Sachem: John Brant of the Mohawk

Being the child of a famous family is difficult in any era.  How to top the accomplishments of parents and other relatives to stand on one's own feet is a never-ending challenge.  One man who successfully met that challenge was John Brant, the son of Joseph Brant/Theyandenagea. 

John (1794-1832), was not Josesph's oldest son.  He was the son of Joseph's third wife Catherine Croghan/Adonwentishon, herself the daughter of Indian Agent George Croghan, whom we've already met in a previous post.  George Croghan had married a Mohawk woman of the Turtle Clan, who had the right of choosing one of the Sachems of the Iroquois Confederacy.  She passed that right along to her daughter, Catherine.  Thus, Joseph, already a war chief of renown, would be the father of a Sachem, though many years posthumously.  As John came of age, he was surrounded by tragedy.  His people had lost their traditional homeland in New York and were struggling to adapt to their new Reserve on the Grand River.  Hard times hit closer to home when John's older brother, Isaac, attacked their father in a drunken rage and Joseph killed his own son in self-defense.  Still, John excelled in school and in warrior's training and his parents agreed that he would be groomed for a leadership role within his society. 

Joseph died in 1807, but by that time, John's training would have been undertaken by men on his mother's side of the family.  And, there were other mentors within the tribe.  In 1812, at just eighteen years of age, John, along with John Norton/Teyoninhokawrawen, led Mohawk auxiliaries at the Battle of Queenston Heights, both men being praised by General Roger Hale Sheaffe for their "judicious dispositions" during the battle.  John was made a lieutenant in the Indian Department and served in several battles in the War of 1812.  After the War, he traveled to England in 1820 to get a formal deed to additional land along the Grand River known as the Haldimand Grant.  This effort proved to be unsuccessful, but John turned his attention to other issues, encouraging the building of schools on the Reserve.  In 1828, he was appointed resident Superintendent of the Grand River Reserve.  He also ran for office as a member of the Legislative Assembly of Upper Canada and was elected to represent Haldimand.  He would be the first Native to sit in a Canadian parliament.  His victory was short-lived when it was determined that he did not own sufficient land to be elected a legislator.  He was expelled from office and his challenger deemed elected.

In 1832, his uncle, Henry Tekarihoga passed away.  Catherine Brant appointed her son as the next Tekarihoga Sachem.  John would have only months in his new role, before dying of a cholera epidemic in 1832.