The Mohawk were among the four Iroquois tribes that allied with the British during the American Revolutionary War. They had a long trading relationship with the British and hoped to gain support to prohibit colonists encroaching into their territory in the Mohawk Valley. Joseph Brant acted as a war chief and successfully led raids against British and ethnic German colonists in the Mohawk Valley, who had been given land by the British administration near the rapids at present-day Little Falls, New York.