Joeseph Brant (1742—1807) was a noted Kanien'kehá:ka (Mohawk) chief whose Indian name was Thayendanegea. With close family ties to Sir William Johnson, superintendent of Indian affairs, military leader, and developer of white settlements in the Mohawk Valley of New York, Brant accompanied Johnson on his Crown Point expedition against the French in 1755, was sent to school in Connecticut, and later became secretary to Guy Johnson, Sir William's successor (1774) as superintendent of Indian affairs.
Early in the Revolution Brant was given a British captain's commission and a trip to England, where he was presented at court and had his portrait painted by George Romney. Returning to America, Brant assumed leadership of the British Indians in New York and northern Pennsylvania, where he directed or participated in battles and terror-inspiring raids from 1777 through 1783. Following the Revolution he settled in Canada and was instrumental in securing British grants of money and Canadian land to indemnify the Iroquois for their war losses in the United States. Draper was long aware of this key figure in the Revolution in his native state, and in 1851 “Sketches of the Seneca Chiefs, Brant & other Iroquois leaders,” was thirteenth on Draper's list of projected books.
Although sources related to Brant came into Draper's possession from time to time, their acquisition was usually incidental to one of his other research interests. Not until 1876 did he seriously consider committing himself to a biography of Brant alone. Most papers comprising this series were acquired, noted, and arranged by Draper during three years of intensive correspondence and collecting activity from 1877 to 1880. Yet in the latter year, at the peak of his research on the Kanien'kehá:ka (Mohawk) Loyalist leader, Draper was persuaded to lay aside this project in order to draft King's Mountain and Its Heroes, and the Brant biography was never written.
