BROKEN ALLIANCE DEBATING SIX NATIONS’ LAND CLAIMS IN 1822 Elizabeth Elbourne McGill University ABSTRACT The article uses the diplomatic efforts of John Brant and Robert Kerr to negotiate land claims with the Colonial Office in 1822 on behalf of the Grand River Six Nations, while presenting themselves (however problematically) as Mohawk indigenous modernizers, as a case study in the complicated interaction between colonialism and ideas of ‘tradition’ and ‘modernity’ in the early nineteenth century. Six Nations efforts to adapt to the colonial economy were frequently stymied by the colonial state’s refusal to accommodate Mohawk demands, and in that sense modernity was a discursive trap for indigenous modernizers, not a real route to change. The failure of the diplomatic visit also illustrates the difficulties of negotiation in a changing colonial context in which indigenous peoples were increasingly seen as wards of the settler state rather than imperial military allies. Nonetheless, Grand River community members consistently tried to use both ‘modernist’ and ‘traditionalist’ strategies to defend indigenous sovereignty, whatever their internal disagreements over assimilation policies and economic options. Keywords: settler society, colonial state, Haldimand Grant, indigenous sovereignty, family networks, tradition and progress, Six Nations In1821–2,JohnBrantandRobertKerr,tworepresentativesoftheHaudenosaunee,or Six Nations, of Grand River in Upper Canada, travelled to London to meet directly with the colonial secretary Earl Bathurst. They came in order to protest against the reallocation for sale to white settlers of parts of the tract granted to the loyalist Six Nations by Governor of Quebec Sir Frederick Haldimand in 1784 at the bitter conclusionoftheAmericanRevolution.Thisdiplomaticvisithadmanylayersandwas controversial on many levels. Nonetheless, Brant and Kerr articulated a Haudenosaunee vision of sovereignty that remained persistent through time and was sharedbymembersofcompetingfactionsintheconfederacy.Thisarticleexplorestheir visitbothasakeymomentofexpressionofHaudenosauneepoliticalvisionand,atthe sametime,asanindicatorofthedemiseofanolderstyleofalliancepoliticsfounded onelitemalesociabilityandmilitaryallianceandtheriseofamoreentrenchedpolitics ofcolonialpaternalismintheaftermathoftheNapoleonicwars.IalsoconsiderJohn Brant(Ahyouwaeghs)asamanwhomightbedescribednotsomuchasanindigenous modernizer(althoughthisambiguousphrasedoesfithimtosomeextent)asaskilled negotiator who tried to deploy a variety of techniques and performances around ‘civilization’, modernity and tradition, with the central aim of maintaining ELBOURNE Broken Alliance 497 CulturalandSocialHistory,Volume9,Issue4,pp.497–525©TheSocialHistorySociety2012 DOI 10.2752/147800412X13434063754445 Address for correspondence: Dr Elizabeth Elbourne, Department of History, McGill University, 855 Sherbrooke West, Montreal, Quebec, H3A 2T7, Canada. E-mail: elizabeth.elbourne@mcgill.ca