John Norton (''Teyoninhokarawen'') (born 1770, Scotland (?) – died 1827, Upper Canada)
was a Mohawk chief, Indian Department interpreter and a school master. He was adopted by the
Mohawk at about age 30 at their major reserve in Canada. After deserting the British military in the late 18th century, he became a military leader of
Iroquois
The Iroquois ( or ), officially the Haudenosaunee ( meaning "people of the longhouse"), are an Iroquoian Peoples, Iroquoian-speaking Confederation#Indigenous confederations in North America, confederacy of First Nations in Canada, First Natio ...
warriors in the
War of 1812
The War of 1812 (18 June 1812 – 17 February 1815) was fought by the United States of America and its indigenous allies against the United Kingdom and its allies in British North America, with limited participation by Spain in Florida. It be ...
on behalf of Great Britain against the United States. Commissioned as a major, he led warriors from the
Six Nations of the Grand River
Six Nations (or Six Nations of the Grand River, french: Réserve des Six Nations, see, Ye:i’ Níónöëdzage:h) is demographically the largest First Nations reserve in Canada. As of the end of 2017, it has a total of 27,276 members, 12,848 of ...
into battle against American invaders at
Queenston Heights
The Queenston Heights is a geographical feature of the Niagara Escarpment immediately above the village of Queenston, Ontario, Canada. Its geography is a promontory formed where the escarpment is divided by the Niagara River. The promontory form ...
,
Stoney Creek, and
Chippawa.
Likely born and educated in Scotland, he had a Scottish mother and a Cherokee father. His father was born in
Keowee circa 1740, and was saved by British soldiers when they burned the town during the
Anglo-Cherokee War. They took him to England and placed him with an English family. As an adult with the
baptized
Baptism (from grc-x-koine, βάπτισμα, váptisma) is a form of ritual purification—a characteristic of many religions throughout time and geography. In Christianity, it is a Christian sacrament of initiation and adoption, almost i ...
surname Norton, he married a Scottish woman, who he had a son with.
The junior John Norton joined the British Army, serving in
Ireland
Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel, the Irish Sea, and St George's Channel. Ireland is the s ...
before being assigned to
Lower Canada
The Province of Lower Canada (french: province du Bas-Canada) was a British colony on the lower Saint Lawrence River and the shores of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence (1791–1841). It covered the southern portion of the current Province of Quebec ...
after the
American Revolutionary War
The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was a major war of the American Revolution. Widely considered as the war that secured the independence of t ...
. While there he became interested in the Six Nations of Grand River, ultimately learning the
Mohawk language
Mohawk (; ''Kanienʼkéha'', " anguageof the Flint Place") is an Iroquoian language currently spoken by around 3,500 people of the Mohawk nation, located primarily in current or former Haudenosaunee territories, predominately Canada (souther ...
and culture, and being adopted into a family of the tribe. In 1804 on a diplomatic trip representing the Iroquois to England, he translated the
Gospel of John
The Gospel of John ( grc, Εὐαγγέλιον κατὰ Ἰωάννην, translit=Euangélion katà Iōánnēn) is the fourth of the four canonical gospels. It contains a highly schematic account of the ministry of Jesus, with seven "sig ...
into Mohawk for the
British and Foreign Bible Society
The British and Foreign Bible Society, often known in England and Wales as simply the Bible Society, is a non-denominational Christian Bible society with charity status whose purpose is to make the Bible available throughout the world.
The So ...
. This work was distributed in Upper Canada beginning in 1806.
Norton traveled in the American Southeast in 1809–1810, visiting many
Cherokee
The Cherokee (; chr, ᎠᏂᏴᏫᏯᎢ, translit=Aniyvwiyaʔi or Anigiduwagi, or chr, ᏣᎳᎩ, links=no, translit=Tsalagi) are one of the indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands of the United States. Prior to the 18th century, th ...
towns and meeting some of his father's relatives. He documented much about Cherokee culture and included this material in his journal, which primarily recounted events of the War of 1812. It is unique for his perspective on the war as an acculturated Mohawk raised in the British Isles. The memoir, ''The Journal of Major John Norton, 1816'', was not published until 1970 in an annotated edition by The Champlain Society; other annotated versions have also been published, including the Society's 2011 version.
Early life
John Norton was likely born in Scotland in the early 1760s to a Scottish mother and an English father of
Cherokee
The Cherokee (; chr, ᎠᏂᏴᏫᏯᎢ, translit=Aniyvwiyaʔi or Anigiduwagi, or chr, ᏣᎳᎩ, links=no, translit=Tsalagi) are one of the indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands of the United States. Prior to the 18th century, th ...
descent. The elder Norton, born in
Keowee, had been saved as a boy by British soldiers, after they burned his home village of Keowee during the
Anglo-Cherokee War. They took him back to England, where he was raised in an English family and given the surname Norton. He is believed to have married a Scottish woman, and they had a son known as John Norton.
The younger Norton began to serve as an apprentice to a printer, but ran away to join the army. He was assigned to Scotland, where he married. Next he was stationed in
Ireland
Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel, the Irish Sea, and St George's Channel. Ireland is the s ...
, where there were numerous Scots and border English immigrants, forming the
Anglo-Irish ethnic group. In 1785 he was assigned to
Lower Canada
The Province of Lower Canada (french: province du Bas-Canada) was a British colony on the lower Saint Lawrence River and the shores of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence (1791–1841). It covered the southern portion of the current Province of Quebec ...
(modern-day
Quebec
Quebec ( ; )According to the Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) is the official name in Canadian French and ''Quebec'' (without the accent) is the province's official name in Canadian English is one of the thirte ...
) after the conclusion of the
American Revolutionary War
The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was a major war of the American Revolution. Widely considered as the war that secured the independence of t ...
.
While stationed with his regiment at
Niagara (
Upper Canada
The Province of Upper Canada (french: link=no, province du Haut-Canada) was a Province, part of The Canadas, British Canada established in 1791 by the Kingdom of Great Britain, to govern the central third of the lands in British North Americ ...
) in 1787, Norton deserted the army and was discharged. For a time, he taught at the Mohawk settlement of
Tyendinaga on the
Bay of Quinte, west of
Kingston,
Ontario
Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central Ca ...
. In 1791 he traveled through the
Ohio Valley
The Ohio River is a long river in the United States. It is located at the boundary of the Midwestern and Southern United States, flowing southwesterly from western Pennsylvania to its mouth on the Mississippi River at the southern tip of Illin ...
of the United States as a trader, establishing many contacts.
During this time, Norton became increasingly involved with the Iroquois of the
Six Nations of the Grand River
Six Nations (or Six Nations of the Grand River, french: Réserve des Six Nations, see, Ye:i’ Níónöëdzage:h) is demographically the largest First Nations reserve in Canada. As of the end of 2017, it has a total of 27,276 members, 12,848 of ...
reserve. In 1794, he returned to
Fort Niagara, where he served as an interpreter for the British Indian department. He became known to
Joseph Brant, the prominent
Mohawk Nation leader, who became his mentor. While in his early 30s, Norton was adopted into a Mohawk family and clan, with Brant serving as his adoptive uncle.
Norton was given the Mohawk name of ''Teyoninhokarawen'' (roughly translated as "open door") to mark this passage. He settled in the Grand River reserve in Ontario. There he married Catherine, a First Nations woman from one of the six Iroquois nations.
Before the Canada (Constitutional) Act of 1791, on the authority of the Haldimand Proclamation, John Norton acted as interpreter in the transaction of farm land granted to 10 recipients.
Mohawk chief
Norton was strongly influenced by
Joseph Brant (''Thayendanega''), the most prominent Mohawk chief, who had led much of the tribe through the end of the American Revolution and their resettlement in Upper Canada. Norton became a protégé of Brant,
learning the
Mohawk language
Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of ...
and culture; he was
adopted into the people as
Thayendanega's nephew. Later he was appointed as a "
Pine Tree Chief", in a public ceremony, according to Iroquois custom. This was an honorary position and was not within the hereditary line.
Norton supported Brant's efforts to make the new settlements at Grand River yield more revenues for the Iroquois, especially his plan to lease land to settlers in order to develop it in a mutually beneficial way. The Iroquois were in transition to the kind of settled agricultural community which was supported by the British colonial government. By 1796 Brant felt he had to compete with the reserves established at
Buffalo Creek in New York for the
Seneca and
Tyendinaga for Mohawk at the
Bay of Quinte in order to attract more Iroquois peoples to settle at Great River. On the other side of the border in the United States, the
Onondaga and
Seneca were receiving annuities for the land they had ceded to the US government.
Unable to develop the lands rapidly enough for agriculture, Brant proposed leasing them to settlers; he was also worried that European-Canadian settlers would otherwise squat on the Iroquois lands and gain control. The British colonial governor
John Graves Simcoe
John Graves Simcoe (25 February 1752 – 26 October 1806) was a British Army general and the first lieutenant governor of Upper Canada from 1791 until 1796 in southern Ontario and the watersheds of Georgian Bay and Lake Superior. He founded Yor ...
wanted all sales or leases handled by the colonial government. "
stereotyping Indians as naive primitives, colonial officials frustrated native attempts to exploit the commercial potential of their land."
[Taylor, ''The Divided Ground'', p. 43] He opposed the idea of having whites lease from the Mohawk and used
William Claus, deputy superintendent of the Six Nations at Grand River, to carry out his policy.
[Tucker (2012), ''Encyclopedia of War of 1812'', p. 136](_blank)
/ref> With the approval of the Mohawk but not the British, in 1798 Brant sold major blocks of unused land, with revenues to be invested in a British-Canadian bank to yield an annuity for the Mohawk people.[Taylor, ''The Divided Ground'', pp. 332-334] Brant died in 1807.
Bible translator
In the spring of 1804, Teyoninhokarawen (John Norton), went to England to negotiate treaties with the British government on behalf of the Iroquois. At the request of the British and Foreign Bible Society, he translated the Gospel of John
The Gospel of John ( grc, Εὐαγγέλιον κατὰ Ἰωάννην, translit=Euangélion katà Iōánnēn) is the fourth of the four canonical gospels. It contains a highly schematic account of the ministry of Jesus, with seven "sig ...
into Mohawk. His work represented a number of firsts for the newly formed Bible Society: its first translation, first publication, and first distribution in a foreign land when it was sent to Canada.
In the Mohawk Chapel
His Majesty's Royal Chapel of the Mohawks in Brantford, Ontario is the oldest surviving church building in Ontario and was the first Anglican church in Upper Canada. It is one of only three Chapels Royal in Canada. In 1981, the chapel was designa ...
at Brantford, Ontario
Brantford ( 2021 population: 104,688) is a city in Ontario, Canada, founded on the Grand River in Southwestern Ontario. It is surrounded by Brant County, but is politically separate with a municipal government of its own that is fully independe ...
, a memorial stained-glass window portrays the 1806 distribution of the Gospel in Mohawk. The bottom panel of the window is inscribed with Norton's preface to his translation: "Let us strictly adhere to what the Lord has transmitted to us in the Holy Scriptures, that thereby the unbelievers may know that love we bear the commandments of God." (from a bookmark produced by th
Canadian Bible Society
To Cherokee country
In 1809-1810 Norton had a lengthy trip to the American Southeast, where he traveled through the still extensive Cherokee territory, in part to try to find his father's people. He did meet relatives and was accepted as Cherokee when they learned his story. The people were under pressure from land encroachment by settlers and state governments, particularly Georgia.
Norton kept detailed accounts of what he saw and described Cherokee towns and culture in his ''The Journal of Major John Norton, 1816.'' This journal was edited by Carl F. Klinck and James J. Talman, and republished in 1970 as part of the General Series of the Champlain Society.
War of 1812
Norton stayed active with the Mohawk after Brant's death, although he had to deal with intervention from Claus. The latter had been promoted in 1800 to deputy superintendent of the Indian Department of Upper Canada. Claus courted the Mohawk and other local tribes to gain their alliance in a period of growing tensions with the United States after 1807. Norton led a handful of Six Nations warriors into battle in Tecumseh's offensive in 1811 against the Americans
Americans are the citizens and nationals of the United States of America.; ; Although direct citizens and nationals make up the majority of Americans, many dual citizens, expatriates, and permanent residents could also legally claim Ame ...
at Tippecanoe.
When the War of 1812
The War of 1812 (18 June 1812 – 17 February 1815) was fought by the United States of America and its indigenous allies against the United Kingdom and its allies in British North America, with limited participation by Spain in Florida. It be ...
between Britain and the United States began, Norton was quick to join British General Isaac Brock at Detroit
Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at t ...
, despite the official neutrality of the Canadian Six Nations. Following Brock's success at Detroit, more Six Nations warriors joined the British forces as allies. Their timely arrival at Queenston Heights
The Queenston Heights is a geographical feature of the Niagara Escarpment immediately above the village of Queenston, Ontario, Canada. Its geography is a promontory formed where the escarpment is divided by the Niagara River. The promontory form ...
, under the leadership of Major Norton, John Brant (Joseph's son), and Lieutenant Kerr of the Indian Department
The Indian Department was established in 1755 to oversee relations between the British Empire and the First Nations of North America. The imperial government ceded control of the Indian Department to the Province of Canada in 1860, thus setting ...
, was crucial to British victory. William Claus also commanded a unit there.
The following year (1813), Norton and his warriors covered the British retreat to Burlington Heights (present-day Hamilton, Ontario
Hamilton is a port city in the Canadian province of Ontario. Hamilton has a population of 569,353, and its census metropolitan area, which includes Burlington and Grimsby, has a population of 785,184. The city is approximately southwest of ...
) after the Americans took Fort George. The First Nations warriors provided scouts before a successful night attack at the Battle of Stoney Creek, and contributed to the rout of the Americans at the Battle of Beaver Dams.
Following Queenston Heights, Norton continued to lead larger bands of Iroquois warriors into several of the war's most significant battles. His journal, published under the title ''The Journal of Major John Norton, 1816'', offers one of the most thorough firsthand accounts of the War of 1812. Norton included in the journal an account of his earlier travel to the Cherokee in the American Southeast around 1809-1810. He described their settlements and culture at the start of their final golden age before the Trail of Tears in the late 1830s and forced removal west of the Mississippi River to Indian Territory
The Indian Territory and the Indian Territories are terms that generally described an evolving land area set aside by the United States Government for the relocation of Native Americans who held aboriginal title to their land as a sovereign ...
. Norton always intended his journal as a document for publication.
Historian Carl Benn addresses the question of "how Mohawk" Norton was and what viewpoint his journal of the War of 1812 reflects. He notes that Norton's formative years were spent in Scotland, with a Scots mother and a Cherokee father who was raised from childhood with the English. Norton was not adopted by the Mohawk until after the age of 30, but was very close to his mentor Joseph Brant. Benn concludes that, "by the Mohawk standards of the period, John Norton was a Mohawk." The tribe had a tradition of incorporating persons of other ancestries into their culture, although such adoptions usually were of more malleable children and young women. Benn noted that some of Norton's "adversaries used his origins to defame him."[. Online a]
Google Books
/ref>
Later years
Norton's final years are a mystery. There were suggestions that he had left Canada and moved as far as Laredo, Mexico
Mexico (Spanish language, Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a List of sovereign states, country in the southern portion of North America. It is borders of Mexico, bordered to the north by the United States; to the so ...
. His date of death is unknown but his last mention in records was in 1826. The Champlain Society gave his death date as 1827.
An existing manuscript of ''John Norton's Journal'' is the property of His Grace the twelfth Duke of Northumberland. It is contained in two large notebooks in the library of Alnwick Castle at Alnwick, Northumberland
Alnwick ( ) is a market town in Northumberland, England, of which it is the traditional county town. The population at the 2011 Census was 8,116.
The town is on the south bank of the River Aln, south of Berwick-upon-Tweed and the Scottish bo ...
.
Family tree
(MEN) Walter G. McNaughton; George S. Norton; John (Teyoninhokovrawen) Norton; Abrham Q. Norton; Theodore D. Norton; Daniel Sheldon Norton; John M. Norton Sr.; John M. Norton Jr.; Daniel J. Norton; David R. Norton; Connor J. Norton; Alec R. Norton; Robert Norton; Peter Norton
Peter Norton (born November 14, 1943) is an American programmer, software publisher, author, and philanthropist. He is best known for the computer programs and books that bear his name and portrait. Norton sold his software business to Symant ...
.
(WOMEN) Martha A. McNaughton; Florence T. Norton; Elizabeth M. Norton; Agness W. Norton; Jane P. Norton; Barbara W. Norton; Kathleen E. Norton; N/A, Amanda G. Norton.
Footnotes
Further reading
* Benn, Carl, ed. ''A Mohawk Memoir from the War of 1812: John Norton-Teyoninhokarawen'' (U of Toronto Press, 2019)
*Boyce, Douglas W. "A Glimpse of Iroquois Culture History through the eyes of Joseph Brant and John Norton." ''Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society'' 1973 117 (4): 286-294.
*Fogelson, Raymond D. "Major John Norton as Ethno-Ethnologist." ''Journal of Cherokee Studies'' 1978 3 (4): 250-255.
*Johnston, Charles M. "William Claus and John Norton: A Struggle for Power in Old Ontario." ''Ontario History'' 1965 57 (2): 101-108.
*Klinck, Carl F. "New Light on John Norton." ''Transactions of the Royal Society of Canada'' 1966 4 (Section 2): 167-177.
*Klinck, Carl F. and James J. Talman. ''The Journal of Major John Norton, 1816''. Toronto: Champlain Society Publications, 1970.
*Taylor, Alan, ''The Divided Ground, Indians, Settlers, and the Northern Borderland of the American Revolution'', 2006,
*Tucker, Spencer B. ''The Encyclopedia of the War of 1812: A Political, Social, and Military History,'' ABC-CLIO, 2012
External links
Biography: John Norton
''Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online''
''The Journal of Major John Norton,'' Edited with Introduction and Notes by Carl F. Klinck and James J. Talman. (Toronto: Champlain Society, 1970)
full text online
Central Michigan University
{{DEFAULTSORT:Norton, John
1760s births
1820s deaths
Year of birth uncertain
Year of death uncertain
British Indian Department
Indigenous leaders in Ontario
Canadian Mohawk people
Canadian people of Cherokee descent
Canadian people of Scottish descent
Indigenous people of the War of 1812
Persons of National Historic Significance (Canada)
Six Nations of the Grand River