Molly Brant: Clan Mother and Loyalist Operative

Molly Brant appears in The Other Side of Independence because her Loyalist commitment was deliberate, sustained, and effective. She chose the British cause because British policy offered the most credible protection for Haudenosaunee land rights. Her intelligence warning before Oriskany in August 1777 changed the outcome of a battle. Her diplomatic work at Onondaga in 1778 held a wavering Six Nations council to the British alliance. The primary sources are in the Claus Papers at the Public Archives of Canada.

Molly Brant's Loyalist commitment was a strategic choice made within a Haudenosaunee political framework. The Royal Proclamation of 1763 and the 1768 Treaty of Fort Stanwix had at least attempted to establish legal limits on colonial expansion. American revolutionary rhetoric made no such promises. After the war began she sheltered Loyalists passing through the Mohawk Valley, sent intelligence to British commanders, and used her authority as clan mother to influence council deliberations. Her home was raided twice by Patriot forces.

In 1778, portions of the Six Nations were considering a separate peace with the Americans. Molly Brant traveled to Onondaga and addressed the council directly. British agent Daniel Claus documented what happened. The chiefs who had been wavering remained in the British alliance.

The British government recognized Molly Brant's wartime contributions with a pension of 100 pounds per year, a house in Kingston, Ontario, and a grant of 116 acres. The American government offered her compensation to return to the Mohawk Valley. She refused and remained in Kingston until her death in 1796. The New York legislature had ruled that Brant and her children, as Indians, could not inherit the 15,000 acres Sir William Johnson had bequeathed to them.