By Spring of 1778, Wappinger, Oneida and Tuscarora warriors who were on the side of the Patriots, with prominent Oneida leader Joseph Louis Cook of the St. Regis Mohawk among them, had joined the Americans at Valley Forge. Most served as scouts, keeping an eye out for British raiding parties in the area, and in May 1778, they fought under Lafayette at Barren Hill. In the oral history of the Oneida people, a prominent Oneida woman named Polly Cooper brought "hundreds of bushels of white corn" to hungry troops, teaching them how to process it for safe consumption. During the Revolutionary War, most Native American tribes sided with the British in order to protect their traditional homelands from the encroachment of American settlers. However, several tribes, including the Oneida, sided with the Patriots due in part to ties with American settlers, such as Presbyterian minister Samuel Kirkland. The Seven Nations of Canada and the Iroquois at what would be the Six Nations Reserve, who were mostly emigrants from the colony of New York, were brought to the brink of war by the Anglo-American conflict.