Dagonwadonti (Molly Brant) (c.1736-1796) was an important political figure during the era of the American Revolution. She was a Mohawk leader whose power was recognized by both the Haudenosaunee Confederacy and colonial leaders–even though the framers of the declaration would write women like her out of their vision for the country.
Dagonwadonti (Molly Brant) (c.1736-1796) was an important political figure during the era of the American Revolution. She was a Mohawk leader whose power was recognized by both the Haudenosaunee Confederacy and colonial leaders–even though the framers of the declaration would write women like her out of their vision for the country.
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Today, we’re talking about one of the most important political figures of the American Revolution. She was a Mohawk leader whose power was recognized by both the Haudenosaunee Confederacy and colonial leaders– even though the framers of the declaration would write women like her out of their vision for the country. Please welcome Molly Brant.
Molly was born around 1736 in Ohio Country, an area by Lake Erie encompassing what we know as present-day Ohio. Her parents were Christian Mohawks from Canajoharie. Molly’s father died when she was young, and her mother remarried a man named Nickus Brant. Little is known about her childhood, but, growing up, Molly was likely educated at an English mission school.
When Molly became an adult, in Mohawk custom, she took on another name: “Degonwadonti,” or, “She against whom rival forces contend.”
The Mohawks were one of the six nations of the Iroquois Confederacy. “Iroquois” itself was a French name– they called themselves the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, or, “The People of the Longhouse.”
The individual nations imagined their government like a traditional longhouse, where each tribe had its own door, but were ultimately joined together as a family under a single roof. The goal of the Haudenosaunee was to live in harmony. They were brought together by the Great Law of Peace, which valued law, society, and nature, and was the first federal constitution on the American continent.
Molly was not only a member of the Confederacy, but an important figure in its politics. Each nation maintained its own council, headed by a Peace Chief and a female counterpart: a Clan Mother or Matron. These leaders were in charge of each nation’s internal affairs as well as issues of the confederacy at large.
Women like Molly were important to the function of the Confederacy: they had equal representation at tribal councils, made consensus decisions with the group, and were directly recognized by about one-fourth of the Great Law’s clauses. Clan Mothers in particular held final say on Peace Chiefs’ actions. If a Chief made a decision a Clan Mother disapproved of, the Clan Mothers could decide to take his chieftainship away by removing his crown of antlers– literally “dehorning” him.
Molly herself became a Clan Mother. In 1754, when she was around 18 years old, she went with her stepfather and a delegation of Mohawk elders to Philadelphia to discuss fraudulent land sales with colonial leaders. She was politically powerful and fluent in both Mohawk and English. In 1759, she became romantically involved with Sir William Johson, British superintendent of Indian Affairs for the northern colonies and one of the most influential men in North America during the eighteenth century.
Their union was also strategic, allying two politically powerful figures together in the tumultuous aftermath of the French and Indian War. They had eight children together. Throughout her life, Molly continued to wear traditional Mohawk clothing and speak Mohawk, and taught her children to do the same.
In their home, Molly and William organized a host of councils between colonial and Native leaders. When William died in 1774, Molly continued to engage in politics. She attended an Iroquois Central Council Fire meeting in 1777, a year after the Declaration of Independence had been issued, and voiced her support for the British.
Other members of the Confederacy pushed to remain neutral between the Americans and the British, but Molly resolutely sided with the British. She asked what Americans had ever done for the Confederacy, other than steal their land. In the end, she convinced five of the six nations in the Confederacy to support the British.
During the war, Molly sheltered, fed, and supplied loyalists. But advancing patriots forced her to flee to Fort Niagara. At the end of the war, the Treaty of Paris made no provisions for the Haudenosaunee.
Little is known about the later years of Molly’s life. After the war, she settled in Kingston, Canada on a military pension for her wartime services. She remained pro-British and pro-Haudenosaunee for the rest of her life. She died on April 16, 1796, about 60 years old, in upper Canada.
Molly isn’t a widely-known figure, but she, and other women like her, were important influences in shaping the trajectory of future political agreements in the USA. When the framers created the US Constitution in 1787, they had doubtlessly come in contact with powerful native leaders like Molly and seen the role women held in governments like the Haudenosaunee Confederacy. Yet, when they wrote “We the People” in the Constitution, they included only white, land-owning men like themselves– just about 5% of the country’s population at the time.
Molly was an innovator for her navigation of colonial and native leadership, as well as her role as a Clan Mother during tense years of colonization and war. Although the ERA wouldn’t come into existence for another hundred and thirty six years after the Constitution, it was shaped by the vision of women like Molly, who saw the work still left to be done towards equality.
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