea8a35 .
• 1778 - Daniel Clauses 1778 Biography of Captain Joseph Brant Cited from Marylyn Penrose's Indian Affairs Papers in the American Revolution, (Original in Clause family papers Pre-Confederation Archives, Public Archives Canada MG19, F1, Vol.2:53-62), https://www.facebook.com/groups/899013503473160/posts/3391521530888999/ Image: https://heritage.canadiana.ca/view/oocihm.lac_reel_c1478/360
• The Word Among the Early Six Nations, An account provided by Roger Sharpe of the early history of Christian scriptures amongst the natives of the Six Nations Reserve. https://images.ourontario.ca/brant/details.asp?ID=2710218
• Ontario History. United States: Kraus Reprint Company, 1919. pg. 171-191, https://www.google.com/books/edition/Ontario_History/mgcVAAAAYAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1
• "Orality and Literacy on the New York Frontier: Evidence from the Draper Papers" by Elizabeth Elbourne in Kirsty Reid and Fiona Paisley (eds.), Critical Perspectives on Colonialism: Writing the Empire from Below (Routledge, 2014), https://www.academia.edu/13073794/_Orality_and_Literacy_on_the_New_York_Frontier_Evidence_from_the_Draper_Papers_in_Kirsty_Reid_and_Fiona_Paisley_eds_Critical_Perspectives_on_Colonialism_Writing_the_Empire_from_Below_Routledge_2014_.
• Don Troiani's interpretive portrait: https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=876357120518387&set=a.204929014327871