Joseph Brant

Mary and Joseph Brant, Mohawk brother and sister, were a bridge between the Iroquois and British worlds in eighteenth-century North America. Mary (or “Molly”), through marriage to a British official, and Joseph, through education, gained solid positions in colonial society. As ambassadors of the Iroquois, they defended Mohawk interests; as people of influence within their Aboriginal nation, they built support for the embattled British. The Mohawks ultimately paid for that loyalty. American independence in 1783 robbed them of their Mohawk Valley homeland and turned them into Loyalist refugees. Joseph Brant spent the rest of his life attempting — and failing — to create a new Iroquois state in Canada.