Mary Brant

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Koñwatsiãtsiaiéñni or Mary (Molly) Brant (c.1736 – April 16, 1796) was an important Mohawk woman in the era of the American Revolution. Brant had considerable influence within the Iroquois confederacy, more than her more famous younger brother Joseph Brant.[1]

She was the daughter of Peter Tehonwaghkwangeraghkwa and his wife Margaret, both Mohawks of the Wolf clan from the village of Canajoharie. It is likely she was baptised at Queen Anne's chapel at Fort Hunter. The family moved west to the Ohio country where they stayed until Peter's death when they moved back to Canajoharie. Margaret then married Brant Kanagaradunkwa, a Mohawk sachem of the Turtle clan, on September 9, 1753. She and her brother Joseph Brant took their stepfather's surname. Their father had a substantial colonial-style frame house and dressed in European clothes. Brant's stepfather was also a friend of William Johnson, who was to become General Sir William Johnson, Superintendent for Northern Indian Affairs.

She was described as "pretty likely not having the smallpox". Molly grew up an Anglican and she could speak, read, and write English. There are suggestions she attended a Mission school, for her letters show good penmanship and fair knowledge of spelling and syntax. In 1754 and early 1755 she accompanied her father and a delegation of Mohawk elders to Philadelphia. Her presence with such an important delegation suggests she may have been marked for a significant political role as a clan matron.[2]

In February, 1755 she had an admirer in Captain Statts Long Morris, nephew of Governor Morris of Pennsylvania. She met Sir William Johnson sometime before 1759, and moved into his house, Old Fort Johnson, sometime before their first son Peter's birth in September, 1759. She became Johnson's common-law wife and the Mohawk's treated them as a married couple. Johnson could not formally marry her because Molly was considered of a lower class. The couple had nine children together, eight of which survived. She influenced her brother, Joseph Brant, to leave Wheelock's school because she had heard that he had disgraced his manhood by working on Wheelock's farm. They moved together to Johnson Hall in 1763. In 1765 Molly got smallpox. In his will Molly is referred to as his "housekeeper". This term had a different meaning in the 18th century. She was the one who ran the household and supervised their large number of servants and slaves. In 1768, she attended the Treaty of Fort Stanwix and wielded her influence on the men. Johnson built a school nearby and they sent their three eldest children to this school.

William Johnson died in July, 1774. In his will he left each of their eight children thousands of acres of land and one-quarter of the slaves and livestock. Molly returned to Canajoharie with eight children and four slaves. She had a large house and became a trader. Her mother and her brother Joseph lived nearby. She opened a store which sold basic Indian supplies and also liquor.

In August, 1775 a passing gentleman wrote "she saluted us with an air of ease and politeness. She was dressed after the Indian manner, but her linen and other clothes were the finest of their kind".

Contents

[edit] American Revolution

At the start of the American Revolutionary War, Molly did her best to keep the Mohawks loyal to the British. She gathered information and passed it to the British. She provided food, ammunition, and sheltered the local Loyalists. She hid wanted Loyalists in her house. By 1776, all the principal Loyalists and her brother Joseph and his family had left.

She is credited with passing information about the advance of the Tryon County militia to the British in advance of the Battle of Oriskany. In August, 1777 she fled shortly before her arrest. Her departure was so precipitate she had to leave most of her belongings behind. The Oneidas and Americans took revenge on her by pillaging her home in Canajoharie. She fled with her children to Onondaga. At Onondaga she publicly rebuked Sayenqueraghta for advising peace with the rebels. Shamed, Sayenqueraghta and the other Seneca chiefs immediately "promised henceforth truthfully to keep their engagements with her late friend, the Baronet, for she is in every respect considered and esteemed by them as Sir William's Relict, and one word from her is more taken notice of by the Five Nations than a thousand from any white man". She later decided to move in with the principal chief at Cayuga. Soon after arriving in Cayuga she received messages from John Butler asking for her help at Fort Niagara. She arrived there with her children and slaves in November 1777. In the spring she was given her own house which she regarded as unsuitable. In the summer of 1778 she travelled to New York to visit several of the villages, but was back at Fort Niagara in November. She tried to persuade Butler to give her the head of one of the prisoners from the Cherry Valley Massacre so she could kick it around the fort.

Guy Johnson said that "Molly used to go to the stores & take out everything she pleased". Needing her Iroquois influence, few officers dared to disappoint Molly Brant. The commander of Fort Niagara, Colonel Bolton was annoyed by Molly's complaints and interference and he wrote to Frederick Haldimand to have her transferred to Montreal. Haldimand sent Molly a personal invitation which she accepted. In September, 1778, when she heard of the Sullivan Campaign she decided to return to Fort Niagara. She got as far as Cataraqui where she had to wait for a ship going to Fort Niagara, space was found for her in Fort Haldimand. Daniel Clause wrote to Haldimand that "and if she be not humoured in all her demands for herself and dependants (which are numerous) she may by the violence of her temper be led to create mischief - I therefore judge it would be better she remained where she was"[3]. A house was built for her on Carleton Island and she stayed there until the end of the war.

Molly worked during the American Revolution to keep the four of the six Iroquois as Loyalist allies of the British Crown. One British officer considered Molly's influence "far superior to that of all their chiefs put together".

[edit] After war years

With the signing of the Treaty of Paris (1783) it was not immediately know which side of the border Carleton Island was located. In November 1783, most of the inhabitants including Molly moved to Cataraqui. (near Kingston, Ontario) The government built a mansion for her which was described as being 40 by 30 feet with one and one-half stories. She needed a large house for her six children and three slaves. A house for her brother Joseph was built next door. She was also granted a pension of one hundred pounds per year. She was also awarded about twelve hundred pounds for her losses in the American Revolution.

She died April 16, 1796 in Cataraqui and was buried in an unmarked grave in St. Pauls' Churchyard in Kingston.

[edit] Clan Matron

Daniel Claus in a letter to Frederick Haldimand in 1779 referred to her as "being at the head of a society of Six Nation Matrons"[4] although historian Robert Allen writes that "there is no substantive evidence to suggest that Molly was ever a clan matron or mother within the Iroquois matrilineal society."[5] Much of Brant's influence came from her common-law marriage to Sir William Johnson, the Superintendent of Indian Affairs for the northern colonies of the British Empire in North America. Daniel Claus wrote in a letter to Sir John Johnson in 1780, "she pretends to have the same influence as when your father was [alive]"[6]

[edit] Legacy

Her son Peter Johnson captured Ethan Allen near Montreal, and died at the Battle of Mud Island, October 21, 1777. Five of her daughters married non-Indians and one daughter never married.

A devout Anglican, she is commemorated in the Calendar of saints of the Anglican Church of Canada on April 16.


│
├──────┬──────────┬──────────┬─────────┬─────┬─────┬────────┐
│      │          │          │         │     │     │        │
│      │          │          │         │     │     │        │    
Peter  Elizabeth  Magdelene  Margaret  │     Mary  Susanna  Anne 
                                       │
                                       Tekahiowake, 
                                       aka George Jacob Johnson, 1758-1843.
                                      +?
                                       │
                                       │ 
  Sakayengwaraton, aka Chief John Smoke Johnson, 1783-1886.
 +Helen Martin. ????-1866.
  │
  │
  Onwanosyshon, Chief George Johnson, 1816-1884.
 +Emily (m.1853)

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Graymont, Iroquois in the American Revolution, 158.
  2. ^ O'Toole, pg. 170
  3. ^ Earle, pg. 116
  4. ^ Earle, pg. 110
  5. ^ Allen, "Molly Brant", 432.
  6. ^ Earle, pg. 117

[edit] References

[edit] External links