Family History, Grand River Settlement, and the Political World of Eighteenth-Century Thayendanegea Joseph Brant The following historical background is intended to contextualize themes, settings, tensions, and political realities surrounding S. Minsos’s Mohawk trilogy. While the trilogy itself is fiction, the narrative emerges from a world shaped by documented events, recorded personalities, family histories, and longstanding disputes connected to the Grand River settlement and the painful Haudenosaunee diaspora in Quebec and later Upper Canada, c. 1783 - 1784. Early Family Connections on the Grand River Ancestral research and family bibles identify “Peter the Runner” Davis (1775–1832) and Kayendatye (1777–unknown) as declared ancestors of the author. Until the cholera epidemic of 1832, Peter the Runner and his family farmed and cleared land on the Oxbow of the Grand River near present-day Cainsville and Brantford, Ontario. Peter the Runner and his son Peter Davis Jr. died from cholera. Before Magistrate Nathan Gage (1845), Margaret O’Reilly Davis and Patrick O’Reilly accused John Smoke Johnson of forcing the widow Margaret O’Reilly Davis and her children from the property in 1832. Records indicate Margaret later worked for Jacob Decker, who eventually left her land in his will. The 1851 Brant County agricultural census records the widow Kayendatye living at Indiana on the Grand River near present-day Ruthven Park National Historic Site. The surrounding territory, including Ruthven Park and the Grand River corridor, forms the major geographical and historical atmosphere informing the trilogy. Another figure of interest is David Davis, also known as William Karagontye. Researcher David K. Faux identifies “Karagontye” as a Wolf Clan name. Questions concerning ancestry and kinship connections surrounding John Davis and Squire Davis remain matters of inquiry. Joseph Brant and the Revolutionary Era To understand the political world behind the trilogy, a student must learn about or at least be aware of the serious and intensely difficult position occupied by Thayendanegea Joseph Brant (1742/43–1807), the Kanien’kehá꞉ka (Mohawk) leader, whose influence both gained the territory and shaped the nature of the Grand River settlement. Before the American Revolution, the Mohawk exercised sovereignty in the Mohawk Valley of present-day New York State. During the revolutionary crisis, Brant concluded that an American victory surely threatened First Nations’ territorial survival. Although several Haudenosaunee leaders preferred neutrality, Brant allied with England, believing the Crown represented the more malleable option in a clear no-win situation. Working alongside his sister, Molly Brant, and drawing upon relationships established through Sir William Johnson, Brant persuaded several but not all Haudenosaunee nations to support the British side. Oneida were split. Tuscarora joined the patriots. Military campaigns involving Joseph Brant and Brant’s Volunteers and John Butler and Butler’s Rangers conducted battles over a wide-ranging countryside and played a crucial role for England. These two men and their followers were pivotal in preventing the American revolutionary forces from controlling the entire northeastern coast and interior of the continent. The Grand River Settlement After the Treaty of Paris (1783), Great Britain ceded territory to the new United States without securing Indigenous sovereignty claims, and worse, without even mentioning their allies. Mohawk territory in New York was famously scorched. One could say Brant was furious and disgusted with the British. But his people needed him to act like an adult. Which he did. For Haudenosaunee resettlement in Québec in the aftermath of the war, Brant rejected a proposed site near Cataraqui and instead selected the Grand River Valley. The resulting Haldimand Proclamation and Haldimand Deed established a tract along the Grand River, six miles on either side ––situated within what soon would become Upper Canada. The new settlement lay close to the land of the Seneca. The new settlement was home not only to Mohawk families, but also to a broader Haudenosaunee diaspora, which included Mohawk, Cayuga, Seneca, Onondaga, Oneida, Tuscarora, and Delaware peoples. The settlement, however, existed within an atmosphere of postwar displacement, imperial uncertainty, land pressure, and enormous demographic change, which mannerists who study culture clubs call "swamping." Population, Prestige, and Political Pressure Historian James Paxton describes Brant as a “Canajoharie Mohawk,” meaning Brant was a leader acutely aware of “demographic overwhelm” (the aforementioned swamping) and territorial vulnerability as more and more American and European settlers moved into southern Upper Canada. Brant sought ways to strengthen the Grand River settlement politically and economically. He encouraged alliances, welcomed various Palatine followers into the reserve, and attempted to increase the settlement’s influence by increasing its population base. Brant owned enslaved people upon whom he settled property, and despite the period, he encouraged miscegenation. See Angela Files, African Hope Renewed. Such innovative actions, (though intended to increase the critical mass of a sovereign territory), are frowned upon today. The growing numbers of immigrants reflected the political realities of the late eighteenth century when Indigenous nations faced mounting colonial expansion, shifting imperial alliances, and loss of political clout. NOTE! The Haudenosaunee held an ace among their lesser cards. Unlike the other First Nations, the Six Nations Confederacy had cash. The confederacy was rich, very rich. The British government well knew that. Questions surrounding sovereignty, alliance, accommodation, wealth, and survival form part of the broader historical environment from which the trilogy draws background tension, setting, and atmosphere. Haudenosaunee Wealth and the Navigation Era In the early nineteenth century, the Haudenosaunee on the Grand River possessed considerable collective wealth derived from sales of land, timber, minerals, and territorial resources. In actual monies, (held in the British government's general revenue), the confederacy was wealthier than the colonial government. That wealth later became associated with the Grand River Navigation Company, chartered in 1832. Brant died in 1807. The Navigation project, extensively documented by historian Bruce E. Hill, forms an important part of the historical background relevant to the trilogy. The canal company was largely financed by the confederacy. At one point, over eighty percent of the company's shares were held by the Six Nations. The cconfederacy had no representative on the Navigation's Board of Directors, so every cash loss and territorial loss, which the Six Nations' council too-late discovered, came as a shock and grounds for a future outrage. The canal scheme ultimately and spectacularly failed, financially and practically. By the mid-nineteenth century, Indigenes within the Grand River community faced severe economic hardship, internal division, and increasing territorial loss. Canal communities, Brantford, Indiana, Caledonia, Cayuga, Dunnville, encroached on the lower part of the tract. At the close of the Navigation, c 1880, the colonial government had used up all the Haudenosaunee's significant monies on an ill-fated scheme. The widespread cholera epidemic of 1832 had only compounded the settlement's political and economic troubles, killing leaders, such as John Brant, son of Joseph Brant, along with Peter the Runner Davis and Peter Davis Jr. Scottish Presbyterianism and Upper Canadian Society Another important contextual element (affordance) involves the ideological climate of nineteenth-century Upper Canada, particularly the influence of Scottish Presbyterianism in Upper Canada and the growing loyalist colonial social hierarchy. The period witnessed the rise of a Protestant Anglo-Canadian establishment associated with reform politics, imperial administration, newspapers, and land development. Figures such as George Brown — Globe publisher, reform politician, and prominent Presbyterian — belonged to this wider social world. Eventually, Brown bought (from whom?) the Davis land on the Oxbow. Facing an adversarial climate, Indigenous political authority, Indigenous wealth, and Indigenous prestige suffered suspicion, paternalism, or outright hostility. Haudenosaunee past days of wealth were particularly denigrated. Brant’s frame home in Burlington incurred sneers. The large house, derisively, was called a “mansion.” Brant's place was far less of a mansion than many white settlers were building. But Presbyterians of the Elect, believers in reincarnation, despised the thought of any wealthy "Indian." "Indians" and people of colour were most certainly not of the Elect. During the mid-nineteenth century, the Haudenosaunee of the Grand River took it on the chin. Internal (“Why are we poor?”) and external tensions (the hierarchical natures of Presbyterianism and United Empire Loyalism) marked the broader cultural environments, which were quickly ruining the comfort and eclipsing the clout of Indigenous peoples. Historical Memory and Thayendanegea Modern Canadian and Haudenosaunee public memories minimize the historical importance of Pine Tree Chief/Captain Joseph Brant, despite a) his having played a vital and major role in the revolutionary war and b) his diplomacy in securing the Grand River tract for the Six Nations diaspora. Brant was a powerful figure in our past, but outside of southern Ontario, he is generally forgotten. Brant was NOT an English “loyalist.” Brant was a respected military leader, tireless diplomat, clever tactician and brilliant strategist. He was an educated Anglican, a Mohawk-English translator, reliable wartime ally, and a fine man to be around ––and as everyone at the time believed, always loyal to his own people. He was mistaken about his legacy (sadly, he is controversial, sometimes for matters obviously not his fault), but even in his final days, Thayendanegea Joseph Brant remained a relentless advocate for Haudenosaunee sovereignty. Knowledge of Brant, the Haldimand Deed, the Navigation era, the Grand River settlement, and the social tensions of nineteenth-century Upper Canada illuminate the historical landscape from which the Mohawk trilogy emerges, 1845 -1846.