of the Iroquois Confederacy in the 12th century. The majority of the Mohawk followed Joseph Brant to the Six Nations of the Grand River First Nation in what has become the province of Ontario. On May 22, 1784, the group of 20 Mohawk families (between 100 and 125 people) arrived at Tyendinaga. Nine years later, the Tyendinaga tract of land was officially set aside under Crown Treaty 3½, signed on April 1, 1793, by Lieutenant Governor John Graves Simcoe and thereafter known as the 'Simcoe Deed'. This tract of land, measuring was legally accepted by the British Crown, and subsequently by the Upper Canada government. A wave of Loyalists also settled in the Bay of Quinte area, and the government granted many of them land in the Tyendinaga Tract. During the period from 1820 to 1843, the Mohawk lost two-thirds of the treaty lands of the Simcoe Deed. Additional land loss has left the Mohawk with only in this area today. The major new settlement for the Mohawk and other Iroquois in Canada was the Six Nations Reserve of the Grand River (where prominent Mohawk leader Joseph Brant struggled with the colonial government for control of the land). In addition, Mohawk and others joined the existing communities of Kahnawake, Kanesatake, Wahta and Akwesasne (the latter four were mostly Mohawk settlements established along the St. Lawrence River during the colonial era prior to the war). In 1869, the Gradual Enfranchisement Act was passed by the Canadian federal government, establishing elected band councils on First Nations reserves. The first election for the Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte elected council took place in October 1870, where seven chiefs were elected to sit on the council. Land claims In 1995 the MBQ filed a claim on an area which covers 923 acres of land surrounding the Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory area, which included most of the land upon which the township of Deseronto has been built. In 2003, the federal government entered into initial land claims negotiations on the Culbertson Tract land claim. The claim is based on Loyalist settlers allegedly acquiring Mohawk traditional land illegally, during the period from 1820 to 1843, resulting in the loss of the majority of the land from the Simcoe Treaty. As set out in the Royal Proclamation of 1763, the terms and conditions for purchasing land from Mohawk included the requirement of a community vote prior to