Editing Joseph Brant (section)

==Early years==
Brant was born in the [[Ohio Country]] in March 1743, somewhere along the [[Cuyahoga River]]{{sfn|Kelsay|1984|p=43}} during the hunting season when the [[Mohawk people|Mohawk]] traveled to the area from Kanienkeh ("the Land of the Flint"), the Mohawk name for their homeland in what is present-day [[Upstate New York]]. He was named Thayendanegea, which in the Mohawk language means "He places two bets together", which came from the custom of tying the wagered items to each other when two parties placed a bet.{{sfn|''Handbook of American Indians''}} As the Mohawk were a [[Matrilineality|matrilineal]] culture, he was born into his mother's Wolf Clan.{{sfn|''Handbook of American Indians''}} The [[Iroquois|Haudenosaunee League]], of which the Mohawks were one of the Six Nations, was divided into clans headed by clan mothers.{{sfn|Paxton|2008|p=7}} [[Anglicanism|Anglican Church]] records at [[Fort Hunter, New York]], noted that his parents were Christians and their names were Peter and Margaret Tehonwaghkwangearahkwa.{{sfn|Kelsay|1984|p=40}} His father died when Joseph was young.{{sfn|''Handbook of American Indians''}} One of Brant's friends in later life, John Norton, wrote that Brant's parents were not born Iroquois, but were rather [[Wyandot people|Hurons]] taken captive by the Iroquois as young people; the Canadian historian James Paxton wrote this claim was "plausible" but "impossible to verify", going on to write that this issue is really meaningless as the Iroquois considered anybody raised as an Iroquois to be Iroquois, drawing no line between those born Iroquois and those adopted by the Iroquois.{{sfn|Paxton|2008|p=7}}

After his father's death, his mother Margaret (Owandah) returned to New York from Ohio with Joseph and his sister [[Mary Brant|Mary]] (also known as Molly). His mother remarried, and her new husband was known by whites as Barnet or Bernard, which was commonly contracted to Brandt or Brant.{{sfn|''Handbook of American Indians''}} Molly Brant may have actually been Brant's half-sister rather than his sister, but in Mohawk society, they would have been considered full siblings as they shared the same mother.{{sfn|Paxton|2008|p=7}} They settled in [[Canajoharie]], a Mohawk village on the [[Mohawk River]], where they had lived previously. The Mohawk, in common with the other nations of the Haudenosaunee League, had a very gendered understanding of social roles with power divided by the male {{lang|moh|[[royaner]]}} (chiefs or sachems) and the clan mothers (who always nominated the male leaders). Decisions were reached by consensus between the clan mothers and the chiefs.{{sfn|Paxton|2008|p=8}} Mohawk women did all the farming, growing the "Three Sisters" of beans, corn, and squash, while men went hunting and engaged in diplomacy and wars.{{sfn|Paxton|2008|p=8}} In the society in which Brant grew up, there was an expectation that he would be a warrior as a man.{{sfn|Paxton|2008|p=8}}

The part of the New York frontier where Brant grew up had been settled in the early 18th century by immigrants known as the [[German Palatines|Palatines]], from the [[Electoral Palatinate]] in what is now Germany.{{sfn|Paxton|2008|p=13}} Relations between the Palatines and Mohawks were friendly, with many Mohawk families renting out land to be farmed by the Palatines (though Mohawk elders complained that their young people were too fond of the beer brewed by the Palatines). Thus Brant grew up in a multicultural world surrounded by people speaking Mohawk, German, and English.{{sfn|Paxton|2008|p=14}} Paxton wrote that Brant self-identified as Mohawk, but because he also grew up with the Palatines, Scots, and Irish living in his part of Kanienkeh, he was comfortable with aspects of European culture.{{sfn|Paxton|2008|p=14}}  The common Mohawk surname Brant was merely the Anglicized version of the common German surname Brandt.{{sfn|Paxton|2008|p=16}}

Brant's mother Margaret was a successful businesswoman who collected and sold [[American ginseng|ginseng]], which was greatly valued in Europe for its medical qualities, selling the plant to New York merchants who shipped it to London.{{sfn|Paxton|2008|p=14}} Through her involvement in the ginseng trade, Margaret first met [[Sir William Johnson, 1st Baronet|William Johnson]], a merchant, fur trader, and land speculator from Ireland, who was much respected by the Mohawk for his honesty, being given the name Warraghiagey ("He Who Does Much Business") and who lived in a mansion known as [[Old Fort Johnson|Fort Johnson]] by the banks of the Mohawk river.{{sfn|Paxton|2008|p=16}} Johnson, who was fluent in Mohawk and who lived with two Mohawk women in succession as his common-law wives, had much influence in Kanienkeh.{{sfn|Johnson|2003|p=14}} Among the white population, the Butler and Croghan families were close to Johnson while the influential Mohawk families of Hill, Peters and Brant were also his friends.{{sfn|Johnson|2003|p=14}} Johnson's Mohawk wife, Caroline, was the niece of the {{lang|moh|royaner}} [[Hendrick Tejonihokarawa]], known as "King Hendrick", who visited London to meet [[Anne, Queen of Great Britain|Queen Anne]] in 1710.{{sfn|Johnson|2003|p=13}}

In 1752, Margaret began living with Brant Canagaraduncka (alternative spelling: Kanagaraduncka), a Mohawk {{lang|moh|royaner}}, and in March 1753 bore him a son named Jacob, which greatly offended the local Church of England minister, the Reverend John Ogilvie, when he discovered that they were not married.{{sfn|Paxton|2008|p=16}} On September 9, 1753, his mother married Canagaraduncka at the local Anglican church.{{sfn|Paxton|2008|pp=15–16}} Canagaraduncka was also a successful businessman, living in a two-story European style house with all of the luxuries that would be expected in a middle class English household of the period.{{sfn|Paxton|2008|p=16}} Her new husband's family had ties with the British; his grandfather Sagayeathquapiethtow was one of the [[Four Mohawk Kings]] to visit England in 1710. The marriage bettered Margaret's fortunes, and the family lived in the best house in Canajoharie. Her new alliance conferred little status on her children as Mohawk titles and leadership positions descended through the female line.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Logan |first1=Joseph |title=Joseph Brant |url=http://theamericanrevolution.org/peopledetail.aspx?people=35 |website=The American Revolution |access-date=July 7, 2020}}</ref>

Canagaraduncka was a friend of [[Sir William Johnson, 1st Baronet|William Johnson]], the influential and wealthy British Superintendent for Northern Indian Affairs, who had been knighted for his service. During Johnson's frequent visits to the Mohawk, he always stayed at the Brants' house. Brant's half-sister Molly established a relationship with Johnson, who was a highly successful trader and landowner. His mansion Johnson Hall impressed the young Brant so much that he decided to stay with Molly and Johnson. Johnson took an interest in the youth and supported his English-style education, as well as introducing him to influential leaders in the New York colony. Brant was described as a teenager as an easy-going and affable man who spent his days wandering around the countryside and forests with his circle of friends, hunting and fishing.{{sfn|Paxton|2008|pp=16–17}} During his hunting and fishing expeditions, which lasted for days and sometimes weeks, Brant often stopped by at the homes of Palatine and Scots-Irish settlers to ask for food, refreshment and to talk.{{sfn|Paxton|2008|p=17}} Brant was well remembered for his charm, with one white woman who let Brant stay with her family for a couple of days in exchange for him sharing some of the deer he killed and to provide a playmate for her boys who were about the same age, recalling after the Revolutionary War that she could never forget his "manly bearing" and "noble goodhearted" ways.{{sfn|Paxton|2008|p=17}}

In 1753, relations between the League and the British had become badly strained as land speculators from New York began to seize land belonging to the Iroquois.{{sfn|Paxton|2008|p=20}} Led by chief [[Hendrick Theyanoguin]], known to the British as Hendrick Peters, a delegation arrived in Albany to tell the Governor of New York, [[George Clinton (Royal Navy officer)|George Clinton]]: "The [[Covenant Chain]] is broken between you and us. So brother you are not to expect to hear of me any more and Brother we desire to hear no more of you".{{sfn|Paxton|2008|p=21}} The end of the "Covenant Chain" as the Anglo-Iroquois alliance had been known since the 17th century was considered a major change in the balance of power in North America.{{sfn|Paxton|2008|p=21}} In 1754, the British with the Virginia militia led by George Washington in the [[French and Indian War]] in the Ohio river valley were defeated by the French, and in 1755 a British expedition into the Ohio river valley led by General Edward Braddock was annihilated by the French.{{sfn|Paxton|2008|p=21}}

Johnson, as [[British Indian Department|Superintendent of Indian Affairs]], had the task of persuading the Iroquois Six Nations to fight in the Seven Years' War on the side of the British Crown, despite their own inclinations towards neutrality, and on June 21, 1755, called a conference at Fort Johnson with the Iroquois chiefs and clan mothers to ask them to fight in the war and offered them many gifts.{{sfn|Paxton|2008|p=22}} As a 12-year-old, Brant attended the conference, though his role was only as an observer who was there to learn the ways of diplomacy.{{sfn|Paxton|2008|p=22}} At the [[Battle of Lake George]], Johnson led a force of British Army troops raised in New York together with Iroquois against the French, where he won a costly victory.{{sfn|Paxton|2008|pp=22–23}} As the Iroquois disliked taking heavy losses in war owing to their small population, the Battle of Lake George which had cost the Iroquois many dead set off a deep period of mourning across Kanienkeh and much of the Six Nations leadership swung behind a policy of neutrality again.{{sfn|Paxton|2008|pp=22–23}} Johnson was to be sorely tried during the next years as the Crown pressed him to get the Iroquois to fight again while most of the Six Nations made it clear that they wanted no more fighting.{{sfn|Paxton|2008|p=23}} Kanagradunckwa was one of the few Mohawk chiefs who favored continuing to fight in the war, which won him much gratitude from Johnson.{{sfn|Paxton|2008|p=23}}