View source for Beaver Wars

{{short description|17th c. wars between Wendats and Iroquois}}
{{Infobox military conflict
| conflict          = Beaver Wars
| partof            = the [[American Indian Wars]]
| image             = Champlain's Battle with the Iroquois, Ticonderoga, July, 1609 (NYPL b12647398-79471) (cropped).tiff
| caption           = ''Champlain's Battle with the Iroquois, Ticonderoga, July, 1609'', an 1898 illustration by [[Jean Leon Gerome Ferris]]
| date              = July 1609 – August 4, 1701
| place             = [[Great Lakes region]]
| result            = {{Tree list}}
*Indecisive
** [[Great Peace of Montreal]]
** [[Wyandot people|Huron-Wendat Confederacy]] destroyed
{{Tree list/end}}
| combatant1        = {{Tree list}}
*[[Iroquois|Iroquois League]]
** [[Mohawk people|Mohawks]]
** [[Oneida people|Oneida]]
** [[Seneca people|Seneca]]
** [[Onondaga people|Onondaga]]
** [[Cayuga people|Cayuga]]
{{Tree list/end}}
'''Supported by''':<br>{{flagcountry|Kingdom of England}}<br>{{flagicon image|Prinsenvlag.svg}} [[Dutch Republic]]
| combatant2        = {{plainlist}}
* [[Wyandot people|Wendat]] (Huron)
* [[Algonquin people|Algonquin]]
* [[Susquehannock]]
* [[Erie people|Erie]]
* [[Neutral Nation|Neutral]]
* [[Petun]]
* [[Odawa]]
* [[Ojibwe]]
* [[Wenrohronon|Wenro]]
* [[Mahican]]
* [[Innu people|Innu]]
* [[Abenaki]]
* '''Supported by''':
* {{flagcountry|Kingdom of France}}
{{endplainlist}}
| strength1         = ~4,500{{sfnp|Morgan|1922|p=22}}
| strength2         = ~20,000
| casualties1       = Unknown
| casualties2       = Unknown
| campaignbox       = {{Campaignbox Beaver Wars}}
}}

The '''Beaver Wars''' ({{langx|moh|Tsianì kayonkwere}}, {{IPA|moh|d͡ʒanî  gajũgwere|pron}}), also known as the '''Iroquois Wars''' or the '''French and Iroquois Wars''' ({{langx|fr|Guerres franco-iroquoises}}), were a series of conflicts fought intermittently during the 17th century in [[North America]] throughout the [[Saint Lawrence River]] valley in Canada and the [[Great Lakes]] region which pitted the [[Iroquois]] (Haudenosaunee) against the [[Wendat]], northern [[Algonquian peoples|Algonquians]] and their French allies. 
As a result of this conflict, the Iroquois destroyed several confederacies and tribes through warfare: the Wendat or Hurons, [[Erie people|Erie]], [[Neutral Nation|Neutral]], [[Wenro]], [[Petun]], [[Susquehannock]], [[Mohicans|Mohican]] and northern [[Algonquins]] whom they defeated and dispersed, some fleeing to neighbouring peoples and others assimilated, routed, or killed.

The Iroquois sought to expand their territory to monopolize the [[fur trade]] with European markets. They originally were a confederacy of the [[Mohawk people|Mohawk]], [[Oneida people|Oneida]], [[Onondaga people|Onondaga]], [[Cayuga people|Cayuga]], and [[Seneca people|Seneca]] tribes inhabiting the lands in what is now [[Upstate New York]] along the shores of [[Lake Ontario]] east to [[Lake Champlain]] and [[Lake George (lake), New York|Lake George]] on the [[Hudson River]], and the lower-estuary of the Saint Lawrence River. The [[Iroquois Confederation]] led by the Mohawks mobilized against the largely [[Algonquian languages|Algonquian]]-speaking tribes and [[Iroquoian languages|Iroquoian]]-speaking [[Wyandot language|Wendat (Huron)]] and related tribes of the Great Lakes region. The Iroquois were supplied with arms by their Dutch and English trading partners; the Algonquians and Wendat were backed by the French, their chief trading partner.

The Iroquois effectively destroyed several large tribal confederacies, including the Mohicans, [[Wyandot people| Wendat]] (Huron), Neutral, Erie, Susquehannock (Conestoga), and northern Algonquins, 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.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Blick |first1=Jeremy P. |date=3 August 2010 |title=The Iroquois practice of genocidal warfare (1534–1787) |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14623520120097215 |journal=Journal of Genocide Research |volume=3 |issue=3 |pages=405–429 |doi=10.1080/14623520120097215 |s2cid=71358963 |access-date=9 March 2022|url-access=subscription }}</ref> They became dominant in the region and enlarged their territory, realigning the American tribal geography. The Iroquois gained control of the [[New England]] frontier and [[Ohio River]] valley lands as hunting ground from about 1670 onward.
[[File:Susquehannock lang.png|thumb|Map of the original Conestoga territory.]]
Both Algonquian and Iroquoian societies were greatly disrupted by these wars. The conflict subsided when the Iroquois lost their Dutch allies in the [[New Netherland|colony of New Netherland]] after the English took it over in 1664, along with [[Fort Amsterdam]] and the town of [[New Amsterdam]] on [[Manhattan|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]] of 1754, which saw the French being largely expelled from North America.

The wars and subsequent commercial trapping of beavers were devastating to the local [[beaver]] population. Trapping continued to spread across North America, extirpating or severely reducing populations across the continent. The natural [[ecosystem]]s that came to rely on the beavers for [[dams]], water and other vital needs were also devastated leading to [[ecological destruction]], environmental change, and drought in certain areas. [[North American beaver|Beaver populations in North America]] would take centuries to recover in some areas, while others would never recover.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=XhCiDwAAQBAJ Riparian Research and Management, Chapter 7. Euro-American Beaver Trapping and Its long-term Impact on Drainage Network Form and Function, Water Abundance, Delivery, and System Stability ''via'' U. S. Department of Agriculture]</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|url=https://escholarship.org/content/qt870174nb/qt870174nb.pdf|title=The Omnipotent Beaver in Van der Donck's A Description of New Netherland: A Natural Symbol of Promise in the New World|first1=van den Hout|last1=Julie|date=2015-04-01|journal=California Digital Library}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|title=Major histocompatibility complex monomorphism and low levels of DNA fingerprinting variability in a reintroduced and rapidly expanding population of beavers|first1=H.|last1=Ellegren|first2=G.|last2=Hartman|first3=M.|last3=Johansson|first4=L.|last4=Andersson|date=September 1, 1993|journal=Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences|volume=90|issue=17|pages=8150–8153|doi=10.1073/pnas.90.17.8150|pmid=8367476|pmc=47306|bibcode=1993PNAS...90.8150E|doi-access=free}}</ref>

==Background==
{{further|France–Americas relations}}
French explorer [[Jacques Cartier]] in the 1540s made the first written records of the North-American Indigenous people in the region near the mouth of the Saint Lawrence River estuary
<ref>Discours du voyage fait par le capitaine Jaques [Jacques] Cartier aux Terres-neufves de Canadas, Norembergue, Hochelage, Labrador, & pays adjacens, dite Nouvelle France : avec particulières moeurs, langage, & cérémonie des habitans d'icelle https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k8705144c.texteImage</ref>
, although French explorers and fishermen had traded there a decade before for valuable furs. Cartier wrote of encounters with the [[St. Lawrence Iroquoians]],<ref name="Pendergast ">{{cite journal |url=https://www.proquest.com/openview/2af20cd16e5e74102c85a6690353e6ed/1 |first=James F. |last=Pendergast |date=Winter 1998 |title=The Confusing Identities Attributed to Stadacona and Hochelaga |journal=Journal of Canadian Studies |volume=32 |issue=4 |pages=149–167 |doi=10.3138/jcs.32.4.149|s2cid=141363427 |url-access=subscription }}</ref> also known as the ''Stadaconan'' or ''Laurentian'' people who occupied several fortified villages, including ''[[Stadacona]]'' and ''[[Hochelaga (village)|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,<ref name="AmHerTage187">{{cite book |last=Brandon |first=William |title=American Heritage Book of Indians |publisher=American Heritage |editor-first=Alvin M. |editor-last=Josephy |date=1961 |page=187 |isbn=9780070012745 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YX4GAQAAIAAJ }}</ref> and they found no inhabitants in this part of the upper river valley—although the Iroquois and the Wendat<ref name="AmHerTage187"/> used it as hunting ground.<ref name="Pendergast" />{{sfnp|Trigger|1987|pages=214–218, 220–224|loc="The Disappearance of the St. Lawrence Iroquoians"}} The causes remain unclear, although some anthropologists and historians have suggested that the [[Mohawk Nation]] of the [[Iroquois Confederacy]] destroyed or drove out the St. Lawrence Iroquoians.<ref name="AmHerTage187" />

[[File:Champlain-Deffaite-des-Yroquois-au-Lac-Champlain-couleur.png|thumb|In 1609, [[Algonquin people|Algonquin]], [[Wyandot people|Wendat]], and French forces under [[Samuel de Champlain]] attacked the [[Iroquois]] in New York.]]

Before 1603, Champlain had formed an alliance against the Iroquois, as he decided that the French would not trade firearms to them.<ref name="AmHerTage187" /> 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.<ref name="AmHerTage187"/> Champlain wrote, "I had come with no other intention than to make war".{{sfnp|Jennings|1984|p=41}} He and his Wendat and Algonkin<!-- retain spelling, a particular tribe! --> allies fought a pitched battle against the Mohawks on the shores of [[Lake Champlain]].<ref name="AmHerTage187" /> Champlain single-handedly<ref name="AmHerTage187" /> killed two chiefs with his [[arquebus]] despite the war chiefs' "arrowproof body armor made of plaited sticks", after which the Mohawk withdrew in disarray.<ref name="AmHerTage187" />

In 1610, Champlain and his French companions helped the [[Algonquin people|Algonquins]] and the Wendat defeat a large Iroquois raiding party. In 1615, he joined a Wendat raiding party and took part in a siege on an Iroquois town, probably among the [[Onondaga (tribe)|Onondaga]] south of Lake Ontario in New York. The attack ultimately failed, and Champlain was injured.{{sfnp|Trigger|1987|pp=312–315|loc="Sealing the Alliance"}}

===Dutch competition===
[[File:Castle Island and Fort Orange Albany, New York 1629.jpg|thumb|The Dutch established [[Fort Orange (New Netherland)|Fort Orange]] in [[Albany, New York]], in 1624. The fort removed the Iroquois' reliance on French traders and on their Indian allies for European goods.]]

In 1610–1614, the Dutch established a series of seasonal trading posts on the Hudson and Delaware rivers, including one on [[Castle Island (New York)|Castle Island]] at the eastern edge of Mohawk territory near Albany.<ref name="AmHerTage187"/> 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 nation|Delaware tribe]] (Lenape) and the more southerly [[Susquehannock]] tribe. The Dutch founded [[Fort Nassau (North River)|Fort Nassau]] in 1614 and its 1624 replacement [[Fort Orange (New Netherland)|Fort Orange]] (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.<ref name="AmHerTage187" /> In addition, the new post offered valuable tools that the Iroquois could receive in exchange for animal pelts.<ref name="AmHerTage187" /> They began large-scale hunting for furs to satisfy demand among their peoples for new products.<ref name="AmHerTage187" />{{sfnp|Hine|Faragher|2000|p=67}}

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]] and west of the [[Hudson River]]. Their lands were surrounded on all sides but the south by Algonquian-speaking tribes, all traditional enemies, including the [[Shawnee]] to the west in the [[Ohio Country]], the [[Neutral Nation]] and [[Wyandot people|Wendat]] 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===
[[File:Iroquois Warrior with musket 1730.jpg|thumb|upright|Firearms from Dutch traders allowed the Iroquois to wage effective campaigns against the Algonquin and the Wendat.]]
In 1628, the Mohawks defeated the [[Mohican]]s, pushing them east of the Hudson River and establishing a monopoly of trade with the Dutch at [[Fort Orange (New Netherland)|Fort Orange]], [[New Netherland]]. 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 [[Province of Maryland|Maryland colonists]].<ref name="AmHerTage187"/> 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]] to good effect in their continuing wars with the Algonquins and Wendat, 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]], Mahicans, [[Innu]], and Wendat, 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 [[American Beaver|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.<ref name="AmHerTage187"/> The center of the fur trade shifted north to the colder regions of southern Ontario, an area controlled by the Neutral and Wendat 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]] in 1638 and took all of their territory, and survivors fled to the Wendat for refuge. The Wenro had served as a buffer between the Iroquois and the Neutral tribe and their Erie allies near Lake Erie and the Northeast. The Neutral and Erie tribes were considerably larger and more powerful than the Iroquois, so the Iroquois turned their attention to the north{{sfnp|Wallace|2007|p=100}} 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]]. As the Iroquois' sources of furs declined, however, so did the income of the trading posts.{{sfnp|Jennings|1984|p=9}}
[[File:CharlesHuaultMontmagny.jpg|thumb|upright|New France's governor [[Charles de Montmagny]] rejected peace with the [[Mohawk people|Mohawks]] in 1641 because it would imply abandonment of their Wendat allies.]]
In 1641, the Mohawks traveled to [[Trois-Rivières]] 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 [[Charles Jacques Huault de Montmagny|Montmagny]] rejected this proposal because it would imply abandonment of their Wendat allies.

In the early 1640s, the war began in earnest with Iroquois attacks on frontier [[Wyandot people|Wendat]] villages along the [[St. Lawrence River]] 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.{{sfnp|Wallace|2007|p=101}} 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 Wendat, who would act as a middleman. The Iroquois were outraged and resumed the war.{{sfnp|Wallace|2007|p=101}}

The French decided to become directly involved in the conflict. The Wendat and the Iroquois had an estimated 25,000 to 30,000 members each.{{sfnp|Johansen|2006|p=147}} The Wendat and [[Susquehannock]]s formed an alliance to counter Iroquois aggression in 1647, and their warriors greatly outnumbered those of the Iroquois. The Wendat tried to break the Iroquois Confederacy by negotiating a separate peace with the [[Onondaga (tribe)|Onondaga]] and [[Cayuga people|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.{{sfnp|Wallace|2007|p=102}} 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 people|Oneida]] and [[Onondaga people|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]], 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 [[Colony of Virginia|Virginia Colony]] 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.{{sfnp|Jennings|1984|p=8}}

[[File:Battle of Long Sault 1660.jpg|thumb|upright|Depiction of [[Adam Dollard des Ormeaux]] (standing, center) during the [[Battle of Long Sault]], May 1660]]

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 confluence of the St. Lawrence and the [[Ottawa River]]s, but saved Montreal by his actions. In 1692, 14-year-old [[Madeleine de Verchères|Marie-Madeleine Jarret]] successfully frustrated an Iroquois attack on Fort Verchères.

===Defeat of the Wendat===
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 Wendat territory with the onset of winter, and they launched a devastating attack into the heart of Wendat 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 (missionary)|Charles Garnier]], and [[Gabriel Lallemant]], each of whom is considered a martyr of the Roman Catholic Church. The surviving Wendat fled and were dispersed from their territory, some taking refuge with the [[Jesuits]] at [[Quebec]], some assimilated and adopted by the [[Iroquois]], others joined the [[Petun]] or Tobacco nation, another [[Iroquoian]] people to become the [[Wyandot people|Wyandot]]. The [[Ottawa (tribe)|Ottawa tribe]] 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.{{sfnp|Wallace|2007|p=103}}

[[File:Brébuef-jesuits04jesuuoft.jpg|thumb|right|upright|[[Jean Brebeuf]] was one of several Jesuits killed during the Iroquois attack into the heart of Wendat territory.]]

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.{{sfnp|Hine|Faragher|2000|p=68}}

Despite these battles looking like massive successes for the Iroquois, such victories brought issues to the nation. The Iroquois had taken more captives than they could assimilate, which led to divisions and factions within the nation. Many captives held onto their prior beliefs instead of assimilating as well. Large divisions went on to embrace a French alliance and migrated north towards Montreal to trade with the French. The Iroquois accidentally aided the French through their destruction and captivity of the Wendat.<ref name="Taylor 2002">{{Cite book |last=Taylor |first=Alan |title=American colonies: the settling of North America |date=2002 |publisher=Penguin Books |isbn=978-0-14-200210-0 |series=The Penguin history of the United States |location=New York}}</ref>

===Defeat of the Erie and Neutral===
[[File:Iroquois Settlement on the north shore of Lake Ontario 1665-1701.tiff|thumb|The Neutral Iroquois settlements established between 1665 and 1670 north of Lake Ontario, after conquering that territory. With the Great Peace of Montreal they would be abandoned and the region occupied by the Mississauga (1701).[105]]]
The Iroquois attacked the [[Neutral Nation|Neutrals]] in 1650, and they completely drove the tribe from traditional territory by the end of 1651, killing or assimilating thousands.{{sfnp|Wallace|2007|p=103}} The Neutrals had inhabited a territory ranging from the [[Niagara Peninsula]] westward to the [[Grand River (Ontario)|Grand River]] valley.<ref>{{cite book |title=The Archaeology Of Southern Ontario To A.D. 1650 |editor-first1=Chris J. |editor-last1=Ellis |editor-first2=Neal |editor-last2=Ferris |year=1990 |publisher=London Chapter of the [[Ontario Archaeological Society]]|isbn=0-919350-13-5 |pages=410–411 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IepsAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA410}}</ref>

In 1654, the Iroquois attacked the [[Erie (tribe)|Erie]] 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.{{sfnp|Lupold|Haddad|1988|p=11}} 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.{{sfnp|Wallace|2007|p=103}}

===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.{{sfnp|Barr|2006|p=60}} 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, Wendat, 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.{{citation needed|date=August 2021}} Despite their victory, the Iroquois also suffered a significant number of casualties, and their leaders began to consider negotiating for peace with the French.{{sfnp|Barr|2006|p=59}}

The tide of war began to turn in the mid-1660s with the arrival of the [[Carignan-Salières Regiment]], a unit of roughly 1000 regular troops from France and the first group of uniformed professional soldiers in Canada.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Verney |first1=Jack |title=The Good Regiment: The Carignan Salières Regiment in Canada, 1665–1668 |date=1991 |publisher=McGill-Queens University Press |location=Montreal, Quebec |isbn=978-0773518186}}</ref> A change in administration led the government of New France 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.{{sfnp|Barr|2006|p=60}} The Onondaga, Seneca and Cayuga reached a peace settlement with the French; however, the Mohawk and Oneida remained unwilling.

[[File:Alexandre de Prouville de Tracy.jpg|thumb|left|upright|In 1666, [[Alexandre de Prouville de Tracy]] led a French force of 1,300 men to attack Mohawk villages in New York.]]

In January 1666, Governor [[Daniel de Rémy de Courcelle]] attempted to invade the Mohawk homeland. The invasion force of 400 to 500 men briefly skirmished with the Mohawk but failed to reach their villages as the French soldiers were ill-equipped to operate in the cold and deep snow.<ref name="biographi1">{{cite DCB |url=http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/prouville_de_tracy_alexandre_de_1E.html |title=Prouville de Tracy, Alexandre de |first=Léopold |last=Lamontagne |volume=1 |access-date=2011-12-08}}</ref>

The second invasion force was led by [[Alexandre de Prouville de Tracy]] whom Louis XIV had appointed as Lieutenant Général of the Americas. The invasion force of about 1,300 men set out September 1666 and reached the Mohawk villages in mid-October. The villages had been hastily abandoned. Tracy ordered the longhouses and fields of crops destroyed, and the expedition returned to New France. A peace settlement was reached with the Mohawk and Oneida in July 1667.<ref name="biographi1"/>

===Peace with France and Iroquois expansion===
[[File:Fox01.png|thumb|Map of the tribes of the Great Lakes region between 1630 and 1650.]]
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 [[Lakota people|Lakotas]] were pushed across the Mississippi onto the [[Great Plains]] 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]] and [[Miami tribe]]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]] and the [[Illini confederation]] who inhabited [[Michigan]] and [[Illinois]]. The majority of the fighting was between the Anishinaabeg Confederacy and the Iroquois Confederacy.{{sfnp|Funk|1964|p=12}}

[[File:5NationsExpansion.jpg|thumb|upright=1.25|A map of Iroquois expansion during the war. Peace was re-established with the French in 1666, and the Iroquois returned to their westward conquest of all the land between the French and Algonquin territory.]]

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.{{sfnp|Barr|2006|p=16}} 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]], leaving much of the Ohio Valley, southern Michigan, and southern Ontario depopulated. Several [[Anishinaabe]] 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.<ref>Schmalz, Peter S. (1991), ''The Ojibwa of Southern Ontario'', University of Toronto Press. {{ISBN|0-8020-2736-9}}</ref> 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 Country|Ohio]] and [[Illinois Country]] from the Mississippi and Ohio rivers, and they established the post of [[Tassinong, Indiana|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]] tribe out of the northern [[Virginia Piedmont]] 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]], and they attacked and destroyed most of the Iroquois party,{{sfnp|Thompson|1898|pp=38–40}} 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,{{sfnp|Jennings|1984|p=11}} and the Iroquois' brief control over the region was lost. Many of the former inhabitants of the territory began to return.{{sfnp|Jennings|1984|pp=12–13}}

====Defeat of the Susquehannocks====
With the tribes destroyed to the north and west, the Iroquois turned their attention southward to the [[Susquehannock]]. The Susquehannock attained the peak of their influence in the 1650s, and they were able to use that to their advantage in the following decades.{{sfnp|Barr|2006|p=58}}  In the winter of 1652, the Susquehannock were attacked by the Mohawk, and although the attack was repulsed, it led to the Susquehannock negotiating Articles of Peace and Friendship with Maryland.<ref name="Jennings">{{cite journal |last1=Jennings |first1=Francis |title=Glory, Death, and Transfiguration: The Susquehannock Indians in the Seventeenth Century |journal=Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society |date=1968 |volume=112 |issue=1 |pages=15–53 |jstor=986100 |url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/986100}}</ref>

An [[Oneida people|Oneida]] raid on the Piscataway in 1660 led Maryland to expand its treaty with the Susquehannock into an alliance. The Maryland assembly authorized armed assistance, and described the Susquehannock as "a Bullwarke and Security of the Northern Parts of this Province." 50 men were sent to help defend the Susquehannock village. Muskets, lead and powder were acquired from both Maryland and New Netherland. Despite suffering a smallpox epidemic in 1661, the Susquehannock easily withstood a siege by 800 Seneca, [[Cayuga people|Cayuga]] and Onondaga in May 1663, and destroyed an Onondaga war party in 1666.<ref name="Jennings" />

War between the Iroquois and Susquehannock continued intermittently until 1674 when the Maryland colonists changed their Indian policy, negotiated peace with the Iroquois, and terminated their alliance with the Susquehannocks. Most historians believe that the Haudenosaunee inflicted a major defeat on the Susquehannock {{circa|1674}} since the ''Jesuit Relations'' for 1675 reports that the Seneca "utterly defeated ... their ancient and redoubtable foes."<ref name="Kent">{{cite book |last1=Kent |first1=Barry C. |title=Susquehanna's Indians |date=1984 |publisher=Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission |location=Harrisburg, Pennsylvania |isbn=9780892710249 |url=https://archive.org/details/susquehannasindi0000kent}}</ref>

In 1675, the Susquehannock moved south into Maryland. Later that year the militias of [[Virginia]] and Maryland besieged the Susquehannock fort, and assassinated the Susquehannock chiefs during a parley. The survivors of the siege were eventually absorbed by the Iroquois.{{sfnp|Wallace|2007|p=104}}

===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. [[File:De Tonty suing for peace in the Iroquois village. January 2, 1680.jpg|thumb|De Tonty suing for peace in the Iroquois village. January 2, 1680]]
[[File:Frontenac with the Indians.jpg|thumb|upright|New France's Governor General [[Louis de Buade de Frontenac]] with Indian allies; his attempts to revive the fur-trade in the frontier led to renewed hostilities with the Iroquois]]

In 1681, [[René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle]], negotiated a treaty with the Miami and Illinois tribes.<ref>{{cite book|chapter=''The Road from Detroit to the Illinois'' 1774.|title=''Michigan Pioneer and History Collections''|volume=10|page=248}}</ref> 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, [[Jacques-René de Brisay de Denonville, Marquis de Denonville|Governor Denonville]] and [[Sieur de Troyes|Pierre de Troyes]] set out with a well organized force to [[Fort Frontenac]]. Denonville captured 58 male prisoners and 36 of these were later shipped to [[Marseille]], France to be galley slaves. (13 men survived and eventually returned to Canada.)<ref>{{cite DCB |url=http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/brisay_de_denonville_jacques_rene_de_2E.html |title=Brisay de Denonville, Jacques-René de |first=W.J. |last=Eccles |volume=2 |access-date=2025-11-04}}</ref> He then travelled down the shore of [[Lake Ontario]] and built [[Fort Denonville]] at the site where the [[Niagara River]] meets Lake Ontario. This site was previously used by [[René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle|La Salle]] for [[Fort Conti]] from 1678 to 1679, and was later used for [[Fort Niagara]] which still exists. The Iroquois retaliated by destroying farmsteads and slaughtering entire families. They [[Lachine massacre|burned Lachine to the ground]] on August 4, 1689. [[Comte de Frontenac|Frontenac]] replaced Denonville as governor for the next nine years (1689–1698).

During [[King William's War]] (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]] in the [[Province of New York|colony of New York]], the [[Raid on Salmon Falls]] in [[New Hampshire]], and the [[Battle of Fort Loyal]] in [[Portland, Maine]]. 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, [[Mohawk Valley raid|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 French offensive was not halted by the 1697 [[Treaty of Ryswick]] that brought peace between France and England, ending English participation in that conflict.

==Peace==
{{main|Great Peace of Montreal}}
[[File:Grande Paix Montreal.jpg|thumb|A copy of the [[Great Peace of Montreal|peace treaty]] that ended hostilities between New France and 39 [[First Nations in Canada|First Nations]]]]
The Iroquois eventually began to see the [[Thirteen Colonies|emerging Thirteen Colonies]] as a greater threat than the French in 1698. The [[Province of Pennsylvania|colony of Pennsylvania]] was founded in 1681, and the continued growth there began to encroach on the southern border of the Iroquois.{{sfnp|Jennings|1984|p=9}} 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, New York|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.{{sfnp|Wallace|2007|p=106}}

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 Miami tribe returned to take control of Indiana and northwest Ohio. The Pottawatomie went to [[Michigan]], and the Illinois tribe to [[Illinois]].{{sfnp|Wallace|2007|p=106}} The peace lasted into the 1720s.{{sfnp|Jennings|1984|p=23}}

==Aftermath==
In 1768, several of the Thirteen Colonies purchased the "Iroquois claim" to the Ohio and Illinois Country and created the [[Indiana Land Company]] 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 [[Supreme Court of the United States|United States Supreme Court]].<ref name="IHBNI">{{cite web |url= http://www.in.gov/history/2686.htm|title=The naming of Indiana|publisher=Indiana Historical Bureau, State of Indiana |website=in.gov |access-date=2008-09-29 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081006123009/http://www.in.gov/history/2686.htm |archive-date=6 October 2008 |url-status=live}}</ref>

Many of the Iroquois people allied with the British during the [[American Revolutionary War]], 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 [[Parliament of Great Britain|British parliament]] agreed to cede control over much of its territory in North America to the newly formed [[United States]] and worked to resettle [[Loyalist (American Revolution)|American loyalists]] in [[British North America|Canada]] and provide some compensation for lands the Loyalists and Native Americans had lost to the United States. Mohawk Chief [[Joseph Brant]] led a large group of Iroquois out of New York to what became the reserve of the [[Six Nations of the Grand River]] 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.<ref>{{cite web |title=Thayendanegea |url=http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/thayendanegea_5E.html |website=www.biographi.ca |publisher=University of Toronto/Université Laval}}</ref>

The coalition of Native American tribes, known as the [[Western Confederacy]], was forced to cede extensive territory, including much of present-day Ohio, in the [[Treaty of Greenville]] in 1795.

New France's involvement with the Iroquois and other native tribes in the Great Lakes region greatly impacted the future of French colonies, as well as the native tribes in the region. New France was far less profitable and much more violent than Champlain and other French leaders had hoped. The French involvement in native trade caused the French to entangle with complex native alliances, which pitted tribes against the French, and each other. French involvement also introduced disease, weapons, and war, which led to the further destruction of tribes in the region.<ref name="Taylor 2002"/>

==See also==
{{Portal|History|Canada|France|North America|United States}}
* [[American Indian Wars]]
* [[Colonial American military history]]
* [[Fox Wars]]
* [[Military history of Canada]]
* [[Military history of the Mi'kmaq people]]
* [[Military of New France]]
* [[List of genocides]]

==Notes==
{{reflist}}

==Sources==
{{refbegin}}
*{{cite book |last=Barr |first=Daniel P. |title=Unconquered: The Iroquois League at War in Colonial America |year=2006 |isbn=0-275-98466-4 |publisher=Greenwood |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vi1ROx0PmI4C}}
*{{cite book |last=Funk |first=Arville |title=A Sketchbook of Indiana History |publisher=Christian Book Press |year=1964}}
*{{cite book |last1=Hine |first1=Robert V. |last2=Faragher |first2=John Mack |title=The American West: A New Interpretive History |year=2000 |isbn=0-300-07835-8 |publisher=Yale University Press |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xuLSxbn7DSUC}}
*{{cite book |last1=Lupold |first1=Harry Forrest |last2=Haddad |first2=Gladys |title=Ohio's Western Reserve |isbn=0-87338-372-9 |publisher=Kent State University Press |year=1988}}
*{{cite book |last=Jennings |first=Francis |title=The Ambiguous Iroquois Empire |year=1984 |isbn=0-393-01719-2 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jfxdH5pslt4C |publisher=[[W. W. Norton & Company]]}}
*{{cite book |last=Johansen |first=Bruce E. |title=The Native Peoples of North America |year=2006 |isbn=0-8135-3899-8 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yiKgBuSUPUIC |publisher=Rutgers University Press}}
*{{cite book |last=Morgan |first=Lewis H. |title=League of the Iroquois |year=1922 |isbn=1404751602 |publisher=Classic Textbooks |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qFv3AQAACAAJ&pg=PP1}}
*{{cite book |last=Schmalz |first=Peter S. |title=The Ojibwa of Southern Ontario |url=https://archive.org/details/ojibwaofsouthern0000schm |url-access=registration |year=1991 |isbn=0-8020-2736-9 |publisher=University of Toronto Press}}
*{{cite book |last1=Salvucci |first1=Claudio R. |first2=Anthony P. Jr. |last2=Schiavo |title=Iroquois Wars II: Excerpts from the Jesuit Relations and Other Primary Sources |publisher=Evolution Publishing |location=Bristol, Pennsylvania |year=2003 |isbn=1-889758-34-5}}
*{{cite book |last1=Sciavo |first1=Anthony P. Jr. |first2=Claudio R. |last2=Salvucci |title=Iroquois Wars I: Excerpts from the Jesuit Relations and Primary Sources 1535–1650 |publisher=Evolution Publishing |location=Bristol, Pennsylvania |year=2003 |isbn=1-889758-37-X}}
*{{Cite book |last=Taylor |first=Alan |title=American Colonies: the Settling of North America |publisher=Penguin Books |year=2002 |isbn=9780142002100 |pages=111–113}}
*{{cite book |last=Thompson |first=Maurice |title=Stories of Indiana |url=https://archive.org/details/storiesofindiana7215thom |year=1898 |publisher=American Book Company |location=New York, Cincinnati, Chicago}}
* {{cite book |last=Trigger |first=Bruce G. |title=The Children of Aataentsic: A History of the Huron People to 1660 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=T3NQ1lsaHs0C&pg=PP1 |edition=1st paperback |year=1987 |publisher=McGill-Queen's University Press |isbn=978-0-7735-0627-5 |orig-year=1976}}
*{{cite book |last=Wallace |first=Paul A. W. |title=Indians in Pennsylvania |orig-year=1961 |edition=2nd |date=2007 |isbn=978-0-89271-017-1 |publisher=Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4ryqOZkO1LUC&pg=PP1}}
{{refend}}

==External links==
*[http://www.evolpub.com/ACNA/ACNAChronology.html Timeline of the Iroquois Wars (1533–1650)]
{{New France}}
{{Canadian military history}}
{{French colonial campaigns}}
{{Illinois conflicts}}

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