British strategy relied on mobilizing loyalist militia, but was not very successful. Only 15-20 percent of the colonists remained loyal to the Crown.
Most Native Americans opposed the United States because they viewed it as a potential threat to their territory. Approximately 13,000 Native Americans fought on the British side, with the largest support coming from the Seneca, Onondaga, and Cayuga nations. Members of the Mohawk nation fought on both sides.
The powerful Iroquois Confederacy was dissolved because of the conflict. The friction between the Mohawk leaders Joseph Louis Cook (who sided with the Americans) and Joseph Brant (who sided with the British) during and after the war, worsened the friction and tension within the Confederacy.
Many Native Americans lost their homes during the Revolution. Mohawks were driven from the Mohawk Valley and Oneidas lived in squalor in refugee camps around Schenectady, New York. In 1779 George Washington dispatched General John Sullivan to conduct a scorched-earth campaign in Iroquois country.
