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TALENTED REDSKIN HA8 WON FAME IN ENGLAND.Joseph Brant-Sero Attracting Attention as Actor and Lecturer-Lineal Descendant of a Mohawk Chief.London. — Although the educated American Indian is fairly familiar in the United States, in England he is something of a curiosity. A redskin of this class is attracting a good deal of attention in London as a lecturer both on Indian subjects and on subjects of wider InterestJoseph O. Brant-Sero is his name and he is a lineal descendant of the Mohawk chief, Joseph Brant, who was an officer in the English army and who founded the first Protestant church in Canada. The hundredth anniversary of Chief Joseph’s death has just been celebrated by the Indians at Brantford, Ont.Mr. Brant-Sero is now 40 years old. No one who sees him can doubt for a moment that there is not a drop of white blood in his veins, for although he wears the ordinary English dress the high cheek bones, the coarse dark hair, the hawk-like nose and the copper skin all proclaim him an Indian of the Indians. When he walks along the Strand or Piccadilly it is not with the short and rather mincing step of civilization, but with the long, swinging stride of the forest dweller.He was born in the Six Nations reserve in Canada, and until he went to school knew no other tongue than that of the Iroquois. He was educated partly on the reserve and partly at the Mohawk institution, which was founded by the New England company In 1661 and was moved across the American border after the American revolution. It is in many respectssimilar to the American Indian school at Carlisle. From there he went to the Brantford Central school and attended school for half a day, working to earn his living and help his mother during the other half.Mr. Brant-Sero first went to England ten years ago. He was taken there by the Hardy Van Lear Dramatic company to form one of the Indian crowd in the play “On the Frontier,” but he displayed such intelligence and dramatic talent that he was given a leading part, previously played by a white man. He played the part more than a thousand times in England and when the company broke up on account of the death of Mr. Hardy he abandoned the stage and took to lecturing.At first he devoted himself to discoursing on Indian subjects, describing the wild life of his people and illustrating it by magic lantern views. He has lectured in every town of any size in the United Kingdom and his services are always in demand by organizers of entertainments. He has lectured in Indian costume on the life of his great ancestor before historical societies and learned ethnologists have confessed to him that he has cleared up for them many points in the history and origin of the American Indian on which they have been puzzled.“I just talk and sing for an hour and a half,” he said to me the other day. “I tell them how I was brought up and how my people live, and I sing them the Indian songs that my mother taught me. They seem to be most interested, however, in my ancestor, Joseph. Everyone in England seems to have heard of the great Indian who remained loyal to the king when the American colonies revolted and they want to hear all about him.”Mr. Brant-Sero is widely read and cultured and is a student of the basic principles of law. His standing as legal authority may be gathered from the fact that he reecntly has been ap pointed a lecturer by the Personal Legal Rights association, which has many eminent jurists among its members, and is organized for the purpose of giving assistance to poor persons whose rights are invaded by officialdom and who are in danger of suffering injustice because of their ignorance of the law. Mr. Brant-Sero now goes from town to town lecturing on the work of the association and organizing branches.
Newspaper Details
Chicago Englewood Times
Chicago, Illinois, US
Fri, Jan 31, 1908
Page 6
Full Page
Clipped by
Carol C.
NA, 03 Dec 2024
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