Guyasuta was an important Native American leader of the Seneca people in the second half of the eighteenth century, playing a central role in the diplomacy and warfare of that era. Although he became friends with George Washington in 1753, he sided with the French against Britain during the French and Indian War and fought against the British in Pontiac's War. He later supported the British during the American Revolutionary War. Guyasuta first appears in colonial records when he met the 21-year-old George Washington, who had been assigned to deliver a message to the French commandant at Fort Leboeuf. At the outset of the American Revolutionary War, Guyasuta sided with the British, like most Iroquois, although he initially argued that the Seneca should remain neutral. On July 13 1782, in one of the final actions of the American Revolution, the settlement of Hannastown, Pennsylvania was attacked and destroyed by a British military detachment of sixty Canadian rangers from Fort Niagara and a hundred Seneca warriors led by Guyasuta. In March, 1793 Guyasuta and Cornplanter were invited to Legionville, adjacent to the site of Guyasuta's boyhood home of Logstown, to meet with General Anthony Wayne for peace talks, in an attempt to end the Northwest Indian War. As he saw his dream of a peaceful and strong Native American nation crumble, he turned to alcohol. Towards the end of his life, Guyasuta lived in poverty in a cabin outside Sharpsburg, Pennsylvania.