Joseph Brant
Joseph Brant, born Thayendanegea, was the foremost Mohawk military and diplomatic leader of the eighteenth century and the central figure in the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois Confederacy) alliance with Britain during the American Revolution. Educated in English and deeply familiar with colonial society, Brant traveled to London in 1775 to secure British commitments before the war, then led joint Loyalist-Iroquois raiding forces across the New York and Pennsylvania frontiers. He understood that a Patriot victory would accelerate settler expansion at the expense of Native lands, and his military strategy was inseparable from his goal of preserving Haudenosaunee territorial sovereignty. The 1783 Treaty of Paris, which ceded Iroquois lands without Haudenosaunee consent, was a devastating betrayal. Brant spent his postwar years negotiating a land grant along the Grand River in Upper Canada for displaced Mohawks and translating the New Testament into Mohawk. He remains a contested figure — Loyalist hero and Native rights defender simultaneously.
- Lived: 1743 CE – 1807 CE
- Nationality: Mohawk
- Roles: Military Leader, Diplomat, Political Leader
