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Mohawk Indian
Chiefs and Leaders
Onasakenrat ('White
Feather') , Joseph. A Mohawk chief, noted for his translations of
religious works into his native language. He was born on his father's
farm, near Oka, Canada, Sept. 4, 1845; at 14 years of age he was sent to
Montreal College to be educated for the priesthood, remaining there about
4 years. He was afterward converted to Protestantism and became an
evangelical preacher. On June 15, 1877, the Catholic church of Oka was
burned, and Chief Joseph was tried for the offense, but was not convicted.
He died suddenly, Feb. 8, 1881, at
Caughnawaga. Among his translations
into the Mohawk dialect are the Gospels (1880) and a volume of hymns. At
the time of his death he was engaged in translating the remainder of the
Bible, having reached in the work the Epistles to the Hebrews.
Oronhyatekha ('It [is a]
burning sky'). A noted Mohawk mixed-blood, born on the Six Nations
reservation, near Brantford, Ontario, in 1841; died at Augusta, Ga., Mar.
4, 1907. In his childhood he attended a mission industrial school near his
home, and later entered the Wesleyan Academy at Wilbraham, Mass., and
Kenyon College at Gambier, Ohio, where he remained two years, fitting
himself for Toronto University, which he afterward entered. To cover
expenses during his college vacation, he hired some white men, whom he
dressed in Indian garb and exhibited with himself in a "Wild West" show.
While a student at Toronto, in 1860, the chiefs of the Six Nations
deputized Oronhyatekha to deliver an address to the Prince of Wales (King
Edward VII) on the occasion of his visit to America, the Prince inviting
him to continue his studies at Oxford, which he entered under the tutelage
of Sir Henry Acland, Regis professor of medicine. Returning to America a
graduated physician, he practiced for a time in Toronto. He married a
granddaughter of
Joseph Brant (Thayendanegea), the celebrated Mohawk, by
whom he had a son and a daughter. Oronhyatekha was an enthusiast in secret
society work. He was a prominent member of the Good Templars and of the
Masonic fraternity, and in 1902, at Chicago, was elected president of the
National Fraternal Congress. He was founder of the Independent Order of
Foresters and held the office of Grand Ranger from 1881 until the time of
his death. He delivered an address at the Indian centennial at Tyendinaga,
Canada, Sept. 4, 1884. One who knew him personally described Oronhyatekha
as "a man of extraordinary parts. He impressed all with his remarkable
refinement. The stranger would take him for a high-class Englishman, were
it not for those racial marks which betrayed his Indian origin. He was an
expert parliamentarian, of dignified and suave yet forceful address. He
was a keen debater, poignant and witty when occasion demanded, could tell
a good story, and had a faculty of withdrawing from any situation without
leaving behind him rancor or injured feelings" (New Indian, Stewart, Nev.,
Mar.1907 ). Oronhyatekha was the author of an article on the Mohawk
language, printed in the Proceedings of the Canadian Institute.
Hiawatha (Haio'n'hwe"tha',
'he makes rivers'). A name and a title of a chieftainship hereditary in
the Tortoise clan of the Mohawk tribe; it is the second on the roll of
federal chieftainships of the Iroquois confederation. The first known
person to bear the name was a noted reformer, statesman, legislator, and
magician, justly celebrated as one of the founders of the League of the
Iroquois, the Confederation of Five Nations. Tradition makes him a prophet
also. He probably flourished about 1570, A. D., and was the disciple and
active coadjutor of Dekanawida. These two sought to bring about reforms
which had for their object the ending of all strife, murder, and war, and
the promotion of universal peace and well-being. Of these one was the
regulation to abolish the wasting evils of intratribal blood-feud by
fixing a more or less arbitrary price, 10 strings of wampum, a cubit in
length, as the value of a human life. It was decreed that the murderer or
his kin or family must offer to pay the bereaved family not only for the
dead person, but also for the life of the murderer who by his sinister act
had forfeited his life to them, and that therefore 20 strings of wampum
should be the legal tender to the bereaved family for the settlement of
the homicide of a co-tribesman. By birth Hiawatha was probably a Mohawk,
but he began the work of reform among the Onondaga, where he encountered
bitter opposition from one of their most crafty and remorseless tyrants,
Wathatotarho (Atotarho) After three fruitless attempts to unfold his
scheme of reform in council, being thwarted by the craft of his formidable
antagonist (who for revenge destroyed his opponent's daughters), Hiawatha
left the Onondaga and, exiling himself, sought the aid of the Mohawk and
other tribes. But, meeting with little success among the former, he
continued his mission to the Oneida, who willingly assented to his plans
on condition that the Mohawk should do the same. The Mohawk, the Cayuga,
and the Oneida finally formed a
tentative union for the purpose of persuading the Onondaga to adopt the
plan of confederation, and the latter accepted it on condition that the
Seneca should also be included. A
portion of the Seneca finally joined the confederation, whereon the
Onondaga, through Wathatotarho, accepted the proposed union. As the
Onondaga chieftain was regarded as a great sorcerer, it was inferred that
in this matter he had been overcome by superior magic power exercised by
Hiawatha and Dekanawida, for they had brought Wathatotarho under the
dominion of law and convention for the common welfare. Hence in time the
character of Hiawatha became enveloped in mystery, and he was reputed to
have done things which properly belong to some of the chief gods of the
Iroquois. In this mystified form he became the central figure of a cycle
of interrelated legends. Longfellow has made the name of Hiawatha
everywhere familiar, but not so the character of the great reformer.
Schoolcraft, in his Algic Researches, embodied a large number of legends
relating to Chippewa gods and demigods, and, while compiling his Notes on
the Iroquois, Gen. Clark communicated to him this cycle of mythic legends
misapplied to Hiawatha. Charmed with the poetic setting of these tales,
Schoolcraft confused Hiawatha with Manabozho, a Chippewa deity, and it is
to these two collections of mythic and legendary lore that the English
language owes the charming poem of Longfellow, in which there is not a
single fact or fiction relating to the great Iroquoian reformer and
statesman.
For further published information see
Hale (1) Iroquois Book of Rites, (2) A Lawgiver of the Stone Age; Hewitt
in Am. Anthrop., Apr. 1892.
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Thayendanega - Joseph
Brant
Thayendanega. (Thayĕndanē''kĕn',
'He sets or places together two bets,' referring to the custom of
fastening together the articles of approximate value placed as
wagers by two phratries in tribal contests. The elements are t
for te 'two'; ha 'he-it'; yenda' 'a wager'; -nē'kĕn'
'set side by side iteratively'). A celebrated Mohawk chief,
popularly known as Joseph Brant, who took an active part against the
white settlers in the border wars during the Resolution, and who
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came into official notice as a so
called "Pine-tree chief." He as born on the Ohio in 1742 while his
parents were on a hunting expedition to that section. The home of
his family was at Canajoharie Castle in the Mohawk valley, N. Y. His
father, Tehowaghwengaraghkwin, according to Stone, was a full-blood
Mohawk of the Wolf gens, and his mother was also Indian or at least
a half-blood. While Joseph was still young his father died, and the
mother then married an Indian known among the whites as Brant: hence
the name by which Brant is commonly known. ills sister Molly, the
elder child, because the acknowledged wife, according to the Indian
method, of Sir William Johnson. Thayendanegea's career as a warrior
began at the age of 13, when he joined the Indians under Sir William
Johnson at the battle of Lake George in 1755. Johnson sent him to Dr
Wheelock's charity school at Lebanon, Conn., where he learned to
speak and w rite English, and acquired some knowledge of general
literature and history. He married the daughter of an Oneida chief
about 1765, and settled at Canajoharie, where he joined the
Episcopal Church and for a time led a peaceful life. His wife died
in 1771, leaving a son and a daughter; in the year following he
married his first wife's half-sister. He was with Johnson in the
Niagara expedition of 1759, and took part in the Pontiac war of
1763, fighting on the English side. Having visited England in 1775,
he re-turned prepared to devote his energies to the British cause in
the Revolution, then imminent. He was given a colonel's commission
by Gov. Carleton, and sullied his name by taking an active part in
the massacre at Cherry valley and in the raid that desolated
Minisink, Orange County, in 1779. He was conspicuous in the battle
of Oriskany, Aug. 6, 1779, but was not present at the massacre of
Wyoming in 1778, as has been charged. After the treaty of peace
between Great Britain and the United States in 1783, still retaining
his commission in the British service and drawing half pay, Brant
was granted a tract of land, 6 miles wide, on each side of Grand
River, Ontario, on which he settled with his Mohawk and other
Irquois followers, and continued to rule over them until his death,
Nov. 24, 1807. He was thrice married; his second wife died
childless, but by his third wife he had seven children. His youngest
son, John (Ahyouwaighs) , became chief of the Mohawk tribe through
his mother, who was the eldest daughter of the head chief of the
Turtle gens. His daughter Elizabeth married William Johnson Kerr,
grandson of
Sir William Johnson. The last survivor of the Brant
children was Catherine B. Johnson, who died in 1867. Thayendanegea
was buried near the little church he had built on Grand River, 3
miles from Brantford, Ontario, and a monument placed over his grave
bears the inscription, "This tomb is erected to the memory of
Thayendanegea or Capt. Joseph Brant, principal chief and warrior of
the Six Nations Indians, by his fellow subjects, admirers of his
fidelity and attachment to the British Crown." In 1879 the grave was
desecrated and the bones were stolen by a physician and medical
students, but most of them, including the skull, were recently
restored to their former resting place. Consult Stone, Life of
Brant, 1864.
To see a more complete biography of Joseph Brant, visit:
Joseph Brant, Captain of the Six Nations
Also see:
Thayendanegea, Captain Joseph Brant |
The books presented are for their
historical value only and are not the
opinions of the Webmasters of the site.
Handbook
of American Indians, 1906
Index of Tribes or Nations
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