The Beaver Wars ( moh, Tsianì kayonkwere), also known as the Iroquois Wars or the French and Iroquois Wars (french: Guerres franco-iroquoises) were a series of conflicts fought intermittently during the 17th century in North America throughout the
Saint Lawrence River
The St. Lawrence River (french: Fleuve Saint-Laurent, ) is a large river in the middle latitudes of North America. Its headwaters begin flowing from Lake Ontario in a (roughly) northeasterly direction, into the Gulf of St. Lawrence, connectin ...
valley in Canada and the lower
Great Lakes
The Great Lakes, also called the Great Lakes of North America, are a series of large interconnected freshwater lakes in the mid-east region of North America that connect to the Atlantic Ocean via the Saint Lawrence River. There are five lak ...
region which pitted the
Iroquois
The Iroquois ( or ), officially the Haudenosaunee ( meaning "people of the longhouse"), are an Iroquoian-speaking confederacy of First Nations peoples in northeast North America/ Turtle Island. They were known during the colonial years to ...
against the
Hurons
The Wyandot people, or Wyandotte and Waⁿdát, are Indigenous peoples of the Northeastern Woodlands. The Wyandot are Iroquoian Indigenous peoples of North America who emerged as a confederacy of tribes around the north shore of Lake Ontario w ...
, northern
Algonquians and their French allies.
As a result of this conflict, the
Iroquois
The Iroquois ( or ), officially the Haudenosaunee ( meaning "people of the longhouse"), are an Iroquoian-speaking confederacy of First Nations peoples in northeast North America/ Turtle Island. They were known during the colonial years to ...
destroyed several confederacies and tribes through warfare: the
Hurons
The Wyandot people, or Wyandotte and Waⁿdát, are Indigenous peoples of the Northeastern Woodlands. The Wyandot are Iroquoian Indigenous peoples of North America who emerged as a confederacy of tribes around the north shore of Lake Ontario w ...
or Wendat,
Erie
Erie (; ) is a city on the south shore of Lake Erie and the county seat of Erie County, Pennsylvania, United States. Erie is the fifth largest city in Pennsylvania and the largest city in Northwestern Pennsylvania with a population of 94,831 a ...
,
Neutral
Neutral or neutrality may refer to:
Mathematics and natural science Biology
* Neutral organisms, in ecology, those that obey the unified neutral theory of biodiversity
Chemistry and physics
* Neutralization (chemistry), a chemical reaction in ...
,
Wenro
The Wenrohronon or Wenro people were an Iroquoian indigenous nation of North America, originally residing in present-day western New York (and possibly fringe portions of northern & northwestern Pennsylvania), who were conquered by the Confeder ...
,
Tionontate
The Petun (from french: pétun), also known as the Tobacco people or Tionontati ("People Among the Hills/Mountains"), were an indigenous Iroquoian people of the woodlands of eastern North America. Their last known traditional homeland was sou ...
,
Susquehannock
The Susquehannock people, also called the Conestoga by some English settlers or Andastes were Iroquoian Native Americans who lived in areas adjacent to the Susquehanna River and its tributaries, ranging from its upper reaches in the southern p ...
,
Mahican
The Mohican ( or , alternate spelling: Mahican) are an Eastern Algonquian Native American tribe that historically spoke an Algonquian language. As part of the Eastern Algonquian family of tribes, they are related to the neighboring Lenape, w ...
and northern
Algonquins
The Algonquin people are an Indigenous people who now live in Eastern Canada. They speak the Algonquin language, which is part of the Algonquian language family. Culturally and linguistically, they are closely related to the Odawa, Potawatomi ...
whom they defeated and dispersed, some fleeing to neighboring peoples and others assimilated, routed, or killed.
The Iroquois sought to expand their territory and to monopolize the fur trade with European markets. They originally were a confederacy of the
Mohawk Mohawk may refer to:
Related to Native Americans
* Mohawk people, an indigenous people of North America (Canada and New York)
*Mohawk language, the language spoken by the Mohawk people
* Mohawk hairstyle, from a hairstyle once thought to have been ...
,
Oneida,
Onondaga Onondaga may refer to:
Native American/First Nations
* Onondaga people, a Native American/First Nations people and one of the five founding nations of the Iroquois League
* Onondaga (village), Onondaga settlement and traditional Iroquois capita ...
,
Cayuga, and
Seneca
Seneca may refer to:
People and language
* Seneca (name), a list of people with either the given name or surname
* Seneca people, one of the six Iroquois tribes of North America
** Seneca language, the language of the Seneca people
Places Extrat ...
tribes inhabiting the lands in what is now
Upstate New York
Upstate New York is a geographic region consisting of the area of New York State that lies north and northwest of the New York City metropolitan area. Although the precise boundary is debated, Upstate New York excludes New York City and Long Is ...
along the shores of
Lake Ontario
Lake Ontario is one of the five Great Lakes of North America. It is bounded on the north, west, and southwest by the Canadian province of Ontario, and on the south and east by the U.S. state of New York. The Canada–United States border sp ...
east to
Lake Champlain
Lake Champlain ( ; french: Lac Champlain) is a natural freshwater lake in North America. It mostly lies between the US states of New York and Vermont, but also extends north into the Canada, Canadian province of Quebec.
The New York portion of t ...
and
Lake George on the
Hudson river
The Hudson River is a river that flows from north to south primarily through eastern New York. It originates in the Adirondack Mountains of Upstate New York and flows southward through the Hudson Valley to the New York Harbor between N ...
, and the lower-estuary of the
Saint Lawrence River
The St. Lawrence River (french: Fleuve Saint-Laurent, ) is a large river in the middle latitudes of North America. Its headwaters begin flowing from Lake Ontario in a (roughly) northeasterly direction, into the Gulf of St. Lawrence, connectin ...
. The
Iroquois Confederation
The Iroquois ( or ), officially the Haudenosaunee ( meaning "people of the longhouse"), are an Iroquoian-speaking confederacy of First Nations peoples in northeast North America/ Turtle Island. They were known during the colonial years to ...
led by the Mohawks mobilized against the largely
Algonquian-speaking tribes and
Iroquoian
The Iroquoian languages are a language family of indigenous peoples of North America. They are known for their general lack of labial consonants. The Iroquoian languages are polysynthetic and head-marking.
As of 2020, all surviving Iroquoian ...
-speaking
Huron
Huron may refer to:
People
* Wyandot people (or Wendat), indigenous to North America
* Wyandot language, spoken by them
* Huron-Wendat Nation, a Huron-Wendat First Nation with a community in Wendake, Quebec
* Nottawaseppi Huron Band of Potawatomi ...
and related tribes of the Great Lakes region. The Iroquois were supplied with arms by their Dutch and English trading partners; the Algonquians and Hurons were backed by the French, their chief trading partner.
The Iroquois effectively destroyed several large tribal confederacies, including the
Mohicans
The Mohican ( or , alternate spelling: Mahican) are an Eastern Algonquian Native American tribe that historically spoke an Algonquian language. As part of the Eastern Algonquian family of tribes, they are related to the neighboring Lenape, who ...
, Huron (
Wyandot
Wyandot may refer to:
Native American ethnography
* Wyandot people, also known as the Huron
* Wyandot language
Wyandot (sometimes spelled Wandat) is the Iroquoian language traditionally spoken by the people known variously as Wyandot or Wya ...
),
Neutral
Neutral or neutrality may refer to:
Mathematics and natural science Biology
* Neutral organisms, in ecology, those that obey the unified neutral theory of biodiversity
Chemistry and physics
* Neutralization (chemistry), a chemical reaction in ...
,
Erie
Erie (; ) is a city on the south shore of Lake Erie and the county seat of Erie County, Pennsylvania, United States. Erie is the fifth largest city in Pennsylvania and the largest city in Northwestern Pennsylvania with a population of 94,831 a ...
,
Susquehannock
The Susquehannock people, also called the Conestoga by some English settlers or Andastes were Iroquoian Native Americans who lived in areas adjacent to the Susquehanna River and its tributaries, ranging from its upper reaches in the southern p ...
(Conestoga), and northern
Algonquins
The Algonquin people are an Indigenous people who now live in Eastern Canada. They speak the Algonquin language, which is part of the Algonquian language family. Culturally and linguistically, they are closely related to the Odawa, Potawatomi ...
, with the extreme brutality and exterminatory nature of the mode of warfare practised by the Iroquois causing some historians to label these wars as acts of genocide committed by the Iroquois Confederacy. They became dominant in the region and enlarged their territory, realigning the American tribal geography. The Iroquois gained control of the
New England
New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York to the west and by the Canadian provinces ...
frontier and
Ohio River
The Ohio River is a long river in the United States. It is located at the boundary of the Midwestern and Southern United States, flowing southwesterly from western Pennsylvania to its mouth on the Mississippi River at the southern tip of Illino ...
valley lands as hunting ground from about 1670 onward.
Both Algonquian and Iroquoian societies were greatly disrupted by these wars. The conflict subsided when the Iroquois lost their Dutch allies in the
colony of New Netherland after the English took it over in 1664, along with
Fort Amsterdam
Fort Amsterdam was a fort on the southern tip of Manhattan at the confluence of the Hudson and East rivers. It was the administrative headquarters for the Dutch and then English/British rule of the colony of New Netherland and subsequently th ...
and the town of
New Amsterdam on
the island of Manhattan. The French then attempted to gain the Iroquois as an ally against the English, but the Iroquois refused to break their alliance, and frequently fought against the French in the 18th century. The Anglo-Iroquois alliance would reach its zenith during the
French and Indian War
The French and Indian War (1754–1763) was a theater of the Seven Years' War, which pitted the North American colonies of the British Empire against those of the French, each side being supported by various Native American tribes. At the ...
of 1754, which saw the French being largely expelled from North America.
The wars and subsequent commercial trapping of beavers was devastating to the local beaver population. Trapping continued to spread across North America, extirpating or severely reducing populations across the continent. The natural
ecosystems
An ecosystem (or ecological system) consists of all the organisms and the physical environment with which they interact. These biotic and abiotic components are linked together through nutrient cycles and energy flows. Energy enters the syst ...
that came to rely on the beavers for
dams
A dam is a barrier that stops or restricts the flow of surface water or underground streams. Reservoirs created by dams not only suppress floods but also provide water for activities such as irrigation, human consumption, industrial use ...
, water and other vital needs were also devastated leading to
ecological destruction, environmental change, and drought in certain areas.
Beaver populations in North America would take centuries to recover in some areas, while others would never recover.
Background
French explorer
Jacques Cartier in the 1540s made the first written records of the Indians in America, although French explorers and fishermen had traded in the region near the mouth of the Saint Lawrence River estuary a decade before then for valuable furs. Cartier wrote of encounters with the
St. Lawrence Iroquoians
The St. Lawrence Iroquoians were an Iroquoian Indigenous people who existed from the 14th century to about 1580. They concentrated along the shores of the St. Lawrence River in present-day Quebec and Ontario, Canada, and in the American states o ...
,
also known as the ''Stadaconan'' or ''Laurentian'' people who occupied several fortified villages, including ''
Stadacona
Stadacona was a 16th-century St. Lawrence Iroquoian village not far from where Quebec City was founded in 1608.
History
French explorer and navigator Jacques Cartier, while travelling and charting the Saint Lawrence River, reached the village o ...
'' and ''
Hochelaga''. He recorded an on-going war between the Stadaconans and another tribe known as the ''Toudaman''.
Wars and politics in Europe distracted French efforts at colonization in the St. Lawrence Valley until the beginning of the 17th century, when they founded Quebec in 1608. When the French returned to the area, they found both sites abandoned by the Stadacona and Hochelaga and completely destroyed,
and they found no inhabitants in this part of the upper river valley—although the Iroquois and the Huron
used it as hunting ground.
The causes remain unclear, although some anthropologists and historians have suggested that the
Mohawk Nation
The Mohawk people ( moh, Kanienʼkehá꞉ka) are the most easterly section of the Haudenosaunee, or Iroquois Confederacy. They are an Iroquoian-speaking Indigenous people of North America, with communities in southeastern Canada and norther ...
of the
Iroquois Confederacy destroyed or drove out the St. Lawrence Iroquoians.
![Champlain-Deffaite-des-Yroquois-au-Lac-Champlain-couleur](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4d/Champlain-Deffaite-des-Yroquois-au-Lac-Champlain-couleur.png)
Before 1603, Champlain had formed an alliance against the Iroquois, as he decided that the French would not trade firearms to them.
The northern Indigenous provided the French with valuable furs, and the Iroquois interfered with that trade. The first battle with the Iroquois in 1609 was fought at Champlain's initiative.
Champlain wrote, "I had come with no other intention than to make war". He and his Huron and Algonkin allies fought a pitched battle against the Mohawks on the shores of
Lake Champlain
Lake Champlain ( ; french: Lac Champlain) is a natural freshwater lake in North America. It mostly lies between the US states of New York and Vermont, but also extends north into the Canada, Canadian province of Quebec.
The New York portion of t ...
.
Champlain single-handedly
killed two chiefs with his
arquebus
An arquebus ( ) is a form of long gun that appeared in Europe and the Ottoman Empire during the 15th century. An infantryman armed with an arquebus is called an arquebusier.
Although the term ''arquebus'', derived from the Dutch word ''Haakbus ...
despite the war chiefs "arrowproof body armor made of plaited sticks", after which the Mohawk withdrew in disarray.
In 1610, Champlain and his French companions helped the
Algonquins
The Algonquin people are an Indigenous people who now live in Eastern Canada. They speak the Algonquin language, which is part of the Algonquian language family. Culturally and linguistically, they are closely related to the Odawa, Potawatomi ...
and the Hurons defeat a large Iroquois raiding party. In 1615, he joined a Huron raiding party and took part in a siege on an Iroquois town, probably among the
Onondaga Onondaga may refer to:
Native American/First Nations
* Onondaga people, a Native American/First Nations people and one of the five founding nations of the Iroquois League
* Onondaga (village), Onondaga settlement and traditional Iroquois capita ...
south of Lake Ontario in New York. The attack ultimately failed, and Champlain was injured.
Dutch competition
![Castle Island and Fort Orange Albany, New York 1629](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5f/Castle_Island_and_Fort_Orange_Albany%2C_New_York_1629.jpg)
In 1610–1614, the Dutch established a series of seasonal trading posts on the Hudson and Delaware rivers, including one on
Castle Island at the eastern edge of Mohawk territory near Albany.
This gave the Iroquois direct access to European markets via the Mohawks. The Dutch trading efforts and eventual colonies in New Jersey and Delaware soon also established trade with the coastal
Delaware tribe
The Lenape (, , or Lenape , del, Lënapeyok) also called the Leni Lenape, Lenni Lenape and Delaware people, are an indigenous peoples of the Northeastern Woodlands, who live in the United States and Canada. Their historical territory inclu ...
(Lenape) and the more southerly
Susquehannock
The Susquehannock people, also called the Conestoga by some English settlers or Andastes were Iroquoian Native Americans who lived in areas adjacent to the Susquehanna River and its tributaries, ranging from its upper reaches in the southern p ...
tribe. The Dutch founded
Fort Nassau in 1614 and its 1624 replacement
Fort Orange
Fort Orange ( nl, Fort Oranje) was the first permanent Dutch settlement in New Netherland; the present-day city of Albany, New York developed at this site. It was built in 1624 as a replacement for Fort Nassau, which had been built on nearb ...
(both at Albany) which removed the Iroquois' need to rely on the French and their allied tribes or to travel through southern tribal territories to reach European traders. The Dutch supplied the Mohawks and other Iroquois with guns.
In addition, the new post offered valuable tools that the Iroquois could receive in exchange for animal pelts.
they began large-scale hunting for furs to satisfy demand among their peoples for new products.
At this time, conflict began to grow between the Iroquois Confederacy and the tribes supported by the French. The Iroquois inhabited the region of New York south of
Lake Ontario
Lake Ontario is one of the five Great Lakes of North America. It is bounded on the north, west, and southwest by the Canadian province of Ontario, and on the south and east by the U.S. state of New York. The Canada–United States border sp ...
and west of the
Hudson River
The Hudson River is a river that flows from north to south primarily through eastern New York. It originates in the Adirondack Mountains of Upstate New York and flows southward through the Hudson Valley to the New York Harbor between N ...
. Their lands were surrounded on all sides but the south by Algonquian-speaking tribes, all traditional enemies, including the
Shawnee
The Shawnee are an Algonquian-speaking indigenous people of the Northeastern Woodlands. In the 17th century they lived in Pennsylvania, and in the 18th century they were in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, with some bands in Kentucky a ...
to the west in the
Ohio Country, the
Neutral Nation
The Neutral Confederacy (also Neutral Nation, Neutral people, or ''Attawandaron'' by neighbouring tribes) were an Iroquoian people who lived in what is now southwestern and south-central Ontario in Canada, North America. They lived throughout ...
and
Huron
Huron may refer to:
People
* Wyandot people (or Wendat), indigenous to North America
* Wyandot language, spoken by them
* Huron-Wendat Nation, a Huron-Wendat First Nation with a community in Wendake, Quebec
* Nottawaseppi Huron Band of Potawatomi ...
confederacies on the western shore of Lake Ontario and southern shore of Lake Huron to the west, and the Susquehannock to their south. These tribes were historically competitive with and sometimes enemies of the Iroquois, who had Five Nations in their confederacy.
Beaver Wars begin
In 1628, the Mohawks defeated the
Mohican
The Mohican ( or , alternate spelling: Mahican) are an Eastern Algonquian Native American tribe that historically spoke an Algonquian language. As part of the Eastern Algonquian family of tribes, they are related to the neighboring Lenape, who ...
s, pushing them east of the Hudson River and establishing a monopoly of trade with the Dutch at
Fort Orange
Fort Orange ( nl, Fort Oranje) was the first permanent Dutch settlement in New Netherland; the present-day city of Albany, New York developed at this site. It was built in 1624 as a replacement for Fort Nassau, which had been built on nearb ...
,
New Netherland
New Netherland ( nl, Nieuw Nederland; la, Novum Belgium or ) was a 17th-century colonial province of the Dutch Republic that was located on the East Coast of the United States, east coast of what is now the United States. The claimed territor ...
. The Susquehannocks were also well armed by Dutch traders, and they effectively reduced the strength of the Delawares and managed to win a protracted war with
Maryland colonists.
By the 1630s, the Iroquois had become fully armed with European weaponry through their trade with the Dutch.
The Iroquois relied on the trade for firearms and other highly valued European goods for their livelihood and survival. They used their growing expertise with the
arquebus
An arquebus ( ) is a form of long gun that appeared in Europe and the Ottoman Empire during the 15th century. An infantryman armed with an arquebus is called an arquebusier.
Although the term ''arquebus'', derived from the Dutch word ''Haakbus ...
to good effect in their continuing wars with the Algonquins and Hurons, and other traditional enemies. The French, meanwhile, outlawed the trading of firearms to their Indian allies, though they occasionally gave arquebuses as gifts to individuals who converted to Christianity. The Iroquois attacked their traditional enemies the
Algonquins
The Algonquin people are an Indigenous people who now live in Eastern Canada. They speak the Algonquin language, which is part of the Algonquian language family. Culturally and linguistically, they are closely related to the Odawa, Potawatomi ...
, Mahicans,
Montagnais, and
Hurons
The Wyandot people, or Wyandotte and Waⁿdát, are Indigenous peoples of the Northeastern Woodlands. The Wyandot are Iroquoian Indigenous peoples of North America who emerged as a confederacy of tribes around the north shore of Lake Ontario w ...
, and the alliance of these tribes with the French quickly brought the Iroquois into conflict directly with them.
The expansion of the fur trade with Europe brought a decline in the
beaver population in the region, and the animal had largely disappeared from the Hudson Valley by 1640. ''American Heritage Magazine'' notes that the growing scarcity of the beaver in the lands controlled by the Iroquois in the middle 17th century accelerated the wars.
The center of the fur trade shifted north to the colder regions of southern Ontario, an area controlled by the Neutral and Huron tribes who were close trading partners with the French.
Course of war
With the decline of the beaver population, the Iroquois began to conquer their smaller neighbors. They attacked the
Wenro
The Wenrohronon or Wenro people were an Iroquoian indigenous nation of North America, originally residing in present-day western New York (and possibly fringe portions of northern & northwestern Pennsylvania), who were conquered by the Confeder ...
in 1638 and took all of their territory, and survivors fled to the Hurons for refuge. The Wenro had served as a buffer between the Iroquois and the Neutral tribe and their Erie allies. The Neutral and Erie tribes were considerably larger and more powerful than the Iroquois, so the Iroquois turned their attention to the north and the Dutch encouraged them in this strategy. At that time, the Dutch were the Iroquois' primary European trading partners, with their goods passing through Dutch trading posts down the
Hudson River
The Hudson River is a river that flows from north to south primarily through eastern New York. It originates in the Adirondack Mountains of Upstate New York and flows southward through the Hudson Valley to the New York Harbor between N ...
. As the Iroquois' sources of furs declined, however, so did the income of the trading posts.
![CharlesHuaultMontmagny](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4a/CharlesHuaultMontmagny.jpg)
In 1641, the Mohawks traveled to
Trois-Rivières
Trois-Rivières (, – 'Three Rivers') is a city in the Mauricie administrative region of Quebec, Canada, at the confluence of the Saint-Maurice and Saint Lawrence rivers, on the north shore of the Saint Lawrence River across from the city of ...
in New France to propose peace with the French and their allied tribes, and they asked the French to set up a trading post in Iroquoia. Governor
Montmagny rejected this proposal because it would imply abandonment of their Huron allies.
In the early 1640s, the war began in earnest with Iroquois attacks on frontier
Huron
Huron may refer to:
People
* Wyandot people (or Wendat), indigenous to North America
* Wyandot language, spoken by them
* Huron-Wendat Nation, a Huron-Wendat First Nation with a community in Wendake, Quebec
* Nottawaseppi Huron Band of Potawatomi ...
villages along the
St. Lawrence River
The St. Lawrence River (french: Fleuve Saint-Laurent, ) is a large river in the middle latitudes of North America. Its headwaters begin flowing from Lake Ontario in a (roughly) northeasterly direction, into the Gulf of St. Lawrence, connecting ...
in order to disrupt the trade with the French. In 1645, the French called the tribes together to negotiate a treaty to end the conflict, and Iroquois leaders Deganaweida and Koiseaton traveled to New France to take part in the negotiations. The French agreed to most of the Iroquois demands, granting them trading rights in New France. The next summer, a fleet of 80 canoes traveled through Iroquois territory carrying a large harvest of furs to be sold in New France. When they arrived, however, the French refused to purchase the furs and told the Iroquois to sell them to the Hurons, who would act as a middleman. The Iroquois were outraged and resumed the war.
The French decided to become directly involved in the conflict. The Huron and the Iroquois had an estimated 25,000 to 30,000 members each. The Hurons and
Susquehannock
The Susquehannock people, also called the Conestoga by some English settlers or Andastes were Iroquoian Native Americans who lived in areas adjacent to the Susquehanna River and its tributaries, ranging from its upper reaches in the southern p ...
s formed an alliance to counter Iroquois aggression in 1647, and their warriors greatly outnumbered those of the Iroquois. The Hurons tried to break the Iroquois Confederacy by negotiating a separate peace with the
Onondaga Onondaga may refer to:
Native American/First Nations
* Onondaga people, a Native American/First Nations people and one of the five founding nations of the Iroquois League
* Onondaga (village), Onondaga settlement and traditional Iroquois capita ...
and
Cayuga tribes, but the other tribes intercepted their messengers and ended the negotiations. During the summer of 1647, there were several small skirmishes between the tribes, but a more significant battle occurred in 1648 when the two Algonquin tribes passed a fur convoy through an Iroquois blockade. They succeeded and inflicted high casualties on the Iroquois. In the early 1650s, the Iroquois began attacking the French themselves, although some of the Iroquois tribes had peaceful relations with them, notably the
Oneida and Onondaga tribes. They were under control of the Mohawks, however, who were the strongest tribe in the Confederation and had animosity towards the French presence. After a failed peace treaty negotiated by
Chief Canaqueese Canaqueese was a Mohawk people, Mohawk war chief and intercultural mediator who lived in the 17th century in the Mohawk Valley, an area of central present-day New York state, United States. He was of mixed race, with a Mohawk mother and Dutch father ...
, Iroquois moved north into New France along Lake Champlain and the Richelieu River, attacking and blockading Montreal. By 1650, they controlled the area from the
Virginia Colony
The Colony of Virginia, chartered in 1606 and settled in 1607, was the first enduring English colony in North America, following failed attempts at settlement on Newfoundland by Sir Humphrey GilbertGilbert (Saunders Family), Sir Humphrey" (histor ...
in the south up to the St. Lawrence. In the west, the Iroquois had driven the Algonquin-speaking Shawnee out of the Ohio Country and seized control of the Illinois Country as far west as the Mississippi River. In January 1666, the French invaded the Iroquois and took Chief Canaqueese prisoner. In September, they proceeded down the Richelieu but were unable to find an Iroquois army, so they burned their crops and homes. Many Iroquois died from starvation in the following winter. During the following years, the Iroquois strengthened their confederacy to work more closely and create an effective central leadership, and the five tribes ceased fighting among themselves by the 1660s. They also easily coordinated military and economic plans, and they increased their power as a result.
Indian raids were not constant, but they terrified the inhabitants of New France, and some of the heroes of French-Canadian folklore are individuals who stood up to such attacks.
Dollard des Ormeaux, for example, died in May 1660 while resisting an Iroquois raiding force at the
Battle of Long Sault
The Battle of Long Sault occurred over a five-day period in early May 1660 during the Beaver Wars. It was fought between French colonial militia, with their Huron and Algonquin allies, against the Iroquois Confederacy.
Some historians theorize t ...
, the confluence of the St. Lawrence and the
Ottawa River
The Ottawa River (french: Rivière des Outaouais, Algonquin: ''Kichi-Sìbì/Kitchissippi'') is a river in the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec. It is named after the Algonquin word 'to trade', as it was the major trade route of Eastern ...
s, but saved Montreal by his actions. In 1692, 14 year-old
Marie-Madeleine Jarret successfully frustrated an Iroquois attack on Fort Verchères.
Defeat of the Huron
In 1648, the Dutch authorized selling guns directly to the Mohawks rather than through traders, and promptly sold 400 to the Iroquois. The Confederacy sent 1,000 newly armed warriors through the woods to Huron territory with the onset of winter, and they launched a devastating attack into the heart of Huron territory, destroying several key villages, killing many warriors, and taking thousands of people captive for later adoption into the tribe. Among those killed were Jesuit missionaries
Jean Brebeuf,
Charles Garnier, and
Gabriel Lallemant
Gabriel Lalemant (3 October 1610 – 17 March 1649) was a French Jesuit missionary in New France beginning in 1646. Caught up in warfare between the Huron and nations of the Iroquois Confederacy, he was killed in St. Ignace by Mohawk warriors ...
, each of whom is considered a martyr of the Roman Catholic Church. The surviving Hurons fled and were dispersed from their territory, some taking refuge with the
Jesuits
The Society of Jesus ( la, Societas Iesu; abbreviation: SJ), also known as the Jesuits (; la, Iesuitæ), is a religious order (Catholic), religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rom ...
at
Quebec
Quebec ( ; )According to the Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) is the official name in Canadian French and ''Quebec'' (without the accent) is the province's official name in Canadian English is one of the thirtee ...
, some assimilated and adopted by the
Iroquois
The Iroquois ( or ), officially the Haudenosaunee ( meaning "people of the longhouse"), are an Iroquoian-speaking confederacy of First Nations peoples in northeast North America/ Turtle Island. They were known during the colonial years to ...
, others joined the
Petun
The Petun (from french: pétun), also known as the Tobacco people or Tionontati ("People Among the Hills/Mountains"), were an indigenous Iroquoian people of the woodlands of eastern North America. Their last known traditional homeland was sou ...
or Tobacco nation, another
Iroquoian
The Iroquoian languages are a language family of indigenous peoples of North America. They are known for their general lack of labial consonants. The Iroquoian languages are polysynthetic and head-marking.
As of 2020, all surviving Iroquoian ...
people to become the
Wyandot
Wyandot may refer to:
Native American ethnography
* Wyandot people, also known as the Huron
* Wyandot language
Wyandot (sometimes spelled Wandat) is the Iroquoian language traditionally spoken by the people known variously as Wyandot or Wya ...
. The
Ottawa tribe
The Odawa (also Ottawa or Odaawaa ), said to mean "traders", are an Indigenous American ethnic group who primarily inhabit land in the Eastern Woodlands region, commonly known as the northeastern United States and southeastern Canada. They ha ...
temporarily halted Iroquois expansion further northwest, but the Iroquois controlled a fur-rich region and had no more tribes blocking them from the French settlements in Canada.
![Brébuef-jesuits04jesuuoft](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0c/Br%C3%A9buef-jesuits04jesuuoft.jpg)
Diseases had taken their toll on the Iroquois and neighbors in the years preceding the war, however, and their populations had drastically declined. To replace lost warriors, they worked to integrate many of their captured enemies by adoption into their own tribes. They invited Jesuits into their territory to teach those who had converted to Christianity. The Jesuits also reached out to the Iroquois, many of whom converted to Roman Catholicism or intermingled its teachings with their own traditional beliefs.
Defeat of the Erie and Neutral
The Iroquois attacked the
Neutrals in 1650, and they completely drove the tribe from traditional territory by the end of 1651, killing or assimilating thousands. The Neutrals had inhabited a territory ranging from the
Niagara Peninsula westward to the
Grand River valley.
In 1654, the Iroquois attacked the
Erie
Erie (; ) is a city on the south shore of Lake Erie and the county seat of Erie County, Pennsylvania, United States. Erie is the fifth largest city in Pennsylvania and the largest city in Northwestern Pennsylvania with a population of 94,831 a ...
tribe, but with less success. The war lasted for two years, and the Iroquois destroyed the Erie confederacy by 1656, whose members refused to flee to the west. The Erie territory was located on the southeastern shore of Lake Erie and was estimated to have 12,000 members in 1650. The Iroquois were greatly outnumbered by the tribes that they subdued, but they achieved their victories through the use of firearms purchased from the Dutch.
French counterattack
The Iroquois continued to control the countryside of New France, raiding to the edges of the walled settlements of Quebec and Montreal. In May 1660, an Iroquois force of 160 warriors attacked Montreal and captured 17 French colonists. The following year, 250 warriors attacked and took ten captives. In 1661 and 1662, the Iroquois made several raids against the
Abenakis who were allied with the French. The French Crown ordered a change to the governing of Canada. They put together a small military force made up of Frenchmen, Hurons, and Algonquins to counter the Iroquois raids, but the Iroquois attacked them when they ventured into the countryside. Only 29 of the French survived and escaped; five were captured and tortured to death by the Iroquois. Despite their victory, the Iroquois also suffered a significant number of casualties, and their leaders began to consider negotiating for peace with the French.
The tide of war began to turn in the mid-1660s with the arrival of the
Carignan-Salières Regiment, a small contingent of regular troops from France and the first group of uniformed professional soldiers in Canada. A change in administration led the New France government to authorize direct sale of arms and other military support to their Indian allies. In 1664, the Dutch allies of the Iroquois lost control of their colony of New Netherland to the English. In the immediate years after the Dutch defeat, European support waned for the Iroquois.
![Alexandre de Prouville de Tracy](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5f/Alexandre_de_Prouville_de_Tracy.jpg)
In January 1666, the French invaded the Iroquois homeland in New York. The first invasion force of 400 to 500 men
was led by
Daniel de Rémy de Courcelle
Daniel de Rémy de Courcelle, Sieur de Montigny, de La Fresnaye et de Courcelle (1626 – 24 October 1698) was the Governor General of New France from 1665 to 1672.
Daniel de Rémy had the Carignan-Salières Regiment and their Lieutenant Gener ...
. His men were greatly outnumbered by the Iroquois and were forced to withdraw before any significant action could take place, but they took
Chief Canaqueese Canaqueese was a Mohawk people, Mohawk war chief and intercultural mediator who lived in the 17th century in the Mohawk Valley, an area of central present-day New York state, United States. He was of mixed race, with a Mohawk mother and Dutch father ...
prisoner.
The second invasion force was led by
Alexandre de Prouville
Marquis Alexandre de Prouville de Tracy (c. 1596 or 1603 – 1670) was a French aristocrat, statesman, and military leader. He was the seigneur of Tracy-le-Val and Tracy-le-Mont ( Picardy).
Life
The Marquis de Tracy first made his name as a re ...
, the "Marquis de Tracy" and viceroy of New France, from his base in Quebec City. The invasion force of about 1,300 men moved out in the fall of 1666. They found the Mohawk villages deserted, so they destroyed the villages and their crops.
Prouville de Tracy seized all the Mohawk lands in the name of the king of France and forced the Mohawks to accept the Roman Catholic faith and to adopt the French language, as taught by Jesuit missionaries. The Iroquois sued for peace and France agreed.
Peace with France and Iroquois expansion
Once peace was achieved with the French, the Iroquois returned to their westward conquest in their continued attempt to take control of all the land between the Algonquins and the French. Eastern tribes such as the
Lakotas were pushed across the Mississippi onto the
Great Plains
The Great Plains (french: Grandes Plaines), sometimes simply "the Plains", is a broad expanse of flatland in North America. It is located west of the Mississippi River and east of the Rocky Mountains, much of it covered in prairie, steppe, an ...
in the early 18th century, where they adopted the horse culture and nomadic lifestyle for which they later became known. Other refugees flooded the Great Lakes area, resulting in a conflict with existing tribes in the region. In the Ohio Country, the
Shawnee
The Shawnee are an Algonquian-speaking indigenous people of the Northeastern Woodlands. In the 17th century they lived in Pennsylvania, and in the 18th century they were in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, with some bands in Kentucky a ...
and
Miami tribe
The Miami ( Miami-Illinois: ''Myaamiaki'') are a Native American nation originally speaking one of the Algonquian languages. Among the peoples known as the Great Lakes tribes, they occupied territory that is now identified as North-central Indi ...
s were dominant. The Iroquois quickly overran Shawnee holdings in central Ohio, forcing them to flee into Miami territory. The Miamis were a powerful tribe and brought together a confederacy of their neighboring allies, including the
Pottawatomie
The Potawatomi , also spelled Pottawatomi and Pottawatomie (among many variations), are a Native American people of the western Great Lakes region, upper Mississippi River and Great Plains. They traditionally speak the Potawatomi language, a m ...
and the
Illini confederation
The Illinois Confederation, also referred to as the Illiniwek or Illini, were made up of 12 to 13 tribes who lived in the Mississippi River Valley. Eventually member tribes occupied an area reaching from Lake Michicigao (Michigan) to Iowa, Illi ...
who inhabited
Michigan
Michigan () is a state in the Great Lakes region of the upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the 10th-largest state by population, the 11th-largest by area, and the ...
and
Illinois
Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolita ...
. The majority of the fighting was between the Anishinaabeg Confederacy and the Iroquois Confederacy.
![5NationsExpansion](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f2/5NationsExpansion.jpg)
The Iroquois improved on their warfare as they continued to attack even farther from their home. War parties often traveled by canoes at night, and they would sink their canoes and fill them with rocks to hold them on the river bottom. They would then move through the woods to a target and burst from the wood to cause the greatest panic. After the attack, they returned to their boats and left before any significant resistance could be put together. The lack of firearms caused the Algonquin tribes the greatest disadvantage. Despite their larger numbers, they were not centralized enough to mount a united defense and were unable to withstand the Iroquois. Several tribes ultimately moved west beyond the
Mississippi River
The Mississippi River is the second-longest river and chief river of the second-largest drainage system in North America, second only to the Hudson Bay drainage system. From its traditional source of Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota, it f ...
, leaving much of the Ohio Valley, southern Michigan, and southern Ontario depopulated. Several
Anishinaabe
The Anishinaabeg (adjectival: Anishinaabe) are a group of culturally related Indigenous peoples present in the Great Lakes region of Canada and the United States. They include the Ojibwe (including Saulteaux and Oji-Cree), Odawa, Potawat ...
forces numbering in the thousands remained to the north of Lakes Huron and Superior, and they were later decisive in rolling back the Iroquois advance. From west of the Mississippi, displaced groups continued to arm war parties and attempt to retake their land.
Beginning in the 1670s, the French began to explore and settle the
Ohio
Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...
and
Illinois Country
The Illinois Country (french: Pays des Illinois ; , i.e. the Illinois people)—sometimes referred to as Upper Louisiana (french: Haute-Louisiane ; es, Alta Luisiana)—was a vast region of New France claimed in the 1600s in what is n ...
from the Mississippi and Ohio rivers, and they established the post of
Tassinong to trade with the western tribes. The Iroquois destroyed it to retain control of the fur trade with the Europeans. The Iroquois also drove the
Mannahoac
The Manahoac, also recorded as Mahock, were a small group of Siouan-language Native Americans (Indigenous people) in northern Virginia at the time of European contact. They numbered approximately 1,000 and lived primarily along the Rappahannock R ...
tribe out of the northern
Virginia Piedmont
The Piedmont region of Virginia is a part of the greater Piedmont physiographic region which stretches from the falls of the Potomac, Rappahannock, and James Rivers to the Blue Ridge Mountains. The region runs across the middle of the state from ...
region in 1670, and they claimed the land by right of conquest as a hunting ground. The English acknowledged this claim in 1674 and again in 1684, but they acquired the land from the Iroquois by a 1722 treaty.
During a raid into the Illinois Country in 1689, the Iroquois captured numerous prisoners and destroyed a sizable Miami settlement. The Miami asked for aid from others in the Anishinaabeg Confederacy, and a large force gathered to track down the Iroquois. Using their new firearms, the Confederacy laid an ambush near
South Bend, Indiana
South Bend is a city in and the county seat of St. Joseph County, Indiana, St. Joseph County, Indiana, on the St. Joseph River (Lake Michigan), St. Joseph River near its southernmost bend, from which it derives its name. As of the 2020 United S ...
, and they attacked and destroyed most of the Iroquois party, and a large part of the region was left depopulated. The Iroquois were unable to establish a permanent presence, as their tribe was unable to colonize the large area, and the Iroquois' brief control over the region was lost. Many of the former inhabitants of the territory began to return.
Defeat of the Susquehannocks
With the tribes destroyed to the north and west, the Iroquois turned their attention southward to the
Susquehannock
The Susquehannock people, also called the Conestoga by some English settlers or Andastes were Iroquoian Native Americans who lived in areas adjacent to the Susquehanna River and its tributaries, ranging from its upper reaches in the southern p ...
s. They attained the peak of their influence in 1660, and they were able to use that to their advantage in the following decades. The Susquehannocks had become allied with the
colony of Maryland
The Province of Maryland was an English and later British colony in North America that existed from 1632 until 1776, when it joined the other twelve of the Thirteen Colonies in rebellion against Great Britain and became the U.S. state of Maryla ...
in 1661, as the colonists had grown fearful of the Iroquois and hoped that an alliance would help block the northern tribes' advance on the colonies. In 1663, the Iroquois sent 800 warriors into the Susquehannock territory. The Susquehannocks repulsed them, but the unprovoked attack prompted the colony of Maryland to declare war on the Iroquois.
By supplying Susquehannock forts with artillery, the Maryland colonists turned the tables on the Iroquois. The Susquehannocks took the upper hand and began to invade Iroquois territory, where they caused significant damage. This warfare continued intermittently for 11 years. In 1674, the Maryland colonists changed their Indian policy, negotiated peace with the Iroquois, and terminated their alliance with the Susquehannocks. In 1675, the militias of
Virginia
Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth ar ...
and Maryland captured and executed the Susquehannock chiefs, whose growing power they feared. The Iroquois drove the warriors from traditional territory and absorbed the survivors in 1677.
Resumption of war with France
English settlers began to move into the former Dutch territory of upper New York State, and the colonists began to form close ties with the Iroquois as an alliance in the face of French colonial expansion. They began to supply the Iroquois with firearms as the Dutch had. At the same time, New France's governor
Louis de Buade tried to revive the western fur trade. His efforts competed with those of the Iroquois to control the traffic and they started attacking the French again. The war lasted ten years.
In 1681,
René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle
René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle (; November 22, 1643 – March 19, 1687), was a 17th-century French explorer and fur trader in North America. He explored the Great Lakes region of the United States and Canada, the Mississippi River, ...
negotiated a treaty with the Miami and Illinois tribes. France lifted the ban on the sale of firearms to the Indians, and colonists quickly armed the Algonquin tribes, evening the odds between the Iroquois and their enemies.
With the renewal of hostilities, the militia of New France was strengthened after 1683 by a small force of regular French navy troops in the
Compagnies Franches de la Marine, who constituted the longest serving unit of French regular troops in New France. In June 1687,
Governor Denonville and
Pierre de Troyes set out with a well organized force to
Fort Frontenac
Fort Frontenac was a French trading post and military fort built in July 1673 at the mouth of the Cataraqui River where the St. Lawrence River leaves Lake Ontario (at what is now the western end of the La Salle Causeway), in a location tradition ...
, where they met with the 50 sachems of the Iroquois Confederacy from their
Onondaga Onondaga may refer to:
Native American/First Nations
* Onondaga people, a Native American/First Nations people and one of the five founding nations of the Iroquois League
* Onondaga (village), Onondaga settlement and traditional Iroquois capita ...
council. These 50 chiefs constituted the top leaders of the Iroquois, and Denonville captured them and shipped them to
Marseilles
Marseille ( , , ; also spelled in English as Marseilles; oc, Marselha ) is the prefecture of the French department of Bouches-du-Rhône and capital of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region. Situated in the camargue region of southern Franc ...
, France to be galley slaves. He then travelled down the shore of
Lake Ontario
Lake Ontario is one of the five Great Lakes of North America. It is bounded on the north, west, and southwest by the Canadian province of Ontario, and on the south and east by the U.S. state of New York. The Canada–United States border sp ...
and built
Fort Denonville
Fort Denonville was a French fort built in 1688 at the current site of Fort Niagara. It replaced Fort Conti which had been built on the site in 1679 and had burned later that year.
The fort was located at the mouth of the Niagara River on Lake ...
at the site where the
Niagara River
The Niagara River () is a river that flows north from Lake Erie to Lake Ontario. It forms part of the border between the province of Ontario in Canada (on the west) and the state of New York (state), New York in the United States (on the east) ...
meets Lake Ontario. This site was previously used by
La Salle for
Fort Conti
Fort Conti was built in early 1679 at the mouth of the Niagara River on Lake Ontario as a post for the French explorer René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle. Because of the fort's location, the French hoped to control the fur trade in the lo ...
from 1678 to 1679, and was later used for
Fort Niagara
Fort Niagara is a fortification originally built by New France to protect its interests in North America, specifically control of access between the Niagara River and Lake Ontario, the easternmost of the Great Lakes. The fort is on the river's e ...
which still exists. The Iroquois retaliated by destroying farmsteads and slaughtering entire families. They
burned Lachine to the ground on August 4, 1689.
Frontenac replaced Denonville as governor for the next nine years (1689–1698), and he recognized the danger created by the imprisonment of the sachems. He located the 13 surviving leaders and returned with them to New France in October 1698.
During
King William's War
King William's War (also known as the Second Indian War, Father Baudoin's War, Castin's War, or the First Intercolonial War in French) was the North American theater of the Nine Years' War (1688–1697), also known as the War of the Grand All ...
(1688–1697), the French formed raiding parties with Indian allies to attack English settlements, (as the English had allied themselves with the Iroquois against the French) perpetrating the
Schenectady massacre
The Schenectady massacre was an attack against the colonial settlement of Schenectady in the English Province of New York on February 8, 1690. A raiding party of 114 French soldiers and militiamen, accompanied by 96 allied Mohawk and Algonquin wa ...
in the
colony of New York
The Province of New York (1664–1776) was a British proprietary colony and later royal colony on the northeast coast of North America. As one of the Middle Colonies, New York achieved independence and worked with the others to found the Unit ...
, the
Raid on Salmon Falls in
New Hampshire
New Hampshire is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Gulf of Maine to the east, and the Canadian province of Quebec t ...
, and the
Battle of Fort Loyal in
Portland, Maine
Portland is the largest city in the U.S. state of Maine and the seat of Cumberland County. Portland's population was 68,408 in April 2020. The Greater Portland metropolitan area is home to over half a million people, the 104th-largest metropol ...
. The French and their allies killed settlers in the raids and kidnapped some and took them back to Canada. Settlers in New England raised money to redeem the captives, but some were adopted into the tribes. The French government generally did not intervene when the Indians kept the captives. Throughout the 1690s, the French and their allies also continued to raid deep into Iroquois territory,
destroying Mohawk villages in 1692 and raiding Seneca, Oneida, and Onondaga villages. The English and Iroquois banded together for operations aimed against the French, but these were largely ineffective. The most successful incursion resulted in the 1691
Battle of La Prairie
The Battle of La Prairie was an attack made on the French colonial settlement of La Prairie, New France on August 11, 1691 by an English, Mohawk and Mohican force coming north from Albany, New York. The force, led by Major Pieter Schuyler, init ...
. The French offensive was not halted by the 1697
Treaty of Ryswick
The Peace of Ryswick, or Rijswijk, was a series of treaties signed in the Dutch city of Rijswijk between 20 September and 30 October 1697. They ended the 1688 to 1697 Nine Years' War between France and the Grand Alliance, which included England, ...
that brought peace between France and England, ending English participation in that conflict.
Peace
![Grande Paix Montreal](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/96/Grande_Paix_Montreal.jpg)
The Iroquois eventually began to see the
emerging Thirteen Colonies as a greater threat than the French in 1698. The
colony of Pennsylvania
The Province of Pennsylvania, also known as the Pennsylvania Colony, was a British North American colony founded by William Penn after receiving a land grant from Charles II of England in 1681. The name Pennsylvania ("Penn's Woods") refers to Wi ...
was founded in 1681, and the continued growth there began to encroach on the southern border of the Iroquois. The French policy began to change towards the Iroquois after nearly fifty years of warfare, and they decided that befriending them would be the easiest way to ensure their monopoly on the northern fur trade. The Thirteen Colonies heard of the treaty and immediately set about to prevent it from being agreed upon. These conflicts would result in the loss of
Albany's fur trade with the Iroquois and, without their protection, the northern flank of the Thirteen Colonies would be open to French attack. Nevertheless, the French and Indians signed the treaty.
The French and 39 Indian chiefs signed the Great Peace of Montreal in 1701. The Iroquois agreed to stop marauding and to allow refugees from the Great Lakes to return east. The Shawnee eventually regained control of the Ohio Country and the lower
Allegheny River
The Allegheny River ( ) is a long headwater stream of the Ohio River in western Pennsylvania and New York (state), New York. The Allegheny River runs from its headwaters just below the middle of Pennsylvania's northern border northwesterly into ...
. The Miami tribe returned to take control of Indiana and northwest Ohio. The Pottawatomie went to
Michigan
Michigan () is a state in the Great Lakes region of the upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the 10th-largest state by population, the 11th-largest by area, and the ...
, and the Illinois tribe to
Illinois
Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolita ...
. The peace lasted into the 1720s.
Aftermath
In 1768, several of the Thirteen Colonies purchased the "Iroquois claim" to the Ohio and Illinois Country and created the
Indiana Land Company
Vandalia was the name in the late 1700s of a proposed British colony in North America. The colony would have been located south of the Ohio River, primarily in what are now West Virginia and northeastern Kentucky.
Vandalia was never approved b ...
to hold the claim to all of the Northwest. It maintained a claim to the region using the Iroquois right of conquest until the company was dissolved in 1798 by the
United States Supreme Court
The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...
.
Many of the Iroquois people allied with the British during the
American Revolutionary War
The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was a major war of the American Revolution. Widely considered as the war that secured the independence of t ...
, particularly warriors from the Mohawk, Cayuga, Onondaga and Seneca nations. These nations had longstanding trade relations with the British and hoped they might stop American encroachment on their lands. After the Americans emerged triumphant, the
British parliament
The Parliament of the United Kingdom is the supreme legislative body of the United Kingdom, the Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories. It meets at the Palace of Westminster, London. It alone possesses legislative supremacy ...
agreed to cede control over much of its territory in North America to the newly formed
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
and worked to resettle
American loyalists
Loyalists were colonists in the Thirteen Colonies who remained loyal to the British Crown during the American Revolutionary War, often referred to as Tories, Royalists or King's Men at the time. They were opposed by the Patriots, who support ...
in
Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
and provide some compensation for lands the Loyalists and Native Americans had lost to the United States. Mohawk Chief
Joseph Brant
Thayendanegea or Joseph Brant (March 1743 – November 24, 1807) was a Mohawk people, Mohawk military and political leader, based in present-day New York (state), New York, who was closely associated with Kingdom of Great Britain, Great B ...
led a large group of Iroquois out of New York to what became the reserve of the
Six Nations of the Grand River
Six Nations (or Six Nations of the Grand River, french: Réserve des Six Nations, see, Ye:i’ Níónöëdzage:h) is demographically the largest First Nations reserve in Canada. As of the end of 2017, it has a total of 27,276 members, 12,848 of w ...
in Ontario. The new lands granted to Six Nations reserves were all near Canadian military outposts and placed along the border to prevent any American incursions.
The coalition of Native American tribes, known as the
Western Confederacy
The Northwestern Confederacy, or Northwestern Indian Confederacy, was a loose confederacy of Native Americans in the Great Lakes region of the United States created after the American Revolutionary War. Formally, the confederacy referred to it ...
, was forced to cede extensive territory, including much of present-day Ohio, in the
Treaty of Greenville
The Treaty of Greenville, formally titled Treaty with the Wyandots, etc., was a 1795 treaty between the United States and indigenous nations of the Northwest Territory (now Midwestern United States), including the Wyandot and Delaware peoples, ...
in 1795.
See also
*
American Indian wars
The American Indian Wars, also known as the American Frontier Wars, and the Indian Wars, were fought by European governments and colonists in North America, and later by the United States and Canadian governments and American and Canadian settle ...
*
Colonial American military history
Colonial American military history is the military record of the Thirteen Colonies from their founding to the American Revolution in 1775.
Beginning when on August 29, 1643, the Plymouth Colony Court allowed & established a military discipline to b ...
*
Fox Wars
The Fox Wars were two conflicts between the French and the Fox (Meskwaki or Red Earth People; Renards; Outagamis) Indians that lived in the Great Lakes region (particularly near the Fort of Detroit) from 1712 to 1733.In their book ''The Fox Wars' ...
*
Military history of Canada
The military history of Canada comprises hundreds of years of armed actions in the territory encompassing modern Canada, and interventions by the Canadian Forces, Canadian military in conflicts and peacekeeping worldwide. For thousands of years, t ...
*
Military history of the Mi'kmaq people
A military, also known collectively as armed forces, is a heavily armed, highly organized force primarily intended for warfare. It is typically authorized and maintained by a sovereign state, with its members identifiable by their distinct ...
*
Military of New France
The military of New France consisted of a mix of regular soldiers from the French Army (Carignan-Salières Regiment) and French Navy ( Troupes de la marine, later Compagnies Franches de la Marine) supported by small local volunteer militia units ...
Notes
Sources
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External links
Timeline of the Iroquois Wars (1533-1650)
{{Illinois conflicts
17th-century conflicts
*
New France
Colonial United States (French)
Military history of Canada
Military history of the Great Lakes
Military history of the Thirteen Colonies
Wars involving the indigenous peoples of North America
Genocide of indigenous peoples
Fur trade
History of the Midwestern United States
Native American history of Michigan
Native American history of Minnesota
Native American history of New York (state)
Native American history of Ohio
Native American history of Pennsylvania
First Nations history in Ontario
First Nations history in Quebec
Iroquois
17th century in North America
Algonquian peoples
Wyandot
Shawnee history
Innu
Abenaki
Wabanaki Confederacy
New Netherland