The Six Nations of the Iroquois (Haudenosaunee) Confederacy was a powerful league of independent tribes in western and upstate New York. Key to the Six Nations’ influence in colonial America was its unity and neutrality, which the tribes maintained at the war’s start. Calling the conflict a “family affair” in this 1775 speech to American agents, the Six Nations claimed it would “take no part in the Quarrel.”
The pressures of war ultimately fractured the Six Nations confederacy. The Cayuga, Mohawk, Onondaga, and Seneca tribes sided with the British while many Oneida and Tuscaroras supported the Americans. Like many colonial communities, the divided allegiances of the tribes transformed the Revolution into a civil war among the Six Nations.
