[CHAPTER I.]
Birth and parentage—Discussion of the doubts cast upon his origin—Visit of Mohawk chiefs to Queen Anne—Evidence of Brant's descent from one of those—Digression from the main subject, and Extracts from the private and official journals of Sir William Johnson—Connexion between Sir William and the family of Brant—Incidental references to the old French war—Illustrations of Indian proceedings, speeches, &c.—Brant's parentage satisfactorily established—Takes the field in the Campaign of Lake George (1765.)—Is engaged at the conquest of Niagara (1759.)—Efforts of Sir William Johnson to civilize the Indians—Brant is sent, with other Indian youths, to the Moor Charity School, at Lebanon—Leaves school—Anecdote—Is engaged on public business by Sir William—As an Interpreter for the Missionaries—Again takes the field, in the wars against Pontiac—Intended massacre at Detroit—Ultimate overthrow of Pontiac—First marriage of Brant—Entertains the Missionaries—Again employed on public business—Death of his wife—Engages with Mr. Stewart in translating the Scriptures—Marries again—Has serious religious impressions—Selects a bosom friend and confidant, after the Indian custom—Death of his friend—His grief, and refusal to choose another friend.
The birth and parentage of Joseph Brant, or, more correctly, of Thayendanegea—for such was his real name—have been involved in uncertainty, by the conflicting accounts that have been published concerning him. The Indians have no herald's college in which the lineage of their great men can be traced, or parish registers of marriages and births, by which a son can ascertain his paternity. Ancestral glory and shame are therefore only reflected darkly through the dim twilight of tradition. By some authors, Thayendanegea has been called a half-breed. By others he has been pronounced a Shawanese by parentage, and only a Mohawk by adoption. Some historians have spoken of him as a son of Sir William Johnson; [FN] while others again have allowed him the honour of Mohawk blood, but denied that he was descended from a chief.
[FN] Several authors have suggested that Brant was the son of the Baronet. Drake, in his useful compilation, "The Book of the Indians," states that he had been so informed by no less an authority than Jared Sparks. Drake himself calls him an Onondaga of the Mohawk Tribe!
Nearly twenty years ago, a brief account of the life and character of this remarkable man was published in the Christian Recorder, at Kingston, in the province of Upper Canada. In that memoir it was stated that Thayendanegea was born on the banks of the Ohio, whither his parents had emigrated from the valley of the Mohawk, and where they are said to have sojourned several years. "His mother at length returned with two children—Mary, who lived with Sir William Johnson, and Joseph, the subject of this memoir. Nothing was known of Brant's father among the Mohawks. Soon after the return of this family to Canajoharie, the mother married a respectable Indian called Carrihogo, or News-Carrier, whose Christian name was Barnet or Bernard; but, by way of contraction, he went by the name of Brant." Hence it is argued that the lad, who was in future to become not only a distinguished war-chief, but a statesman, and the associate of the chivalry and nobility of England, having thus been introduced into the family of that name, was first known by the distinctive appellation of "Brant's Joseph" and in process of time, by inversion, "Joseph Brant." [FN]
[FN] Christian Register, 1819, Vol. I. No. 3, published at Kingston, (U. C.) and edited by the Rev. Doctor, now the Honourable and Venerable Archdeacon Strachan, of Toronto. The sketches referred to were written by Dr. Strachan, upon information received by him many years before, from the Rev. Dr. Stewart, formerly a missionary in the Mohawk Valley, and father of the present Archdeacon Stewart of Kingston.
There is an approximation to the truth in this relation, and it is in part sustained by the existing family tradition. The facts are these: the Six Nations had carried their arms far to the west and south, and the whole country south of the lakes was claimed by them, to a certain extent of supervisory jurisdiction, by the right of conquest. To the Ohio and Sandusky country they asserted a stronger and more peremptory claim, extending to the right of soil—at least on the lake shore as far as Presque Isle. From their associations in that country, it had become usual among the Six Nations, especially the Mohawks, to make temporary removals to the west during the hunting seasons, and one or more of those families would frequently remain abroad, among the Miamis, the Hurons, and Wyandots, for a longer or shorter period, as they chose. One of the consequences of this intercommunication, was the numerous family alliances existing between the Six Nations and others at the west—the Wyandots, in particular.