There were two principal settlements. One was on the Bay of Quinté, west of Kingston, where some of the Mohawks took up land side by side with the disbanded Rangers, in whose company they had fought in the war, and where the township Tyendenaga recalled the Indian name of Brant. A larger and more important settlement was on the Grand river, also called Ours or Ouse, flowing into Lake Erie due west of the Niagara river. Here Haldimand, by a proclamation dated the 25th of October, 1784, found homes for these old allies of England, the land or part of it having, by an agreement concluded in the previous May, been bought for the purpose from the Mississauga Indians. The proclamation set forth that His Majesty had been pleased to direct that, ‘in consideration of the early attachment to his cause manifested by the Mohawk Indians, and of the loss of their settlement which they thereby sustained, a convenient tract of land under his protection should be chosen as a safe and comfortable retreat for them and others of the Six Nations who have either lost their settlements within the territory of the American states or wish to retire from them to the British;’ and that therefore, ‘at the desire of many of these His Majesty’s faithful allies’, a tract of land had been purchased from the Indians between the Lakes Ontario, Huron and Erie, possession of which was authorized to the Mohawk nation and such other of the Six Nation Indians as wished to settle in that quarter, for them and their posterity to enjoy for ever.
The lands allotted were defined in the proclamation as ‘six miles deep from each side of the river, beginning at Lake Erie and extending in that proportion to the head of the said river’. Here, in the present counties of Brant and Haldimand, many tribesmen of the Six Nations settled. Brant county and its principal town Brantford recall the memory of the Mohawk leader, and such villages as Cayuga, Oneida, and Onondaga testify that other members of the old confederacy, in addition to the Mohawks, crossed over to British soil. Within a few years difficulties arose as to the intent of the grant, the Indians, headed by Brant, wishing to sell some of the lands; a further and more formal document, issued by Governor Simcoe in 1793, did not settle the question; and eventually a large part of the area included in the original grant was parted with for money payments which were invested for the benefit of the Indians. A report made in July, 1828, and included in a Parliamentary Blue Book of 1834[187], stated that the number of the Indian settlers on the Grand river was at that date under 2,000 souls: that ‘they are now considered as having retained about 260,000 acres of land, mostly of the best quality. Their possessions were formerly more extensive, but large tracts have been sold by them with the permission of H. M.’s Government, the moneys arising from which sales were either funded in England or lent on interest in this country. The proceeds amount to about £1,500 p.a.’.
Thus a large number of the Six Nation Indians adhered to the English connexion and left their old homes for ever: most of them became members of the Church of England, and the first church built in the Province of Ontario is said to have been one for the Mohawks.[188] In the second American war, as in the first, they remained faithful as subjects and allies; and to this day the descendants of the once formidable confederacy hold fast to the old-time covenant which their forefathers made with the English King.
FOOTNOTES:
[165] The text of the treaty is given in Appendix I.
[166] See the text of the treaty in Appendix I.
[167] From The Loyalists in the American Revolution, by C. H. Van Tyne. Macmillan & Co., 1902, p. 295. The author gives in the Appendices to his book a list of the laws passed against the Loyalists in the various states.
[168] American creditors sued Loyalist debtors in England, while the Loyalists’ property in America was confiscated.
[169] Act 23 Geo. III, cap. 80.
[170] 28 Geo. III, cap. 40.