West of the Appalachian Mountains, the British and their Native American allies were raiding American settlements. The Mohawk chief Tyendinaga, better known as Joseph Brant, was the most important Iroquois leader in the Revolutionary Era. He was able to urge four of the six Iroquois nations to join him in an alliance with the British. In Brant’s argument, the British were much less of a threat to the Iroquois than the Americans. There had been a long memory of who had attack natives during the French and Indian War, and Brant was sure those who were wanting to expand into his territory were more dangerous than the British who seemed to want to control the Americans.

Brant and his warriors joined the British army and Loyalists in intensely nasty and deadly raids in western New York and Pennsylvania in 1778 and 1779. For example, when Burgoyne moved from Canada to Albany before the Saratoga defeat, a number of natives in his command began killing settlers. One victim’s story, that of Jane McCrea, reached major cities, and many young Americans enlisted to fight. In response to those actions, the Continental Army, under direct order of Washington, surged into Iroquois territory, drawing them into battle. The tribes suffered high losses, and native towns and crops were destroyed, leading tribal leaders to withdraw from their alliance with the British to take care of affairs at home.

The war was devastating for the Iroquois, more so than just physical losses. Brant’s alliance, which only drew in four of the six nations, led to internal squabbling and a war of its own. The Confederacy, which has lasted for hundreds of years, even before European settlement, fell apart in a matter of a few years. In the South, the Cherokee and Creek tribes provided strong support to the British. In fact, that allegiance would lead to serious trouble 50 years later for the tribes. Generally, most Native Americans sided with the British out of fear of American expansion if they won the war.

The end of the war was a stark disaster for most tribes. The treaty negotiations at the end of the war included no native representatives, and so they received no concessions. The Americans generally assumed they took possession of the land, and the tribes on it fell under their control. The large mass of land between the Appalachians and the Mississippi had never been settled in any depth, mostly due to British bans. The area was still the home of many tribes, and for nearly two decades, British troops still tried to maintain forts in the area.

After the war, some tribal leaders appealed to the Continental Congress for recognition. Brant served as a representative of the Mohawk people to the Continental Congress and tried to get a fair land settlement for his people. Unable to reach an agreement, Brant and his people moved to British-controlled Canada. Despite the setback to Native Americans represented by the American Revolution, native groups in the west remained a thorn in the side of Americans. European powers, helped them, too. The British would help from their fort at Detroit. Henry Hamilton commanded Detroit, the main British base in the West. Some called Hamilton the “hair buyer” because of rumors that he paid Native Americans for the scalps of settlers. Generally, the battle between America and native tribes had really just begun.