Reading John Norton: The Past, Present, and Future of a Troublesome Archive

Nathan Ince

This past summer, Library and Archives Canada (LAC) announced an important new acquisition of archival material by John Norton, consisting of some fifteen pieces of correspondence and a journal containing 267 manuscript pages. For those interested in the history of Upper Canada, the War of 1812, the Six Nations of the Grand River, or imperial borderlands and colonial expansion in North America more broadly, this was major news. John Norton has long been a fascinating figure. Born in Scotland sometime around 1770, Norton emigrated to Canada where he was taken under the wing of the prominent Mohawk leader Thayendanegea Joseph Brant. For at least a few years, Norton enjoyed a position of some influence among the Six Nations, and he served prominently in the War of 1812 before being exiled from the Grand River under pain of death for murder in 1823.

Despite the interest of specialists, it’s fair to say that John Norton is not a household name. Even in Canada, he is easily eclipsed by more famous figures from the War of 1812, including notably the quadrumvirate of Isaac Brock, Tecumseh, Charles de Salaberry, and Laura Secord promoted by the Harper government’s bicentennial celebrations. Within academic history, however, John Norton occupies a position of first importance. As a tireless letter-writer and an assiduous self-promoter, Norton has delivered remarkable archival grist to the historian’s mill. Aside from the recent acquisition by LAC, collections of Norton’s papers are held by the Archives of Ontario, the University of Western Ontario, and the Newberry Library in Chicago. His letters likewise feature prominently in the archives of the Colonial Office, Indian Department, and British military, as well as many smaller collections. Most notably, Norton also authored a thousand-page manuscript covering a wide range of subjects, including his journey from Upper Canada to the country of the Cherokee, a sketch of Haudenosaunee history, and his own experiences in the War of 1812.[1] These sources produced by Norton have long provided historians with unique insights into the entangled histories of imperial conflict, colonial expansion, and Indigenous resistance during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.  

More recently, Norton’s historiographical prominence has been bolstered for a second reason. As part of his public image, John Norton claimed that his father was Cherokee, and this claim to “Indian blood” allowed Norton to present himself to the broader imperial public as an authentic representative of Indigenous peoples across North America. This nineteenth-century dynamic would create a remarkable parallel in the twenty-first. As creative and polycentric efforts seek to decolonize and (re-)Indigenize how the past is understood, some historians have suggested that John Norton’s remarkable writings present a rare Indigenous perspective on this important period of history.[2] Over the past decade, individuals and organizations interested in John Norton have increasingly come to accept, and even centre, his claims to Cherokee ancestry.

It is possible, however, that we have been hoodwinked. Earlier in 2024, I published an article in Ethnohistory arguing that Norton’s claims are not credible.[3] This article proposes that not only was Norton’s Cherokee ancestry likely a fabrication, but that his ancillary claims of adoption into the Haudenosaunee Confederacy and his elevation to the position of “chief” likewise need to be reconsidered. Rather than accept John Norton’s self-fashioning at face value, I explore the incongruities, counterclaims, and complexities that make it appear much more likely that Norton was an early-modern trans-Atlantic shapeshifter, stretching the truth at best, and completely fabricating his own reality at worst.

When it comes to the question of Norton’s Cherokee ancestry, not much more can be said. Scholars studying Norton recognize that essentially all evidence for these claims comes from Norton himself. As of yet, no corroborating evidence (such as any record of his father’s place of birth) has appeared to settle the question beyond reasonable doubt. Historians are therefore left to judge the credibility of these claims based on available evidence. Personally, I believe that this evidence is overwhelmingly against Norton. It is possible that time will prove otherwise! But until additional evidence can be brought to bear, it seems irresponsible to centre Norton’s Cherokee ancestry as a fundamental part of his life’s story.

Of course, none of this means that Norton is undeserving of study. Indeed, the richness of the sources that he authored, including this latest acquisition by LAC, means that Norton will continue to be an important voice in histories of Indigenous North America and the British Atlantic World. The importance of his voice, however, means that historians must more thoroughly interrogate Norton’s own motivations. In anticipation of exciting future research, I want to offer three suggestions that might help guide us towards a more productive use of Norton’s remarkable sources:

1.  The question of who John Norton was is certainly less fruitful than the question of who John Norton wanted to appear to be. Setting aside the murky question of his Cherokee father, it is undeniable that Norton worked hard to craft a particular self-presentation. How did these identarian claims influence his trajectory on both sides of the Atlantic? What challenges and counterclaims did he face? Framed in this way, Norton’s life can provide a remarkable case study in the importance of “blood” and belonging for intercultural mediators within the Atlantic World and Indigenous America.

2. Following from this, I want to propose that John Norton is less interesting as a remarkable individual and more interesting as an illustration of a common borderland archetype. Likely stemming from the fact that historians have largely based their work on his own self-aggrandizing writings, there is a strong historiographic tendency to view Norton as a larger-than-life hero. As I demonstrate in my recent article, Norton was in reality only one of many similar individuals competing for influence and prestige in the arena of Indigenous-imperial diplomacy, many of whom had much deeper, longer-lasting, and more positive ties with First Nations communities.

3. Which brings me to my final point: Historians working on John Norton’s remarkable archives must avoid facile shortcuts in search of an Indigenous perspective. Norton’s life undoubtedly reveals invaluable insights on the culture and governance of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy in the early nineteenth century, but the most interesting revelations are often incidental. For example, Six Nations resistance to John Norton’s pretensions to leadership during the War of 1812 lead to the compilation of the earliest written document outlining the structure of the hereditary Confederacy Council on the Grand River.[4] Historians interested in such questions might therefore seek out the voices of Norton’s Indigenous allies and opponents contained within these archival traces, rather than simply accepting Norton’s own version of things.

I hope these suggestions might offer some help for approaching the papers of this controversial figure. Better yet, I hope they might steer us away from sterile debates and into more fruitful explorations. As the recent acquisition by LAC demonstrates, there is unquestionably much research left to be done. While our understanding of John Norton will continue to evolve, it seems likely that he will remain a major historiographic presence for a long time to come.

Nathan Ince is an assistant professor at Université de Sherbrooke. His article “”As Long as that Fire Burned”: Indigenous Warriors and Political Order in Upper Canada, 1837-1842″ won the 2022 prize for the best article published in the Canadian Historical Review.

[1] For an overview of this source base, see Carl Benn. “Missed Opportunities and the Problem of Mohawk Chief John Norton’s Cherokee Ancestry.” Ethnohistory 59, no. 2 (2012): 261–91.

[2] Benn. “Missed Opportunities,” 263; Cecilia Morgan, Travellers through Empire: Indigenous Voyages from Early Canada (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2017), 19-56.

[3] Nathan Ince, “John Norton Reconsidered: Influence, Blood, and Belonging in the British Empire and Haudenosaunee Confederacy, 1786–1823,” Ethnohistory 71, no. 2 (2024): 249-269.

[4] Ince, “John Norton Reconsidered,” 263.