Fisherman who plied their trade along the North American seacoast were the first ones to discover beaver during the 16th century, perhaps in trade with Natives on whose shores they made landfall. They brought the fur back to Europe and interest in it spread. As European powers laid claim to North American, Champlain in Canada in 1600, the English in Jamestown in 1607, the Dutch in what is now New York in 1609-10, and the English again in Massachusetts in 1620, they soon realized that trading for this fur from Natives was a lucrative source of income for both sides. They also walked into an ongoing dispute between the Five Nations of the Iroquois (the Tuscarora didn't come along until the next century), and nearly every other Native tribe in the Northeast and Great Lakes Region. The Iroquois, having banded together under their Great Law of Peace, were formidable enemies, especially the Mohawk, who were the most powerful of the tribes.
Samuel de Champlain was the first to catch on to the politics among the Native peoples. The Huron, Montagnais and various Algonquian tribes vied for his support against the rapidly expanding Haudenosaunee (Iroquois). He determined to cut the Iroquois out of the fur and firearms trade and deal only with their adversaries. He and his small band of Europeans joined forces with the Huron and other tribes to oppose the Iroquois access to the beaver trade, leading to a series of conflicts in which Europeans and Natives became embroiled for the next century. Nor were the French the only ones seeking entry into the beaver trade. The Dutch East India Company had commissioned English adventurer Henry Hudson to seek a northwest passage through the North American land mass. In 1609, Hudson sailed up the river that bears his name and established the first settlement at what is now Albany in 1609. The Dutch, and later the English who received all of Holland's possessions in North America, were more than willing to cut the Iroquois in on the fur trade as Fort Nassau competed with Quebec City (1608) as a locus for the beaver trade. Soon, Dutch settlers began arriving in what is now New York and Connecticut, mostly religious minorities seeking freedom from oppression back home. The English also made landfall in Massachusetts in 1620, and soon spread throughout what is now New England. The Mohawk watched the expansion with growing concern, and were willing to ally with either Dutch or English against other tribes to protect their hunting grounds and the beaver trade.
Beginning in the 1640's conflicts began in earnest between the Iroquois and their Dutch/English allies, and almost everyone else including the Huron, Erie, Odawa, Ojibwe, Potawatomi, Algonquian, Shawnee, Lenape, Miami and Mahican, just to name a few, supported by the French. The Beaver Wars saw some of the bloodiest fighting in North America as Natives and their European allies fought for control of hunting range and the beaver trade. Gradually, Iroquois power expanded from their traditional homelands in New York up the St. Lawrence river, through the Ohio Valley and as far as Virginia. They defeated first the Mahican in 1628 and turned their attention to other tribes, such as the Huron, the Neutrals and Erie, then the Susquehannock and the Shawnee. As the beaver became more scarce, the fighting became more deadly.
Although the Iroquois appeared to be gaining the upper hand, constant warfare and exposure to European diseases was taking their toll on them. As they saw the balance of power shaping between the French on one side and the Dutch/English on another, they sent a delegation to the Governor of New France in 1641, but were rebuffed. The warfare intensified as each side sought alliance with other tribes, or tried to break existing bonds of unity, the French attempting to wean the smaller Cayuga and Onandaga tribes away from the larger Iroquois Confederacy. The Mohawk promptly put a stop to this espionage. The Iroquois continued to battle the Huron, who withdrew from the Great Lakes Region. However, other tribes, such as the Ottawa, were strong enough to block the Iroquois from further expansion into the Ohio Valley. The Iroquois continued to attack French settlements, most notably Montreal. Meanwhile, the Dutch had ceded most of their land in Connecticut and New York to the English by 1664 and withdrew from North America.
The French were fed up with Iroquois attacks on Montreal and began bringing troops from France to deal with the threat. As the French gained the upper hand on the Iroquois in the 1660's, and the Dutch withdrew, English support for the Iroquois' efforts at expansion began to dry up. The French sent punitive raids into New York and the Ohio Valley with mixed success. The fighting drove many Native tribes who had hitherto lived in the Great Lakes Region, such as the ancestors of the Lakota, across the Mississippi and onto the Great Plains. The Iroquois found themselves in a struggle with the French on one side, and the Shawnee, Potawatomi and others for control of the Ohio Valley. As smaller tribes fled to get out of the way of the conflict, portions of the Ohio Valley were underpopulated. More French settlement poured into the Great Lakes Region and the Ohio Valley, the conflict intensified.
Meanwhile, the English, trying to consolidate the territory the Dutch had left behind, found themselves perilously close to a land war with France in North America and both sides grew desperate. In an act of terrible treachery, in June, 1687, the then-governor of New France decided to deal with the Iroquois threat, and the Iroquois-English combine, in a brutal way. He invited the 50 Iroquois sachems to a treaty parley, had them arrested, clapped in irons and sent to France for use as galley slaves. He then ravaged the Seneca's homelands. Incidents like this created anger and mistrust between France and the Iroquois for decades to come. It also drove the Iroquois into tighter alliances with the English. During the first of the so-called French and Indian Wars (King William's War (1688-1697), English, French and their respective Native allies attacked and destroyed each others' forts, settlements and villages with a vengeance. The 1697 Treaty of Ryswick ended the European portion of this conflict, but the North American portion was far from over.
As English settlers poured into Pennsylvania, further encroaching on territory claimed by the Iroquois, the fighting only intensified with the Five Nations, now caught between two warring colonial powers. The French began to realize that the Iroquois were not about to give up or go away and would have to be treated as what they were, a confederacy of sovereign nations in their own right. In 1701, Iroquois representatives traveled to Montreal and signed the Peace of Montreal in 1701. They agreed to stop raiding and to allow other tribes such as the Shawnee access to the Ohio Valley. The Miami resettled in Ohio and Indiana. The Potawatomi relocated to Michigan, and the Illinois tribes located to what is now Illinois. Although the English were against the Iroquois signing any treaties with the French, they had to accept the status quo for the time being. The Iroquois formed an uneasy buffer between two equally powerful colonial powers. Later, the Iroquois agreed to cede some territory in the Ohio Valley to the English, though this transfer was never recognized by the French. In this period of relative peace, the Iroquois were able to rebuild their homes and lives without the havoc wrought by constant warfare. Though the frontier was far from quiet, there was a brief lull in the fighting, for the time being.
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