Interesting facts about joseph brant

Born c. March 1742
Upper Ohio River (near present-day Akron, Ohio)
Died November 24, 1807
Grand River, Ontario, Canada

Mohawk war chief, politician, missionary

Joseph Brant was a Mohawk leader who led his people into battle on the side of the British during the Revolutionary War (1775–83). Brant was a skilled politician with the manners of a British gentleman, and he learned to live in both the white and Indian worlds. Brant's loyalty to Great Britain was surpassed only by his loyalty to his people, and he spent his lifetime trying to ensure their land rights and the continuation of their culture.

Joseph Brant was born about 1742 in the forest along the Ohio River near present-day Akron, Ohio, while his parents were on a hunting trip. His father was a Mohawk chief, and his mother may have been part European and part Indian. Brant's name at birth was Thayendanegea (pronounced thayen-duh-NAY-ghee-uh), meaning "he places two bets."

The Mohawk was one of six tribes that lived peacefully among themselves and belonged to the Iroquois (pronounced IR-uh-kwoy) Confederacy (union). The six tribes were the Mohawk, Oneida (pronounced oh-NEYE-duh), Onondaga, Cayuga (pronounced KEYE-you-guh), Seneca, and Tuscarora. Members of the confederacy were sometimes called "Iroquois" instead of by their tribal name.

After his father's death, Brant's mother married a man named Nicklaus Brant, who was a Mohawk chief and was also part Dutch. Joseph Brant adopted his stepfather's last name and learned both Indian customs and the ways of the whites. He became an accomplished hunter, fisherman, swimmer, trapper, and canoeist.

Brant's older sister, Mary "Molly" Brantsee entry, was the wife of Sir William Johnson, the white superintendent of Indian affairs for Great Britain. His job was to make sure American colonists did not trespass on land set aside for the Indians west of the Appalachian Mountains. Johnson was popular with the tribes he dealt with, and Molly Brant was a powerful figure in the Native community.

As a boy Joseph Brant went to live with his sister and brother-in-law at Fort Johnson in upper New York State. There in 1755 young Brant witnessed a battle at Lake George between French soldiers and British soldiers and their Mohawk allies. The battle was part of a larger conflict called the French and Indian War (1754–63), which was fought between England and France over who would control North America. By 1759 Joseph Brant was old enough to fight for the British beside Sir William Johnson in the military campaign at Fort Niagara, New York. The French lost the war in 1763.

About 1760 Brant began attending the white-run Indian Charity School in Lebanon, Connecticut, which later relocated and became Dartmouth College. Brant stayed there for several years, studying Christianity and learning to read and write English.

Battles Pontiac's forces

In 1763 Joseph Brant was called back to Fort Johnson by his sister when trouble broke out in the Ohio Valley. In an incident called Pontiac's Rebellion, Indian troops under Chief Pontiac swept across the western frontier to capture British forts. Pontiac's men were desperately trying to keep American colonists from moving onto their land in great numbers and taking it over.

Brant led Mohawk and Oneida volunteers against the forces of Pontiac. The rebellion was finally put down by a dirty trick on the part of British soldiers, who arranged to have smallpox-infected blankets delivered to the Indians. As a result, the awful disease quickly spread, and thousands of Indians were killed, bringing the uprising to an end.

Loses two wives, becomes noted translator

People who knew Brant as a young man described him as tall and muscular, with fairer skin than many other Indians, expressive facial features, and a confident manner. Around 1765 Brant married his first wife, Christine, the daughter of an Oneida tribal chief. They settled in Canajoharie in the Mohawk Valley, on a farm Joseph had inherited. The couple had two children, Isaac and Christina.

After Christine died during the eighth year of their marriage, Brant married her sister, Susannah, who remained childless and died a few years later. Both sisters were victims of tuberculosis, an easily spread lung disease.

While living in Canajoharie, Brant showed his devotion to Christianity by translating a book of the Bible into his native Mohawk language. He also served as secretary to his brother-in-law, Indian agent Sir William Johnson, a position that was considered a great honor. He earned a reputation among the British as an outstanding translator of Mohawk. Brant attended meetings of the Iroquois Grand Council at Onondaga, New York, and provided firsthand information to the British authorities about what the Indians were thinking and doing.

Impresses British, rallies Iroquois

In 1774, after his brother-in-law's death, Brant became secretary to Johnson's nephew, Guy Johnson, who replaced his uncle as Great Britain's Indian superintendent. In November 1775 the two men sailed for England, where Brant impressed members of British society with his excellent command of English, his European-style education, and his translation of the Christian Bible into his native language. Though he often wore knee-high moccasins and a blanket draped over one shoulder, Brant was also comfortable wearing British-style clothing. When in later years Brant took another trip to England, the famous painters George Romney and Benjamin West each painted pictures of Brant in his native costume.

While in England, Brant was given the honor of becoming a British officer. When he returned to America, the colonists were beginning to fight for their independence from England in the Revolutionary War. Captain Brant, as he was now called, led pro-British Indian troops in raids, hoping to stop the American military from importing food and supplies from Europe. He was regarded by the British as a fine soldier and representative of his people.

Beginning in 1776, as the Revolutionary War raged, Brant went from one Indian village to another, trying to rally Iroquois people to the cause of the British. He was afraid that if the American colonists won the war, settlers would take over Indian land. He believed a British promise that land already taken from the Indians would be returned to them if they fought on the side of the British and won.

Gains limited support, fights in bloody battles

Brant hoped that when the Revolutionary War ended, the British would declare an Indian state, possibly headed by himself, west of the Allegheny Mountains. During the early summer of 1777, Brant was part of a council at which he and his sister, Molly Brant, convinced the Mohawk, Seneca, Cayuga, and Onondaga tribes to support the British, with Joseph serving as their war chief. The Oneida and Tuscarora tribes refused to join with the others, and the Iroquois union began to crumble. Also present at the council was a Seneca chief named Red Jacket, who urged the tribes to remain neutral (non-involved) and was then called a coward by Brant.

Brant and the warriors who chose to join him tried to force the American colonists out of the Mohawk Valley by raiding and burning white settlements and driving away their live-stock. Pro-British soldiers were also fighting in the area, and they may well have committed some of the violence there. But the Indians were widely blamed for causing all the trouble. To pay them back, Americans launched bloody raids on the Iroquois villages, terrorizing the inhabitants. Brant's warriors went on to fight at the battles of Oriskany (pronounced uh-RIS-kuh-nee), Minisink, and Cherry Valley in New York.

Cherry Valley Massacre makes his reputation

In 1778 Brant's forces joined British soldiers and set out to destroy the town and the fort of Cherry Valley. They launched a surprise attack on more than 250 American soldiers stationed there, killing about 30 men, women, and children, burning houses, and taking more than 70 prisoners. They withdrew the next day upon the arrival of 200 patriot soldiers. This event, called the "Cherry Valley Massacre," established Brant's reputation as a fierce fighter; some whites called him "Monster" Brant.

War ends; efforts to unite tribes fails

By 1781 American general George Washingtonsee entry and his troops had defeated the British and their Iro quois allies and taken over the Mohawk Valley. At the end of the Revolutionary War, Americans got most of the land in the Mohawk Valley for themselves. With the peace treaty of 1783,

the border between the United States and Canada was drawn straight through Iroquois lands, and the Indians were never consulted about the matter. Beginning that year, and for more than ten years afterward, Brant tried to bring together the Iroquois and other western Indians to stop American expansion into Indian lands. His efforts were unsuccessful.

Relocates to Canada

In 1779 Brant married for the third and final time, to Catherine Croghan, who was the daughter of a Mohawk woman and George Croghan, an Irish-born Indian agent for the British. Brant and his new wife had seven children.

The British government (which still controlled Canada) gave land in Canada to whites, Mohawks, and other Indians who had been loyal to Great Britain during the war. In 1784 Brant and some of his Mohawks moved to a tract of land along Ontario's Grand River, which became known as the Six Nations Reserve (reservation). The Indians settled in small villages along the river. Brant was provided half his military pay by the British and was given some choice land, where he built a fine English-style home.

Brant believed that Indians would have to learn the white men's methods of farming in order to survive there, and he wanted to lease and sell farmland to whites as a source of income. But a legal disagreement over the control of Indian land emerged, and some of the Indians on the Grand River settlement were unhappy over the way Brant proposed to distribute the money. As a result, the plan was never carried out.

Later life

Joseph Brant revisited England in 1786, where he received funds to build the first Episcopal church in Upper Canada (the Old Mohawk Church). He spent his later years back in Canada translating the Bible into Mohawk and performing missionary activities. He made constant efforts to secure peace between the United States and the Indian tribes that lived on the frontier.

Although the welfare of his people was Brant's primary concern, his loyalty to the British caused some Indians to become suspicious of him. His power among his own people lessened. As a result, the British felt free to ignore many of the promises they had made to him regarding land and self-rule by the Indians.

Joseph Brant died on November 24, 1807, at the age of sixty-five. He was buried near the church he helped construct at Brantford, Ontario.

Was Joseph Brant a cold-blooded savage (as many Americans saw him) or a man of courage and vision? There are no easy answers. In his vivid account of the American frontier, A Company of Heroes, Dale Van Every, like many modern historians, points out Brant's contradictory character traits:

As a young man [Brant] was the consort [associate] of missionaries and a translator of scriptures [holy writings]. As a mature man he was expelled from this cloistered [protected] atmosphere into a world of tumult [uproar] and crisis in which he was laden with public responsibilities he was to bear to the end of his life. His emotional nature developed a capacity for the deepest friendships and an idyllic [pleasing and simple] marriage.… Such was the respect in which he was held even by hisenemies that he could be received by [George] Washington with all the ceremony due a visiting head of state. Yet this man who had acquired so many civilized and cultured instincts was for years the aggressive and dedicated commander of bands of Indian marauders [raiders] whose [activities] were more atrocious than any other in the long and fearful record of frontier warfare.

For More Information

Allen, Robert S. "Brant, Joseph." The Canadian Encyclopedia. James Marsh, editor-in-chief. Edmonton, Alberta: Hurtiga Publishers, 1985, pp. 214–15.

Avery, Susan, and Linda Skinner. Extraordinary American Indians. Chicago: Children's Press, 1992, pp. 18–22.

Birchfield, D. L., gen. ed. "Red Jacket." Encyclopedia of North American Indians, Vol. 3. New York: Marshall Cavendish, 1997, pp. 1119–20.

Bolton, Jonathan. Joseph Brant. New York: Chelsea House, 1992.

Johansen, B. E. "Brant, Joseph." The Encyclopedia of North American Indians, Vol. 2, edited by D. L. Birchfield. New York: Marshall Cavendish, 1997, pp. 195–96.

Malinowski, Sharon, ed. "Red Jacket." Notable Native Americans. Detroit: Gale, 1995, pp. 355–57.

Straub, Deborah Gillian, ed. "Joseph Brant." Voices of Multicultural America: Notable Speeches Delivered by African, Asian, Hispanic, and Native Americans 1790–1995. Detroit: Gale, 1996, pp. 71–73.

Van Every, Dale. A Company of Heroes: The American Frontier 1775–1783. New York: William Morrow, 1962, pp. 26–27.

Zell, Fran. A Multicultural Portrait of the American Revolution. New York: Marshall Cavendish, 1996, p. 56.

Web Sites

Penick, Tom. "The Story of Joseph Brant." Indigenous Peoples' Literature. [Online] Available (accessed on 5/19/99).

Family Troubles Cause Heartache

Joseph Brant's eldest son, Isaac Brant, was central to one of the saddest incidents in the life of the Indian leader. From his earliest childhood, Isaac had been a bad-tempered boy who caused many problems for his father. Once Brant paid a large sum of money to a white man after Isaac assaulted the man and killed his horse. Later, in a drunken rage, Isaac broke into the inn where his father, Joseph, was staying and attacked him with a knife. In wrestling the knife away from his son, Brant inflicted a small wound on Isaac's head. The drunken Isaac refused treatment for the wound, which became infected, leading to his death. Although an Indian council found Joseph Brant in no way guilty for his son's death, he had many regrets for his inability to help Isaac live a good life.

Red Jacket

The Seneca chief Red Jacket (c. 1756–1830), who was born in upper New York State, was another important Indian leader during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Named Obetiani at birth, meaning "He Is Prepared," he later took the name Sagoyewatha, meaning "He Causes Them to Be Awake." He received the English name Red Jacket for the red coat presented to him by the British, which he often wore.

Red Jacket served as a representative of the Seneca tribe at meetings of the Iroquois Confederacy and also was a spokesman for the Indians before white groups. He was known more as a speaker than as a warrior, and he urged his tribe to remain neutral during the American Revolution. Unlike Indian leader Joseph Brant, who moved to Canada after the Revolutionary War, Red Jacket stayed in the United States.

Red Jacket supported the United States in the War of 1812 (1812–15), another conflict between the United States and Great Britain. Although he encouraged friendship between Indians and the United States government, he also believed that Indians should keep their own lands and retain their native culture. He represented Indians in court battles regarding land disputes and against Christian missionaries who tried to convert them. Still, some historians accuse him of signing away native lands to stay on good terms with whites.

In an article in the Encyclopaedia Britannica of 1889, editors E. C. Stedman and E. M. Hutchinson described an 1805 encounter between Red Jacket and Christian missionary Reverend Cram of the Boston Missionary Society, who wanted to convert the Indians to Christianity. After hearing Cram preach, Red Jacket made a reply that displayed his opinions, his logic, and his speaking skills:

You say that you are sent to instruct us how to worship the Great Spirit agreeably to His mind, and if we do not take hold [of] the religion which you white people teach, we shall be unhappy hereafter … How do we know this to be true? If it was intended for us as well as you, why has not the Great Spirit given [it] to us? … We only know what you tell us about it. How shall we know when to believe, being so often deceived by the white people?…

You say you have not come to get our land or our wealth but to enlighten our minds … you have been preaching to the white people in this place. These people are our neighbors. We are acquainted with them. We will wait a little while and see what effect your preaching has upon them. If we find it does them good, makes them honest and less disposed to cheat Indians, we will then consider again of what you have said.

As an old man, Red Jacket suffered from the ill effects of drinking too much alcohol. He lost his position as Iroquois chief in 1827, but the position was restored shortly before his death on January 30, 1830. In a move that certainly would have been against his wishes, missionaries took charge of his body and gave him a Christian burial.