Joseph Brant and the Inven­tion of a Cana­dian Tra­di­tion by James Paxton,

Queen’s Uni­ver­sity Pre­sented at the Iro­quois Research Con­fer­ence on Octo­ber 6, 2002.

The Amer­i­can Rev­o­lu­tion smashed the Iro­quois Con­fed­er­acy and dis­persed the rem­nant over sev­eral com­mu­ni­ties in Upper Canada and New York. While his­to­ri­ans have prof­itably stud­ied dif­fer­ent aspects of the New York Iro­quois in the post­war era, the Six Nations of Ontario have attracted rel­a­tively lit­tle atten­tion. Cana­dian schol­ars usu­ally inter­pret them as loy­al­ists rather than Iroquois.1 By cast­ing the Six Nations of Upper Canada as loy­al­ists, schol­ars assume the Iro­quois acted out of the same sense of duty that com­pelled Euroamer­i­can loy­al­ists to reject the rev­o­lu­tion. Although durable, this inter­pre­ta­tion masks the cul­tural roots of their moti­va­tions and behav­iour and sub­sumes native inde­pen­dence under a rubric of loy­alty that the Iro­quois them­selves res­olutely rejected.

The myth of Iro­quois loy­alty is inti­mately tied to the per­son of Joseph Brant, the enig­matic Mohawk chief who left an ambigu­ous legacy. Brant’s adop­tion of many Euro­pean prac­tices and his abil­ity to nav­i­gate Eng­lish and Mohawk soci­eties flu­ently has puz­zled his­to­ri­ans and caused his major biog­ra­phers to ques­tion his “Indianness.”3 Like Brant’s Euroamer­i­can con­tem­po­raries, many his­to­ri­ans have accepted the image that he pro­jected in his pub­lic deal­ings with Crown offi­cials as an accu­rate rep­re­sen­ta­tion of Mohawk beliefs. Brant, how­ever, acted in accor­dance with Mohawk cus­toms and con­sis­tently strove to attain chiefly author­ity. Among the Iro­quois, chiefs’ claims to power derived from the nature and extent of their alliances, which they built and main­tained through kin­ship, mar­riage, their abil­i­ties as war­riors and diplo­mats, and by redis­trib­ut­ing goods to followers.4 Brant employed these indige­nous meth­ods to gain power but extended his alliances to include mem­bers of the colo­nial and impe­r­ial com­mu­ni­ties. Brant was no loy­al­ist. He accom­mo­dated col­o­niza­tion by attempt­ing to cre­ate a coher­ent world from the diver­sity of the Mohawk Val­ley that fit­ted Euro­peans and their prac­tices into a world­view rooted in Mohawk cul­ture and values.

Brant’s rapid rise to promi­nence dur­ing the rev­o­lu­tion rested, to a great extent, on a foun­da­tion laid dur­ing his youth. On the eve of the war, almost every­one in the Mohawk Val­ley would have agreed that Brant was a promis­ing and ambi­tious young man, pos­sessed of abil­ity and good con­nec­tions. In both colo­nial and Iro­quois soci­ety sta­tus derived in no small mea­sure from the qual­ity of one’s relations.5 Brant obtained con­sid­er­able influ­ence from his rela­tion­ship to his sis­ter Molly Brant, a matron of the wolf clan, and her hus­band Sir William John­son the super­in­ten­dent of north­ern Indian affairs. The union trans­formed the long­stand­ing alliance that had existed between the Mohawks who resided at Cana­jo­harie and Sir William into one based on actual kin rela­tions. Few ben­e­fited from this new rela­tion­ship more than Joseph Brant.

William John­son took an active inter­est in his brother-in-law’s career. Dur­ing the Seven Year’s War and Pontiac’s Rebel­lion the young Brant gained invalu­able expe­ri­ence as a war­rior by par­tic­i­pat­ing in war par­ties either led or spon­sored by Johnson.6 John­son also enrolled Brant in Eleazar Wheelock’s school for Indi­ans where he learned to read and write and then hired him as an inter­preter in the Indian Department.7

Brant’s edu­ca­tion pro­vided him the abil­ity to inter­act with colo­nial soci­ety in a man­ner that most Mohawks could not. Through John­son, Brant came into con­tact with indi­vid­u­als from all classes, from impe­r­ial offi­cials and large landown­ers to ten­ant farm­ers. He learned first­hand the cus­toms, beliefs, and prej­u­dices of set­tler soci­ety and how best to inter­act with his Euroamer­i­can neigh­bours. The ease with which Brant moved in colo­nial soci­ety is born out by the long last­ing friend­ships he devel­oped with some of the region’s lead­ing fig­ures. John John­son, Guy John­son and Daniel Claus, the son and sons-in– law of Sir William, counted Brant among their friends. He also devel­oped friend­ships with the Angli­can min­is­ter Rev­erend John Stu­art and with mem­bers of promi­nent local fam­i­lies, such as the Herkimers and Freys.

Most impor­tantly, Brant learned a great deal about the exer­cise of power. John­son dom­i­nated the social, eco­nomic and polit­i­cal life of the Mohawk Val­ley through his con­trol of resources and patron­age. Besides the Indian depart­ment, he oper­ated suc­cess­fully in the Indian trade, and he was the largest land­lord in the county. John­son extended and solid­i­fied his power by mak­ing strate­gic mar­riages for him­self and his chil­dren and devel­op­ing alliances with promi­nent Euroamer­i­can and Mohawk families.8 Brant came to under­stand that Euro­pean patron­age sys­tems resem­bled noth­ing so much as Iro­quois kin and alliance net­works. As John­son ably demon­strated, the two could be com­bined to cre­ate pow­er­ful cross-cultural alliances.

Among the Mohawks, Brant’s rela­tion­ship to Molly Brant and John­son ensured that he was a man of some sub­stance. Always active in vil­lage pol­i­tics, Brant often accom­pa­nied chiefs and sachems when they met with John­son. The con­sis­tency with which Brant sup­ported the prin­ci­pal Mohawk sachem Tekar­i­hoka in such tasks sug­gests that they had formed an alliance.9 Nev­er­the­less, Brant was not a leader in his own right. He did not have access to presents in suf­fi­cient quan­tity to build exten­sive alliances of his own; he lacked the expe­ri­ence to be con­sid­ered a great war­rior; and he was not a hered­i­tary chief. Com­pared with other prin­ci­pal men, Brant’s youth and inex­pe­ri­ence pre­vented him from tak­ing a lead­ing role in vil­lage deliberations.

The death of William John­son in July 1774 and the Mohawk Valley’s slow descent into rev­o­lu­tion eroded the alliances that had main­tained sta­bil­ity, but pro­vided oppor­tu­ni­ties for ambi­tious men to assume posi­tions of lead­er­ship. After John­son was buried, Molly Brant returned to Cana­jo­harie, where she began to estab­lish her­self as an Iro­quois leader in her own right;10 Guy John­son assumed con­trol of the Indian Depart­ment; John John­son remained qui­etly on his estate; and John But­ler, a senior Indian offi­cer, had a falling out with the heirs. The Mohawks divided along gen­er­a­tional lines. Sachems desired peace and pro­moted neu­tral­ity, while the young war­riors hoped to win rep­u­ta­tions for them­selves on the bat­tle­field. For the next year, the Mohawk Val­ley remained in a state of con­stant ten­sion. Then, in June 1775, Guy John­son pre­cip­i­tated a cri­sis when he fled the county to escape the Patriot-dominated mili­tia. Many young war­riors from Cana­jo­harie, includ­ing Brant, ignored their sachems’ pleas for neu­tral­ity and fol­lowed John­son to Canada. That Sep­tem­ber, sev­eral war­riors fought in the bat­tle of St. John’s, twenty miles south­east of Mon­tréal. The Mohawks, in par­tic­u­lar, sus­tained heavy losses. Many accused the British reg­u­lars of not sup­port­ing them and returned to their homes.11

Guy John­son was also unhappy with the sit­u­a­tion in Canada. The mil­i­tary under­mined his con­trol of the Indian Depart­ment, and John­son promptly sailed for Eng­land to rec­tify the intol­er­a­ble sit­u­a­tion. Brant accom­pa­nied him in order to lay Mohawk griev­ances before the gov­ern­ment in Lon­don. There, Brant met Lord George Ger­main, the colo­nial sec­re­tary. After reit­er­at­ing the Six Nations’ losses in the bat­tle of St. Johns, Brant told Ger­main that “The Mohocks … have on all occa­sions shewn their zeal and loy­alty to the Great King; yet they have been badly treated by his peo­ple.” By which he meant the set­tlers that encroached on Mohawk land and the offi­cers who failed to stop them. If the King did not attend to Mohawk com­plaints, he warned, the Six Nations would react unfavourably.12 Although Brant’s speech to Ger­main devi­ated from the Mohawks’ nor­mal form of address, it char­ac­ter­ized his sub­se­quent deal­ings with British offi­cials. In dis­cus­sions with impe­r­ial rep­re­sen­ta­tives Mohawk lead­ers expressed their requests forth­rightly as an equal and inde­pen­dent peo­ple seek­ing fair deal­ings from an ally, and when they felt they were being cheated, chiefs almost never failed to expose Eng­lish hypocrisy or insincerity.13 Before the colo­nial sec­re­tary, how­ever, Brant phrased his argu­ments in terms of the rec­i­p­ro­cal oblig­a­tions that defined European-style patron-client rela­tions. Clien­t­age bound par­ties of unequal power with ties of inter­est that were expressed as duties.14 In con­trast­ing Mohawk fidelity with the government’s fail­ure to pro­tect their lands, Brant chas­tised the Crown for not pro­tect­ing its loyal clients. Although Brant never con­ceded Iro­quois inde­pen­dence, he found it use­ful and nec­es­sary dur­ing a war to sup­press Amer­i­can inde­pen­dence to speak of loy­alty. Brant left Britain with what he wanted, a promise to address Mohawk grievances.

Brant returned to New York in the win­ter of 1776. Despite his efforts to raise sup­port for the war, most of the Six Nations clung to neutrality.15 Unde­terred, the fol­low­ing spring Brant man­aged to raise a party of 70 or 80 loy­al­ist set­tlers and a hand­ful of his rel­a­tives and set out for the Susque­hanna River. These men, described by one observer as Brant’s “inti­mate friends,” dubbed them­selves Brant’s Vol­un­teers and elected to fol­low a Mohawk Cap­tain with­out pay or pro­vi­sions rather than join a loy­al­ist unit.16 The rel­a­tively few Mohawks that joined Brant even after the Six Nations accepted the British hatchet in the sum­mer of 1777, sug­gests that Brant lacked the stature and resources to lead many warriors.17 Nev­er­the­less, Brant cam­paigned hard with his Vol­un­teers through­out the 1777–1778 sea­sons, win­ning high praise from Daniel Claus and Colonel Mason Bolton, the com­mand­ing offi­cer at Nia­gara. Both men reported favourably on Brant’s actions and demeanour, so that Gen­eral Fred­er­ick Haldimand, the Commander-in-Chief of Canada, came to have a high opin­ion of Brant’s abilities.18

Events in the fall of 1778 threat­ened to ruin this rep­u­ta­tion. In Novem­ber, Brant had joined forces with a party of loy­al­ist Rangers to attack Cherry Val­ley. Dur­ing the bat­tle war­riors killed over thirty civil­ians, elic­it­ing con­dem­na­tions of Iro­quois sav­agery from Amer­ica and Britain alike. Claus and Bolton both attempted to dis­tance Brant from the affair, assur­ing Haldimand that he had treated all pris­on­ers “with great humanity.”19 On his return to Nia­gara, Brant deter­mined to tell his story directly to Haldimand. Armed with a let­ter of intro­duc­tion from Bolton, he made the trip to Que­bec that win­ter. The meet­ing was a great suc­cess. Brant not only escaped cen­sure for Cherry Val­ley, but he left Que­bec with a captain’s salary for him­self, assis­tance for Molly Brant, and the promise of land for the Mohawks should they be pre­vented from return­ing home after the war.20 After­wards, Haldimand came to see Brant as the most capa­ble of Iro­quois lead­ers and actively sup­ported him with goods and favours.

Brant’s abil­ity to act in accor­dance with Haldimand’s val­ues and assump­tions greatly influ­enced the general’s opin­ion. Like many impe­r­ial offi­cers, Haldimand will­ingly believed that Britain’s native allies were unde­pend­able, fickle and irrational.21 The Cherry Val­ley mas­sacre seemed to pro­vide ample evi­dence of native sav­agery. Com­pared to his fel­low chiefs, Brant was edu­cated, well-spoken, and socia­ble. Claus described Brant as “the most sober, quiet and good natured Indian I ever was acquainted with.”22 Haldimand embraced Brant pre­cisely because he seemed to tran­scend the per­ceived lim­i­ta­tions of his peo­ple. Brant had done every­thing in his power to pre­vent the mas­sacre, and Haldimand hoped that with his sup­port the Mohawk chief could exert just such an influ­ence over the rest of the Iroquois.

The first mate­r­ial sign of that sup­port came in the spring when orders arrived at Nia­gara to sup­ply Brant with clothes and blan­kets to be dis­trib­uted to his sup­port­ers as he saw fit.23 Brant was not merely a pas­sive recip­i­ent of favours, how­ever; he drew heav­ily on the good will and resources of his friends and allies in order to behave more like a chief. As Haldimand used Brant to influ­ence the Six Nations, Brant drew Haldimand into his alliance net­work in order to replace William John­son as a depend­able source of goods and pres­tige. Con­tin­ued suc­cess as a war leader and a greater abil­ity to reward fol­low­ers enhanced Brant’s rep­u­ta­tion with the Mohawks and the upper nations.

As a result, Brant began to extend his alliances with other Mohawks. At the end of 1779 Brant mar­ried Catharine Croghan, a matron of the tur­tle clan and the niece of the Mohawk sachem Tekarihoka.24 The mar­riage allied Molly and Joseph Brant’s wolf clan with the tur­tle clan and gave Brant the sup­port of two clan matrons who exer­cised con­sid­er­able influ­ence with the war­riors. Addi­tion­ally, Brant redis­trib­uted the presents he received from Haldimand to cul­ti­vate alliances with war­riors and chiefs out­side of Cana­jo­harie. In par­tic­u­lar, the large and influ­en­tial Hill fam­ily, con­sist­ing of chiefs David, Isaac and Aaron, became his staunch allies. Brant’s grow­ing sta­tus was evi­dent in the size of the war par­ties he was able to equip and lead. In 1778 Brant mus­tered fewer than 30 war­riors, but in the two– year period between 1780 and 1782 he led par­ties rang­ing between 100 and 360 warriors.25

Brant’s rapid rise was not with­out con­se­quence. The fre­quent demands he made for pro­vi­sions kept his fol­low­ers sat­is­fied but irri­tated Indian Depart­ment offi­cers. As the num­ber of Brant’s fol­low­ers increased, so did his requests. When an offi­cer com­plained that Brant made greater demands on the store and was “more dif­fi­cult to please than any of the other Chiefs,” Haldimand responded that he “had no doubt of [Brant] being dif­fi­cult to please and of con­tribut­ing to the gen­eral expense, but he has cer­tainly mer­ited much atten­tion.” He com­manded his offi­cers to keep “Joseph and his fol­low­ers in Temper.”26 Ten­sions within the depart­ment erupted in the spring of 1781 when Brant and Guy John­son quar­relled. Although the cause of the dis­pute is unknown, word of the dis­agree­ment soon reached Haldimand. Con­cerned about the effects of a seri­ous breach in the Indian Depart­ment, Haldimand insisted that the dis­pute be resolved in Brant’s favour.27 I n addi­tion, Brant’s rela­tion­ship with John But­ler also dete­ri­o­rated towards the end of the war. Brant accused But­ler of not out­fit­ting his war par­ties prop­erly. Both men appealed to Haldimand, but the gen­eral refused to do any­thing to antag­o­nize either his most trusted chief or his most capa­ble Indian agent.28 Brant’s con­stant striv­ing to extend his influ­ence with the Mohawks began to alien­ate the very friends that had assisted his rise to power. That sum­mer Brant became even more iso­lated from the mil­i­tary estab­lish­ment at Nia­gara when his old ally Colonel Bolton died in a shipwreck.

By the sum­mer of 1782 the Six Nations had become aware that the war was wind­ing down to an unsuc­cess­ful conclusion.29 When the terms of the peace became known in May 1783, the Six Nations felt utterly betrayed. Not only had Britain excluded them from the Treaty of Paris, but their lands had also been ceded to the United States. At Nia­gara, a del­e­ga­tion of chiefs approached British Gen­eral Maclean to insist that they “were free allies — not sub­jects to the King of Eng­land — that he had no right to grant their land nor would they sub­mit to it.”30 When Sir John John­son, Guy Johnson’s replace­ment, tried to reas­sure the chiefs that the King would con­tinue to pro­tect them, the lead­ing Seneca chief Sayen­garaghta con­fronted the super­in­ten­dent with a litany of Britain’s bro­ken promises and decep­tions. He demanded that the King pro­vide a mate­r­ial demon­stra­tion of his con­cern by sup­port­ing the Six Nations should it become nec­es­sary to resume the con­flict with the United States, a sen­ti­ment that met with the approval of the other chiefs and sachems.31

Brant, no less than the other chiefs, was incensed at Britain’s betrayal, but he adopted a more sub­tle approach. It had become obvi­ous that Britain would no longer sup­port its native allies in war, but Brant believed that the gov­ern­ment might assist the Iro­quois in the tran­si­tion to peace. After all, loy­al­ists had already begun to sub­mit claims, and four years ear­lier Haldimand had promised assis­tance to the Mohawks. There­fore, Brant avoided recrim­i­na­tions and demands for jus­tice that would never be met and focused on wring­ing con­ces­sions from the government.

In delib­er­at­ing with Haldimand, Brant sought to con­vince the gen­eral that the Mohawks were at least as deserv­ing of reward as other kinds of loy­al­ists. Brant reminded Haldimand how the Mohawks had “in con­fi­dence and expec­ta­tion of a reci­procity … deter­mined … to adhere to our alliance at the risk of our lives, fam­i­lies and property.”32 Unlike Sayen­garaghta, Brant avoided issues of sov­er­eignty or ques­tions about the King’s author­ity to cede Mohawk lands that would only embar­rass and irri­tate Haldimand. Rather, he argued that Britain was duty bound to com­pen­sate Mohawk loy­alty and sac­ri­fice in defence of the King’s cause. Haldimand responded read­ily to Brant’s appeals because he had always believed that the British-Iroquois alliance was, at heart, an elab­o­rate patron-client rela­tion­ship. The rapid­ity with which the two men reached an arrange­ment con­trasted sharply with way Haldimand and John­son had ear­lier brushed aside the Six Nations’ demands for justice.

As with all loy­al­ist claims, the gov­ern­ment com­pen­sated indi­vid­u­als on the basis of loy­alty rather than their losses. Con­se­quently, Brant and the Mohawks received the promise of new lands, sup­port for the con­struc­tion of a mill, a church and a school and £15,000 in claims money. The five upper nations received only £12,000, divided equally between cash and presents. In addi­tion, the Six Nations could if they wished join the Mohawks wher­ever they might resettle.33 The final agree­ment demon­strates the lim­its of Brant’s power and vision. As a chief, Brant’s inter­est did not extend much beyond his Mohawk-centred alliance net­work. It is not sur­pris­ing then that the Mohawks ben­e­fited the most from the peace.

Isabel Kel­say has argued that the expe­ri­ence of the rev­o­lu­tion trans­formed Brant from a loy­al­ist into a chief, who iden­ti­fied more closely with his people.34 The war, how­ever, did not pose such a chal­lenge to his iden­tity. Brant had never sought to ape his Eng­lish friends or assist Britain in its impe­r­ial ambi­tions. Rather, Brant con­sis­tently and relent­lessly strug­gled through­out the war to estab­lish his author­ity as a chief. In order to achieve his goals, Brant crafted a pub­lic image that was cal­cu­lated to win con­ces­sions from colo­nial and impe­r­ial offi­cials. But we should view this as a tac­tic to fur­ther his objec­tives and pre­serve Mohawk inde­pen­dence at a time when the Mohawks were weak­ened and with­out a home. Loy­alty was, after all, the only real claim the Mohawks had on Britain. We can­not pos­si­bly hope to under­stand Joseph Brant if we pull him apart and exam­ine his con­stituent parts — a war chief here, a loy­al­ist there, a Mohawk at one time, an Eng­lish­man at another. Brant was a whole man who cre­atively adapted Iro­quois cus­toms in order to take advan­tage of what­ever few oppor­tu­ni­ties colo­nial­ism pre­sented. To view Brant and the Mohawks, and by exten­sion the Six Nations, as loy­al­ists over­looks the fun­da­men­tal con­ti­nu­ity that con­nected the post­war Iro­quois with their past and informed their present.

[1] See, for exam­ple, Ger­ald Craig, Upper Canada, 1784–1841: The For­ma­tive Years (Toronto: McClel­land and Stew­art, 1963); 4, Robert S. Allen, His Majesty’s Indian Allies: British Indian Pol­icy in the Defence of Canada, 1774–1815 (Toronto and Oxford: Dun­durn Press, 1992), 196; Jef­frey L. McNairn, The Capac­ity to Judge: Pub­lic Opin­ion and Delib­er­a­tive Democ­racy in Upper Canada, 1791–1854 (Toronto: Uni­ver­sity of Toronto Press, 2000), 219–20. Even his­to­ri­ans of Canada’s native peo­ples care­lessly employ the term Loy­al­ist Iro­quois. For exam­ple, J.R. Miller, Sky­scrap­ers Hide the Heav­ens: A His­tory of Indian-White Rela­tions in Canada (Toronto: Uni­ver­sity of Toronto Press, 1991), 85, and Olive Patri­cia Dickason

[2] Charles M. John­ston, The Val­ley of the Six Nations (Toronto: Cham­plain Soci­ety, 1964), 52.

[3] William L. Stone, The Life of Joseph Brant — Thayen­da­negea (4^th edi­tion, New York: H & E Phin­ney, 1846); Isabel Kel­say, Joseph Brant, 1742–1807: A Man of Two Worlds (Syra­cuse: Syra­cuse Uni­ver­sity Press, 1984); Charles M. John­ston, “Joseph Brant, the Grand River Lands and the North­west Cri­sis,” Ontario His­tory 55 (Dec. 1963), 271–72; James O’Donnell, “Joseph Brant,” in Amer­i­can Indian Lead­ers: Stud­ies in Diver­sity ed. R. Davis Edmunds (Lin­coln and Lon­don: Uni­ver­sity of Nebraska Press, 1980).

[4] Mary A. Druke, “Link­ing Arms: The Struc­ture of Iro­quois Inter­tribal Diplo­macy,” Beyond the Covenant Chain ed. James H. Mer­rell and Daniel Richter (Syra­cuse: Syra­cuse Uni­ver­sity Press, 1987), 30–31.

[5] Ibid., 30–32.

[6] Stone, Life of Joseph Brant, 19.

[7] Kel­say, Joseph Brant, 115–16.

[8] John Christo­pher Guz­zardo, “Sir William Johnson’s Offi­cial Fam­ily: Patron and Clients in an Anglo-American Empire” Ph.D dis­ser­ta­tion Syra­cuse Uni­ver­sity, 1975; Robert William Ven­ables, “Tryon County, 1775−1783” Ph.D dis­ser­ta­tion Van­der­bilt Uni­ver­sity, 1967, 176–178.

[9] Jour­nal of Indian Affairs, Jan. 17–31, 1765, The Papers of Sir William John­son (14 v. Albany: Uni­ver­sity of the State of New York) 11: 555–56; Jour­nal of Indian Affairs, Dec. 24–25, 1765, Ibid., 11: 984–85.

[10] James Tay­lor Car­son, “Molly Brant: From Clan Mother to Loy­al­ist Chief,” in Sifters: Native Amer­i­can Women’s Lives ed. Theda Per­due (New York: Oxford Uni­ver­sity Press, 2001), 53.

[11] Reply of the Cana­jo­harie Mohawks to the Tryon Com­mit­tee of Safety, in Stone, Life of Joseph Brant, 113.

[12] Speech of Cap­tain Brant to Lord George Ger­main, March 14, 1776, Doc­u­ments Rel­a­tive to the Colo­nial His­tory of the State of New York, ed. E.B. O’Callaghan (15 v. Albany: Weed, Par­sons, and Com­pany, 1854–1887), 8: 670–71. Here­after cited DRCHSNY. Answer of Cap­tain Brant to Lord Ger­main, May 7, 1776, DRCHSNY, 8: 678.

[13] Jour­nal of Indian Affairs, Sept. 20–22, 1764, John­son Papers 11: 359–60; Jour­nal of Indian Affairs, Dec. 24–25, 1765, Ibid., 11: 984–85; Meet­ing of an Albany Com­mit­tee with the Mohawks, Dec. 21–22, 1773, Ibid., 8: 966–67.

[14] S.J.R. Noël, Patrons, Clients, Bro­kers: Ontario Soci­ety and Pol­i­tics, 1791–1896 (Toronto: Uni­ver­sity of Toronto Press, 1990), 13–14.

[15] Kel­say, Joseph Brant, 185–88.

[16] Tay­lor and Duf­fin to D. Claus, Oct. 26, 1778, Fred­er­ick Haldimand Papers (Lon­don: World Micro­film Pub­li­ca­tions, 1978) 21774, 9–10, Queen’s Archives, Queen’s Uni­ver­sity, Kingston, Ontario. Here­after cited HP. D. Claus to F. Haldimand, Nov. 30, 1778, HP 21774, 19–20.

[17] D. Claus to F. Haldimand, Sept. 15, 1778, HP 21774, 13; D. Claus to F. Haldimand, Mar. 17, 1779, HP 21774, 29–30.

[18] D. Claus to Sec­re­tary Knox, Nov. 6, 1777, DRCHSNY, 8: 723–24; M. Bolton to F. Haldimand, Dec. 16, 1777, HP 21760, 13; M. Bolton to F. Haldimand, Feb 2, 1778, HP 21765, 13–14; D. Claus to F. Haldimand, Sept. 15, 1778, HP 21774, 3; D. Claus to F. Haldimand, Oct. 13, 1778, HP 21774, 6.

[19] M. Bolton to F. Haldimand, Feb. 12, 1779, HP 21760, 92–93.

[20] Kel­say, Joseph Brant, 240. [21] For exam­ple, F. Haldimand to M. Bolton, Aug 10, 1780, HP 21764, 130–31; F. Haldimand to Pow­ell, Nov. 16, 1781, HP 21764, 264.

[22] D. Claus to F. Haldimand, April 19, 1781, HP 21774, 182–83.

[23] F. Haldimand to M. Bolton, May 23, 1779, HP 21764, 16–17.

[24] Bar­bara Gray­mont, “Thayen­da­negea,” Dic­tio­nary of Cana­dian Biog­ra­phy , (Toronto: Uni­ver­sity of Toronto Press, 1983), 5: 804.

[25] J. But­ler to F. Haldimand, Jan. 28, 1778, HP, 21765, 13; M. Bolton to F. Haldimand, July 16, Aug. 8, 14, 1780, HP 21765, 334, 344, 348; Abstract Return of Indian Par­ties, July 24, 1780, HP , 21767, 97; Return of Indian War Par­ties, Feb. 19, 1781, HP , 21767, 163; Report of George Sin­gle­ton, June 27, 1782, HP 21785, 38–39.

[26] Pow­ell to F. Haldimand, June 27, 1782, HP 21762, 95; F. Haldimand to Pow­ell, July 11, 1782, HP 21764, 312–13.

[27] F. Haldimand to D. Claus, Dec. 1780, HP 21772, 111–12. [28] Pow­ell to F. Haldimand, June 27, 1782, HP , 21762, 95, 98. [29] R. Math­ews to J. Ross, July 1, 1782, HP 21785, 40.

[30] A. Maclean to F. Haldimand, May, 1783, RG-10-A-6-h, vols. 1834–1835, 84–85, Pub­lic Archives of Canada.

[31] Pro­ceed­ings with the Six Nations, July 22–31, 1783. HP , 21779, 123–26.

[32] Brant to Haldimand, May 21, 1783, quoted in John­ston, Val­ley of the Six Nations , 40; Sub­stance of Brant’s wishes respect­ing form­ing a set­tle­ment on the Grand River, March 1783, Ibid ., 44.

[33] Haldimand’s Procla­ma­tion, Oct. 25, 1784, RG-10-A-6-h, vols. 1834–1835, 132–33, PAC. [34] Kel­say, Joseph Brant, 379–94.

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James Pax­ton was born and raised in the Nia­gara penin­sula of Ontario. He received his BA from the Uni­ver­sity of Toronto and an MA from Vir­ginia Tech, Blacks­burg, Vir­ginia. At Blacks­burg, he admin­is­tered “Smith­field Plan­ta­tion” an eighteenth-century museum house ded­i­cated to the inter­pre­ta­tion of the land devel­oper William Pre­ston and Euro­pean expan­sion west­ward. Cur­rently, he is a doc­toral can­di­date at Queen’s Uni­ver­sity, Kingston, Ontario, where he is work­ing on a the­sis, ten­ta­tively enti­tled “Bor­der­land Com­mu­ni­ties: Six Nations and Set­tlers from the Mohawk Val­ley to the Nia­gara Region of Upper Canada and New York, 1774–1830.” Text © 2002 by James Paxton.