Thayendanegea or Joseph Brant was a Mohawk military and political leader, based in present-day New York and, later, Brantford, in what is today Ontario, who was closely associated with Great Britain during and after the American Revolution. Perhaps the best known Native American of his generation, he met many of the most significant American and British people of the age, including both United States President George Washington and King George III of Great Britain.
A 1776 portrait of Brant by George Romney
Joseph Brant, watercolour by William Armstrong
Joseph Thayendaneken, The Mohawk Chief, 1776.
Portrait of Joseph Brant by Charles Willson Peale (1797)
The Kanien'kehá:ka are in the easternmost section of the Haudenosaunee, or Iroquois Confederacy. They are an Iroquoian-speaking Indigenous people of North America, with communities in southeastern Canada and northern New York State, primarily around Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence River. As one of the five original members of the Iroquois League, the Mohawk are known as the Keepers of the Eastern Door – the traditional guardians of the Iroquois Confederation against invasions from the east.
Thayendanegea or Joseph Brant, by Gilbert Stuart (1786)
Kanienʼkehá:ka dancer at a pow wow in 2015
Contemporary Quebec Kanienʼkehá꞉ka dance performance at Wikimania 2017
Teyoninhokovrawen (John Norton) played a prominent role in the War of 1812, leading Iroquois warriors from Grand River into battle against Americans. Norton was part Cherokee and part Scottish.