In 1778 the Iroquois Confederation was invaded by American forces under the command of General John Sullivan, devastating the Six Nations.
The summer of 1778 saw some of the heaviest fighting among Iroquois on opposite sides of the American Revolution. Villages were sacked, homes burned, and hundreds of Iroquois were displaced as former brothers in arms became bitter enemies. Outside of Iroquoia, Chief Joseph Brant and his forces were feared by loyalist and patriot in almost equal measure. Though he had brought the war to the rebel settlements by raiding villages and running off livestock, Brant made considerable effort to restrain his men from attacking the settlers themselves. Despite his best efforts, however, there were a few incidents in which non-combatant civilians died at the hands of Iroquois warriors. One such incident involved the murder of Jane McCrea, a loyalist settler who was killed by the Iroquois party sent to escort her to the British lines. A vitriolic exchange of letters between British General Burgoyne and American General Gates followed in which the American commander lambasted his British opponent for employing the Iroquois in unleashing them on the colonists. A propaganda campaign resulted from this bitter exchange; the incident was told and retold until every American village and township along the borders of Iroquoia and beyond was in dread over the possibility of a similar attack. Again, Brant made it clear to his men that only those who take up the sword and musket are to be attacked and not unarmed civilians. The American response, however, was already under way.
The American Commander-in-Chief, General George Washington, recognized the threat caused by the Iroquois and made plans to remove them from the equation. The most expedient means of accomplishing this end would be a strike into the heart Iroquoia. The result was a three-pronged attack by the Continental Army under the joint command of Generals John Sullivan and James Clinton. Sullivan was to advance from Pennsylvania with 2500 troops while Clinton was to come down from New York with 1500 soldiers. An additional 600 troops under the command of Colonel Daniel Brodhead was to set out from Pittsburgh and join the invading army as they drove towards the main Iroquois staging area at Niagara. By August of 1779, the Sullivan-Clinton campaign was slowly making its way through the Iroquois Confederation, encountering little or no resistance but inflicting heavy damage to the Iroquois agricultural economy. Following the explicit orders from General Washington, the Americans burned every town and village they came upon. Washington's commands were simple and brutal-- the Iroquois were not merely to be made low but "destroyed." Crops were uprooted, livestock was disbursed, and storehouses of grain were razed to the ground. It was the end of years of work, a direct attack on a nation's ability to sustain itself.
British forces withdrew from active combat in the region as the Americans moved in. The Iroquois were left on their own to rebuild. Brant and his forces went deep into the woods and continued to make war on the Americans. Refusing even to accept the eventual surrender of the British at Yorktown in 1781, Brant finally settled in Canada and established a new home for much of the Iroquois Confederation with the permission of the Canadian administration. Eventually, the Six Nations themselves retired from activce combat in order to salvage what remained of their nations. Crushed by war, but not subjugated, the Iroquois refused to accept American dominance. Eventually, the Continental Congress and its successor, the United States Congress, adopted a more conciliatory approach to dealing with Iroquois affairs. What the Six Nations had lost through the folly of war they would gain back through their own drive for self-determination.
