John William Gerard de Brahm

Who was John William Gerard de Brahm?

John William Gerard de Brahm was a German cartographer, engineer and mystic.

He was born in Koblenz, the eighth child of a court musician employed by the Elector of Trier. He became "Captain Engineer" in the Imperial Army, but after his marriage emigrated to the British colony of Georgia. In the 1750s they baptized children at the "Independent Congregational Churches" in Stoney Creek and later Charleston, in present-day South Carolina.

In 1754 he was appointed by the British as surveyor general for Georgia Colony. In August 1756 he traveled to the Cherokee Overhill country on the banks of the Little Tennessee River as the engineer constructing Fort Loudoun. He is said to have been the most prolific mapmaker in the Southern Colonies in the late eighteenth century. Formerly an ally of European colonisation, his contact with American Indians led him to despise European imperialism as a sin which would ultimately bring destruction to the world. He believed that the American Indians had been corrupted by the immorality of traders and their attempts to civilise them. He was imprisoned in France by the American Revolutionary government, accused of being loyal to the British cause.