The Iroquois Confederacy’s role in the French-British rivalry

The Iroquois also came into conflict with the French in the later 17th century. The French were allies of their enemies, the Algonquins and Hurons, and after the Iroquois had destroyed the Huron confederacy in 1648–50, they launched devastating raids on New France for the next decade and a half. They were then temporarily checked by successive French expeditions against them in 1666 and 1687, but, after the latter attack, led by the marquis de Denonville, the Iroquois once again carried the fight into the heart of French territory, wiping out Lachine, near Montreal, in 1689. These wars were finally ended by a series of successful campaigns by New France’s governor, the comte de Frontenac, against the Iroquois in 1693–96.

For a century and a quarter before the American Revolution, the Iroquois stood athwart the path from Albany to the Great Lakes, keeping the route from permanent settlement by the French and containing the Dutch and the English. In the 18th century the Six Nations remained consistent and bitter enemies of the French, who were allied with their traditional foes. The Iroquois became dependent on the British in Albany for European goods (which were cheaper there than in Montreal), and thus Albany was never attacked. The Iroquois’ success in maintaining their autonomy vis-à-vis both the French and English was a remarkable achievement for an aboriginal people that could field only 2,200 men from a total population of scarcely 12,000.

The Covenant Chain, an understanding between the Iroquois and the northern British colonies, acknowledged British sovereignty over the areas settled by the colonists while also recognizing Iroquois domination over all of the Native American peoples between the Hudson and Mississippi Rivers. When the Mohawks, the easternmost nation in the confederacy, announced that they intended to end the agreement, the British colonists reacted quickly. In order to triumph in the imminent conflict with the French that would become the French and Indian War, the British knew that they would need to secure the support or at least the neutrality of the Iroquois Confederation.

In 1754 seven colonies—Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island—sent delegates to a conference in Albany (the Albany Congress) that was convened to firm up the loyalty of the confederacy (as well as to establish joint defense measures among the colonies). Some 150 representatives of the confederacy were present. In addition to gifts and trade goods, they were given promises of redress of grievances. The gathered colonists went on to discuss a plan of union among the colonies that was proposed by Benjamin Franklin, who was an admirer of the Iroquois Confederacy’s political system. The extent of the confederacy’s influence on the development of the American political system has been much debated by scholars.

The Iroquois Confederacy during the American Revolution and beyond

During the American Revolution, a schism developed among the Iroquois. The Oneida and Tuscarora espoused the American cause, while the rest of the league, led by Chief Joseph Brant’s Mohawk loyalists, fought for the British out of Niagara, decimating several isolated American settlements. The fields, orchards, and granaries, as well as the morale, of the Iroquois were destroyed in 1779 when U.S. Maj. Gen. John Sullivan led a retaliatory expedition of 4,000 Americans against them, defeating them near present-day Elmira, New York.

The confederacy acknowledged defeat in the Second Treaty of Fort Stanwix (1784). In a treaty that was made at Canandaigua, New York, 10 years later, the Iroquois and the United States each pledged not to disturb the other in lands that had been relinquished or reserved. Of the Six Nations, the Onondaga, Seneca, and Tuscarora, as well as some Oneida, remained in New York, eventually settling on reservations, the Mohawk and Cayuga withdrew to Canada, and, a generation later, a large group of the Oneida departed for Wisconsin, with still others settling in Ontario, Canada.