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Joseph Brant
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==Career== With Johnson's encouragement, the Mohawk named Brant as a war [[Tribal chief|chief]] and their primary spokesman. Brant lived in Oswego, working as a translator with his then-wife Peggy, also known as Neggen or Aoghyatonghsera, where she gave birth to a son who was named Issac after her father.{{sfn|Paxton|2008|p=34}} At the end of the year, the Brants moved to back to his hometown of Canajoharie to live with his mother.{{sfn|Paxton|2008|p=35}} Brant owned about 80 acres of land in Canajoharie, though it is not clear who worked it.{{sfn|Paxton|2008|p=35}} For the Mohawk, farming was woman's work, and Brant would have been mocked by his fellow Mohawk men if he farmed his land himself.{{sfn|Paxton|2008|p=35}} It is possible that Brant hired women to work his land, as no surviving record mentions anything about Brant being ridiculed in Canajoharie for farming his land. In 1769, Neggen gave birth to Brant's second child, a daughter named Christina.{{sfn|Paxton|2008|p=35}} In early 1771, Neggen died of tuberculosis, leaving the widower Brant with two children to raise.{{sfn|Paxton|2008|p=35}} In the spring of 1772, Brant moved to [[Fort Hunter, New York|Fort Hunter]] to stay with the [[John Stuart (clergyman)|Reverend John Stuart]]. He became Stuart's interpreter and teacher of Mohawk, collaborating with him to translate the Anglican [[catechism]] and the [[Gospel of Mark]] into the [[Mohawk language]].{{sfn|Paxton|2008|p=35}} His interest in translating Christian texts had begun during his early education. At Moor's Charity School for Indians, he did many translations. Brant became [[Anglicanism|Anglican]], a faith he held for the remainder of his life. Brant, who by all accounts was heartbroken by the death of his wife, found much spiritual comfort in the teachings of the Church of England.{{sfn|Paxton|2008|p=35}} However, he was disappointed when the Reverend Stuart refused his request to marry him to Susanna, the sister of Neggen.{{sfn|Paxton|2008|p=35}} For the Haudenosaunee, it was the normal custom for a widower to marry his sister-in-law to replace his lost wife, and Brant's marriage to Susanna was considered to be quite acceptable to them.{{sfn|Paxton|2008|p=35}} [[File:Joseph Brant watercolor by William Armstrong National Archives of Canada.jpg|thumb|left|upright|Joseph Brant, watercolour by [[William Armstrong (Canadian artist)|William Armstrong]]]] Aside from being fluent in English, Brant spoke at least three, and possibly all, of the [[Iroquois|Six Nations]]' [[Iroquoian]] languages. From 1766 on, he worked as an interpreter for the [[British Indian Department]]. During this time, Brant became involved in a land dispute with Palatine fur trader [[Jacob Klock (colonel)|George Klock]] who specialized in getting Mohawks drunk before having them sign over their land to him.{{sfn|Paxton|2008|p=32}} Brant demanded that Klock stop obtaining land via this method and return the land he already owned. The dispute led Klock to sail to London in an attempt to have King George III support him, but he refused to see the "notorious bad character" Klock.{{sfn|Paxton|2008|p=35}} Upon his return to the New York province, Brant stormed into Klock's house in an attempt to intimidate him into returning the land he had signed over to him; the meeting ended with Mohawk warriors sacking Klock's house while Klock later claimed that Brant had pistol-whipped him and left him bleeding and unconscious.{{sfn|Paxton|2008|p=35}} At a meeting at Johnston Hall with the Haudenosaunee leaders, Johnson attempted to mediate the dispute with Klock and died later the same night.{{sfn|Paxton|2008|p=35}} Though disappointed that Johnson was not more forceful in supporting the Haudenosaunee against Klock, Brant attended the Church of England services for Johnson, and then together with his sister Molly, Brant performed a traditional Iroquois [[Condolence ceremony]] for Johnson.{{sfn|Paxton|2008|p=36}} Johnson Hall was inherited by his son [[Sir John Johnson, 2nd Baronet|John Johnson]], who evicted his stepmother, Molly Brant, who returned to Canajoharie with the eight children she had borne Sir William to live with her mother.{{sfn|Paxton|2008|p=36}} Sir John Johnson wished only to attend to his estate and did not share his father's interests in the Mohawk.{{sfn|Paxton|2008|p=36}} Daniel Claus, the right-hand man of Sir William, had gone to live in Montreal, and Guy Johnson, the kinsman of Sir William, lacked the charm and tact necessary to maintain social alliances.{{sfn|Paxton|2008|p=36}} Johnson's death left a leadership vacuum in [[Tryon County, New York|Tryon County]] which led to a group of colonists to form, on August 27, 1774, a Committee of Public Safety that was ostensibly concerned with enforcing the boycott of British goods ordered by the Continental Congress, but whose real purpose was to challenge the power of the Johnson family in Tryon County.{{sfn|Paxton|2008|pp=36β37}} In the summer and fall of 1774, Brant's main concern was his ongoing dispute with Klock, but given his family's close links with the Johnson family, he found himself opposing the Committee of Public Safety.{{sfn|Paxton|2008|pp=37β38}} {{clear}}
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