John Brant or Ahyonwaeghs (September 27, 1794 – August 27, 1832) was a Mohawk chief and government official in

Upper Canada The Province of Upper Canada () was a Province, part of The Canadas, British Canada established in 1791 by the Kingdom of Great Britain, to govern the central third of the lands in British North America, formerly part of the Province of Queb ...

. Brant was born near the current site of

Brantford, Ontario Brantford (Canada 2021 Census, 2021 population: 104,688) is a city in Ontario, Canada, founded on the Grand River (Ontario), Grand River in Southwestern Ontario. It is surrounded by County of Brant, Brant County but is politically separate wi ...

, the son of

Joseph Brant Thayendanegea or Joseph Brant (March 1743 – November 24, 1807) was a Mohawk military and political leader, based in present-day New York and, later, Brantford, in what is today Ontario, who was closely associated with Great Britain du ...

(Thayendanegea) and Catharine Croghan Brant (Adonwentishon). His father Joseph was a Mohawk chief who became famous during the

American Revolutionary War The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was the armed conflict that comprised the final eight years of the broader American Revolution, in which Am ...

. His mother Catharine was from an important Mohawk lineage: while her father was the Irish trader

George Croghan George Croghan (c. 1718 – August 31, 1782) was an Kingdom of Ireland, Irish-born fur trader in the Ohio Country of North America (current United States) who became a key early figure in the region. In 1746 he was appointed to the Onondaga Cou ...

, her mother was the sister of Johannes Tekarihoga, one of the hereditary Mohawk civil leaders (or

sachem Sachems and sagamores are paramount chiefs among the Algonquians or other Native American tribes of northeastern North America, including the Iroquois. The two words are anglicizations of cognate terms (c. 1622) from different Eastern Alg ...

s). Because the Mohawks were a

matrilineal Matrilineality, at times called matriliny, is the tracing of kinship through the female line. It may also correlate with a social system in which people identify with their matriline, their mother's lineage, and which can involve the inheritan ...

society, the title " Tekarihoga" did not pass from father to son. Instead, the women in the family selected the next Tekarihoga from their male relatives. As clan Mother, Catharine Brant would name Johannes Tekarihoga's successor. At a young age, her son John became an obvious candidate for the next Tekarihoga. The family moved near Burlington Bay in 1802. John Brant studied at Ancaster and Niagara (

Niagara-on-the-Lake Niagara-on-the-Lake is a town in Ontario, Canada. It is located on the Niagara Peninsula at the point where the Niagara River meets Lake Ontario, across the river from New York (state), New York, United States. Niagara-on-the-Lake is in the R ...

). In the

War of 1812 The War of 1812 was fought by the United States and its allies against the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, United Kingdom and its allies in North America. It began when the United States United States declaration of war on the Uni ...

, Brant and John Norton led native warriors to stop an American attack at the

Battle of Queenston Heights The Battle of Queenston Heights was the first major engagement of the War of 1812. The battle took place on 13 October 1812 at Queenston in Upper Canada (now Ontario) and was a decisive British victory. United States regulars and New York (state ...

in October 1812. He was made a lieutenant in the

Indian Department The Indian Department was established in 1755 to oversee relations between the British Empire and the First Nations of North America. The imperial government ceded control of the Indian Department to the Province of Canada in 1860, thus setting ...

and was involved in several battles throughout the war. He helped his uncle try to get a formal deed for grant of land along the Grand River called the

Haldimand Proclamation The Haldimand Proclamation was a decree that granted land to the Mohawk (or Kanien'kehà:ka) (Mohawk nation) who had served on the British side during the American Revolution. The decree was issued by the Governor of the Province of Quebec, Fred ...

to the Six Nations. In 1821, he went to England with Robert Johnson Kerr after Lieutenant-Governor Sir Peregrine Maitland informed them that they had no title to the northern part of the grant. Despite their efforts, the government of the colony managed to retain control over the sale of native lands in the area. Brant encouraged the building of schools for his people. In 1828, he was appointed resident superintendent for the

Six Nations of the Grand River Six Nations (or Six Nations of the Grand River) is demographically the largest First Nations reserve in Canada. As of the end of 2017, it has a total of 27,276 members, 12,848 of whom live on the reserve. The six nations of the Iroquois Confederacy ...

. In 1830, he was elected to the

Legislative Assembly of Upper Canada The Legislative Assembly of Upper Canada was the elected part of the legislature for the province of Upper Canada, functioning as the lower house in the Parliament of Upper Canada. Its legislative power was subject to veto by the appointed Li ...

for Haldimand. He was the first Indian to sit in Upper Canada's parliament as a lawmaker. But a year later, his right to hold the seat was questioned as he did not own the amount of property required under the law at the time to sit in the Assembly, and he was thrown out of office. John Warren was declared elected.; Lefroy, On the Probable Number of the Native Population of British North America, 1853, p. 13 In about 1830 his mother Catharine named him as the next Tekarihoga, succeeding his recently deceased uncle Henry Tekarihoga. Brant held the office for only a short time; he died in 1832 near Brantford, a victim of a

cholera Cholera () is an infection of the small intestine by some Strain (biology), strains of the Bacteria, bacterium ''Vibrio cholerae''. Symptoms may range from none, to mild, to severe. The classic symptom is large amounts of watery diarrhea last ...

pandemic A pandemic ( ) is an epidemic of an infectious disease that has a sudden increase in cases and spreads across a large region, for instance multiple continents or worldwide, affecting a substantial number of individuals. Widespread endemic (epi ...

. He was married to Ann Seabrook on February 17, 1825.

References

*Kelsay, Isabel Thompson. ''Joseph Brant, 1743–1807, Man of Two Worlds.'' Syracuse, New York: Syracuse University Press, 1984. (hardback); (1986 paperback). * {{DEFAULTSORT:Brant, John 1794 births 1832 deaths British Indian Department Canadian Mohawk people Deaths from cholera Indigenous leaders in Ontario Indigenous people of the War of 1812 Members of the Legislative Assembly of Upper Canada Six Nations of the Grand River people