Mohawk Trilogy

Academic Research and Background

Mohawk Trilogy Research and Family Content

Extensive research into the Mohawk trilogy, by selected example, runs as follows:

Ancestry.com, Arculus, Backhouse, Beatty, Benn, Bonneycastle, Berger, George Brown, Jennifer Brown, Cruikshank, Bruce E Hill, Richard Hill, Susan Hill, Burr-Davis family bibles, Campbell, Canadian Geography, census records, newspapers, official government files on microfiche, Chalmers, cookbooks (vintage), Daschuk, Dickason, Sara Duncan, Edible and Medicinal Plants, Fenton, Faux, Files, Greene, Graymont, Hale, Heeney, History of Canadian Geography, History of Nineteenth Century Fashion and Clothes in North America, History of Nineteenth-Century Inventions, Ibbotson, Innes, Jameson (Mrs Anna), Johnston, Kelsay, Laxer, MacDonald, McBurney and Byers, McCarthy, McKillop, McNab, Maracle, Monture, Moodie, Mormon records, Noon, Paxton, Quirk, Reville, Ruthven Park on site, Ryerson, Savage, Scanlan, Shanahan, Sivertsen, Sharpe and Pancoe, Donald B Smith, Smith's Canadian Gazetteer, Quirk, Snow and Gehring, Alan Taylor, John Taylor, David Thompson 1 (not mapmaker), Thompson family papers,Van Kirk, Trail, Warner, Beers, and Co.,Windle, all of which (whom) proved to be invaluable sources for understanding the wherefore of the writer's ancestors and the zeitgeist of one year, 1845-1846.

Census Year: 1851 Item Number: 5240 Surname: Given Name(s): Our fourth great grandmother, Kayendatye, Age: 75. Widow of

Peter the Runner and mother of Peter Davis (m. Margret Riley, O'Reilly, parents of Squire Davis). Province: Canada West (Ontario)District Name: Brant (county)Sub-District Name: Tuscarora

Local Colour: Time and Space

And most of all, there are the little details that flavour an era – for instance, squirrel burgoo was a popular dish. Kerosene was not yet in use, and the telegraph was in its infancy. Steam engines had stared to come into their own.

Mid-nineteenth century, ancient First Nations' culture clubs were disintegrating and re-forming. Newly arrived, the most prestigious Anglo-Americans (UEL) sought to come together to create culture clubs with a common purpose (they were united in being anti-"Indian," and anti-Black – aka, anti-coloured). With colonial help, including the courts, some entrepreneurial robber-baron settlers and some Indigenous opportunists claimed dominance. Nineteenth-century leaders in various Anglo-American and Haudenosaunee culture clubs attempted to gentrify their communities on the backs of two protocols: rabid English loyalism and aggressive land acquisition.

Hope was the word. Always hoping to get the community's numbers up, Brant continuously claimed sovereignty for the people. The British Crown, of course, continuously denied it. More broken promises. More deception. More despair.

But we must never forget. The Grand River Haudenosaunee were very wealthy, mostly thanks to land and timber sales. The British "banked" Six Nations' monies in general revenue – to be invested (1832 - 1845) in the disastrous Grand River Navigation Company. In deplorable outcome, the ensuing story of the Navigation rivals David Grann's Killers of the Flower Moon (Osage Nation oil head-rights' tragedy).

Haudenosaunee attitude to enslaved Blacks

*Angela E. M. Files writes "According to records, Joseph Brant encouraged native people to intermarry with black people. [Brant's] daughter Elizabeth Brant (by birth name or adoption) married ex-slave John Morey. [The Moreys] were given 200 acres of land on the Bishop Gate Road near Falkland, by Captain Joseph Brant. Later it became the Tew farm. [Elizabeth and John's daughter] Catherine Morey married John H. Henderson, an ex-slave from Maryland. Their son, Cyrus H. Henderson, married Martha Marshall and lived on the family farm on the Henderson Road named by Brant's County Council to honour the family. The graves of Elizabeth and John Morey were ploughed under by the new owner of their former farmland." African Hope Renewed: Along the Grand River 1400s–1800s. Brantford: Taylor Made Printing, 2004, p82

SM

Mohawk Trilogy

Mohawk Trilogy Research and Family Content