With the failure of British General John Burgoyne's campaign to the Hudson after the Battles of Saratoga in October 1777, the American Revolutionary War in upstate New York became a frontier war. British leaders in the Province of Quebec supported Loyalist and Native American partisan fighters with supplies and armaments. During the winter of 1777–78 Mohawk leader Joseph Brant and other British-allied Indians developed plans to attack frontier settlements in New York and Pennsylvania.