As consort of Sir William Johnson, Mary Brant's (1736-1796) influence with Indian leaders helped Johnson to pacify the Indian nations he dealt with as a representative of the British government. After his death, she was able to influence the Iroquois toward alliance with the British during the Revolutionary War.

Molly Brant is considered the most influential Mohawk woman in the New World from 1759 to 1776. She and Catherine Brant (her younger brother's wife) are the only women of the period on whose lives any extended documentation has survived. Brant was born in 1736 to "Margaret" and "Peter," Canajoharie Mohawks registered as Protestant Christians in the Anglican chapel at Fort Hunter. Some reports do not list the names of her parents, but simply say she was the daughter of a sachem (chieftain), and came from Canajoharie, a Mohawk (Iroquois) village located in New York. Molly is said to have received her...