General Urban Cambridge Updates and Rumours

[tomh009]

Joseph Brant wanted to lease the land to people like Beasley for 999 years and collect the taxes from the land - he wanted to share the land with settlers but allow 6 nations to live in it. However, in many history books they paint Brant as ' a bad person' and portray that the colonists wanted to stop him from selling the land or some falsehood.

I believe you are correct that Brant wanted to coexist with the white settlers, he saw that as the best outcome for his people.

I do believe the land was sold as the documents refer to mortgages. Beasley made is payments but many others apparently did not, hoping that they would be able to grab the land for free.

A lot of research was done by James Paxton, who subsequently published Joseph Brant and His World. A book that I really should read ...