Thayendanegea aka Joseph Brant, has made his presence felt on these pages many’s the time.
The Mohawk War Captain took a leading role in Lochry’s Defeat on the Ohio River frontier in 1781, which we recounted in some detail here. We reported on his efforts to raise a volunteer force of Loyalists in New York early in the American Revolution.
Sometimes he just strides in and stands there, demanding attention and deference.
Thayendanegea, aka Joseph Brant, was not born into prominence as a Mohawk, but he gained it through his association with Sir William Johnson, the Crown’s Superintendent of Indian Affairs in the years just prior to the outbreak of the American Revolution. One of Johnson’s “Indian affairs” was with Joseph Brant’s sister, Molly Brant, a formidable presence in her own right, who was Johnson’s concubine/common-law wife. That association made Thayendanegea a staunch Loyalist, and he fought with great ruthlessness and tactical acumen as a partisan of the Crown.
Now he’s showed up in Outlander, and the brief depiction is compelling.
Oh, aye, that’s him alright. Elegant, arrogant and a Tier One Frontier Partisan badass. He is portrayed by Meegwun Fairbrother, an imposing feller in his own right — a Grassy Narrows First Nation Ojibwe.
Brant was an ambiguous figure in many ways; he was a modernizer, and it appeared to some that his primary loyalty was to the Crown (and to his own interests) rather than to his Mohawk people. I don’t think that is a fair assessment, but it is not hard to understand how it came about.
Like most Frontier Partisans, Brant was a deeply flawed man, who did not always behave in the most noble fashion — but nevertheless should be recognized as a formidable man who did his best to navigate a terrible storm that engulfed him and all he cared about.
There is a low-budget but very solid documentary on the life of Joseph Brant below. The doco does not shy away from the mixed feelings and resentments about the man among his own people.
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As Outlander rolls into its final episodes, war is coming to the North Carolina backcountry. Since he left the Continental Army after Monmouth, Jamie Fraser has tried to maintain neutrality as an American version of a Highland laird on his land at Fraser’s Ridge. But neutrality is less and less tenable, as Major Patrick Ferguson seeks to drum up Loyalist support, recruiting men of Loyalist sympathies into his forces.
Some of his own tenants turn on Fraser, who is forced in turn to ally himself with Patriot militias, including that of Benjamin Cleveland, a historical figure.
Cleveland had been a Long Hunter and was a notable man in the Carolina backcountry. He’s hard = ruthless and bloodthirsty, and Jamie does not relish the affiliation — but war and betrayal has narrowed his options.
Cleveland is a thick fellow in Outlander, and this cleaves to the historical record; he was 300 pounds when he died of congestive heart failure in 1806.
Outlander also accurately depicts the manner in which civil war between Loyalist and Patriot forced men to take a side or risk being pillaged by either or both.
All roads lead toward Kings Mountain, where the most significant Frontier Partisan clash of the war will decide the fate of the British Southern Campaign.
Quixotic Mainer says
Have to be a thick dude to wear a brace of horse pistols and a d guard dagger and not look overly burdened! Kind of like sizing a bear by seeing how small his ears look compared to his head.
Outlander gives me the few times a year my wife wants to talk history, so I’m always appreciative of the show.
JimC says
Lady Marilyn got a map got a map run on the 1779 Siege of Savannah and a treatise on the Declaration of Arbroath out of Ep 5. She’s a good sport.
Rick Schwertfeger says
In his recent book author James Paxton presents his view that Brant was more an Indigenous leader than the commonly promoted “man of two cultures.” AI: “James Paxton, in his book Joseph Brant and His World: 18th Century Mohawk Warrior, argues that Joseph Brant was not a man split between two worlds, but rather a leader who embodied a cohesive, distinct culture. Paxton challenges the ‘man of two worlds’ interpretation, asserting that Brant was a product of intercultural exchange who remained fully Mohawk.” I haven’t read the book, but read a piece about it that made me aware of Paxton’s viewpoint.
JimC says
Paxton is pushing against Isabel Kelsay’s massive bio Joseph Brant: Man of Two Worlds. I lean toward Paxton’s interpretation; Brant was a product and an avatar of a borderlands culture that was changing rapidly. It wasn’t that he straddled “two worlds” so much as that he was part of a new culture that contained elements of both European and Haudenosaunee culture mashed together. That is readily seen and symbolized in his manner of dress and armament.
The Mohawk Valley of the 1760s was wildly multicultural. Its British patron was an Irishman and adopted Mohawk; its people were Haudenosaunee (Iroquois), Palatine German refugees, Swedes, Highland Scots, Irishmen, Scots-Irish and Congregationalists from New England. There was a range of religious and political affiliations that made up a society that, while not without friction, functioned admirably. Until it didn’t.
Brant’s Loyalism was partly personal — his status was derived from his affiliation with the Loyalist Johnsons — and partly a sincere belief that the Crown was a better partner for the Mohawk than the Americans. But there were plenty of Mohawks who felt that Brant confused Mohawk interests with his own, especially in the post-war years in Canada.
Padre says
Off topic, but the Youtuber Woodland Escape just posted a brief video on spooky tales and superstitions of the voyageurs, and how they reflect the interplay between their faith, the challenges of frontier life, and the influence of the surrounding indigenous cultures. And he’s going to be doing a stand-alone video on the wendigo.
He’s got some other interesting frontier stuff. He’s currently building a reconstruction of a Hudson Bay Co. trading post.
JimC says
Hah! Synchronicity — I’m going to post on that later this week. I like that guy.