Beaver Wars The Beaver Wars — also known as the Iroquois Wars or the French and Iroquois Wars — encompass a series of conflicts fought in the mid - 17th century in eastern North America . Encouraged and armed by their Dutch and English trading partners , the Iroquois sought to expand their territory and monopolize the fur trade and the trade between European markets and the tribes of the western Great Lakes region . The conflict pitted the nations of the Iroquois Confederation , led by the dominant Mohawk , against the French - backed and largely Algonquian - speaking tribes of the Great Lakes region . The wars were brutal and are considered one of the bloodiest series of conflicts in the history of North America . As the Iroquois succeeded in the war and enlarged their territory , they realigned the tribal geography of North America , and destroyed several large tribal confederacies — including the Huron , Neutral , Erie , Susquehannock , and Shawnee — and pushed some eastern tribes west of the Mississippi River , or southward into the Carolinas . The Iroquois also controlled the Ohio Valley lands as hunting ground , from about 1670 onward , as far as can be determined from contemporary French ( Jesuit ) accounts . The Ohio Country and the Lower Peninsula of Michigan were virtually emptied of Native people as refugees fled westward to escape Iroquois warriors . ( Much of this region was later repopulated by Native peoples nominally subjected to the Six Nations ; see Mingo . ) Both Algonquian and Iroquoian societies were greatly disrupted by these wars . The conflict subsided with the loss by the Iroquois of their Dutch allies in the New Netherland colony , and with a growing French objective to gain the Iroquois as an ally against English encroachment . After the Iroquois became trading partners with the English , their alliance was a crucial component of the later English expansion . They used the Iroquois conquests as a claim to the old Northwest . Origins . Written records for the $ 3 begin with the voyages of Jacques Cartier in the 1540s , whilst the French explorers and fishermen had traded in the region near the mouth of the St . Lawrence estuary a decade before then for valuable furs . Cartier wrote of encounters with a people later classified as the St . Lawrence Iroquoians , also known as the " Stadaconan " or " Laurentian " people , who occupied several fortified villages , including " Stadacona " and " Hochelaga " . Cartier recorded an ongoing war between the Stadaconans and another tribe known as the " Toudaman " , who had destroyed one of their forts the previous year , resulting in 200 deaths . Wars and politics in Europe distracted French efforts at colonization in the St . Lawrence Valley until the beginning of the 17th century — until the founding of Quebec in 1608 . When the French returned , they found the sites of both Stadacona and Hochelaga abandoned — completely destroyed by an unknown enemy . Editors of the American Heritage Book of Indians ( AMBoI ) note that some anthropologists and historians have suggested that the Mohawk Nation of the Iroquois Confederacy destroyed and drove out the St . Lawrence Iroquoians , based on analysis of political and economic conditions at the time . When the French returned , there were no inhabitants in this part of the upper river valley . The Iroquois and the Iroquoian speaking Huron used it as hunting ground . The causes remain unclear . ( Iroquois oral tradition , as recorded in the " Jesuit Relations " , speaks of a draining war between the Mohawk Iroquois and an alliance of the Susquehannock and Algonquin sometime between 1580 and 1600 ) . This was perhaps in response to the formation of the League of the Iroquois ( NABoI puts this in about 1570 ) . When the French returned in 1601 , the St . Lawrence Valley had already been the site of generations of blood - feud - style warfare , as indeed characterized the relations of the Iroquois with virtually all neighboring peoples . When Samuel de Champlain landed at " Tadoussac " on the St . Lawrence , the " Montagnais " , Algonquin , and Huron almost immediately recruited him and his small company of French adventurers to assist in attacking their Iroquois enemies upriver . Before 1603 , Champlain had formed an offensive alliance against the Iroquois , and a precedent was set that the French would not trade firearms to the Iroquois . He had a commercial rationale : the northern Natives provided the French with valuable fur s and the Iroquois , based in present - day New York , interfered with that trade . The first deliberate battle in 1609 was fought at Champlain ' s initiative . Champlain wrote , " I had come with no other intention than to make war " . In the company of his Huron and Algonkin allies , Champlain and his forces fought a pitched battle with the Mohawk on the shores of Lake Champlain . Champlain singlehandedly killed three Iroquois chiefs with an " arquebus " despite the war chiefs having worn " arrowproof body armor made of plaited sticks " . In 1610 , Champlain and his arquebus - wielding French companions helped the Algonquin and the Huron defeat a large Iroquois raiding party . In 1615 , Champlain joined a Huron raiding party and took part in a siege on an Iroquois town , probably among the Onondaga south of Lake Ontario in present - day New York State . The attack ultimately failed , and Champlain was injured . Dutch competition . In 1610 - 1614 , with eyes long aware of French Fur sales , the Dutch established a series impermanent ( seasonal ) trading posts on the Hudson and Delaware Rivers , one on Castle Island at the edge of Iroquois territory near present day Albany , giving the Iroquois direct access to European markets . Their trading efforts and eventual colonies in New Jersey and Delaware soon also gave the Delaware nation and Susquehannock s trade with the Dutch , which for their own reasons were reluctant to trade firearms to the Delaware . The 1614 founding of Fort Nassau and its 1624 replacement by Fort Orange ( both at Albany ) removed the Iroquois ' need to rely on the French and their allied tribes nor on traveling through the lands of the more southern Susquehannock or more coastally positioned Delaware Nation s to trade with the Dutch — all of whom had functioned as middlemen in the trading of goods , in particular firearms , which the Dutch were happy to supply whereas the French only reluctantly supplied them to non - Huron tribes . The new post offered valuable tools that the Iroquois could receive in exchange for animal pelts . This began the Iroquois ' large - scale hunting for furs . At this time , conflict began to grow quickly between the Iroquois and the Canadian Indian peoples supported by the French . The Iroquois inhabited the region of present - day New York south of Lake Ontario and west of the Hudson River . The Iroquois lands comprised an ethnic island , surrounded on all sides but the south by Algonquian - speaking nations , all traditional enemies — including the Shawnee to the west in the Ohio Country . Their rivals also included the Iroquoian - speaking Huron and Neutral Nation Confederacies , who lived on the southern shore of Lake Huron and the western shore of Lake Ontario , respectively , and the Susquehannocks to their south but all of which while sometimes allies were also sometimes enemies , so were not part of the Iroquois Confederation , despite shared linguistic heritages . Beaver Wars begin . In 1628 the Mohawk defeated the Mahican and established a monopoly of trade with the Dutch at Fort Orange ( later Albany , New York ) , New Netherland . In the same era , the Susquehannocks , also well armed by the fur trade with Dutch traders effectively reduced the Delaware ' s strength and won a protracted declared war with the Province of Maryland . By the 1630s , the Iroquois had become fully armed with European weaponry through their trade with the Dutch . The Iroquois , particularly the Mohawk , had come to rely on the trade for the purchase of firearms and other highly valued and much coveted European goods for their livelihood and survival . They used their growing expertise with the arquebus to good effect in their continuing wars with the Algonquin , Huron , and other traditional enemies . The French , meanwhile , outlawed the trading of firearms to their native allies , though they occasionally gave arquebuses as gifts to individuals who converted to Christianity . Although the Iroquois first attacked their traditional enemies ( the Algonquins , Mahican s , Montagnais , and Hurons ) , the alliance of these tribes with the French quickly brought the Iroquois into fierce and bloody conflict directly with the European colonists . The use of firearms enabled overhunting and accelerated the decline of the beaver population . By 1640 the animal had largely disappeared from the Hudson Valley . Historian - editors of American Heritage Magazine have argued 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 northward to the colder regions of present - day southern Ontario , an area controlled by the Neutrals as well as by the Hurons - the close trading partners of the French . The Iroquois , displaced in the fur trade by other nations in the region , and threatened by disease and with a declining population , began an aggressive campaign to expand their area of control . Conflict . With the decline of beaver , the Iroquois began to conquer their smaller neighbors . They attacked the Wenro in 1638 and took all of their territory . Survivors fled to the Hurons for refuge . The Wenro had served as a buffer between the Iroquois and the Neutral tribe and Erie allies . These two tribes were considerably larger and more powerful than the Iroquois . With expansion to the west blocked , the Iroquois turned their attention to the north . The Dutch also encouraged the Iroquois 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 and from there sent back to Europe . As the Iroquois ' sources of furs declined , so did the income of the trading posts . In 1641 , the Mohawks traveled to Trois - Rivières in New France to propose peace with the French and their allied tribes . 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 villages along the St . Lawrence River ; their intent was disruption of the trade with the French . In 1645 the French called the tribes together to negotiate a treaty to end the conflict . Two 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 eighty canoes carrying a large harvest of furs traveled through Iroquois territory to be sold in New France . When the Iroquois arrived , the French refused to purchase the furs and told the Iroquois to sell them to the Huron , who would act as a middleman . Outraged , the Iroquois resumed the war . The French decided to become directly involved in the conflict . The Huron and the Iroquois had similar access to manpower , each tribe having an estimated 25 , 000 – 30 , 000 members . To gain the upper hand , in 1647 the Huron and Susquehannock formed an alliance to counter Iroquois aggression . Together their warriors greatly outnumbered those of the Iroquois . The Huron tried to break the Iroquois Confederacy by negotiating separate peaces with the Onondaga and the Cayuga . When the other tribes intercepted their messengers , they put an end to the negotiations . During the summer of 1647 there were several small skirmishes between the tribes . In 1648 a more significant battle occurred when the two Algonquin tribes attempted to pass a fur convoy through an Iroquois blockade . Their attempt succeeded and they inflicted high casualties on the Iroquois . During the following years , the Iroquois strengthened their confederacy to work more closely and create an effective central leadership . Although the workings of their government remain largely unknown , by the 1660s the five Iroquois ceased fighting among themselves . They also easily coordinated military and economic plans among all five nations . In so doing , they increased their power and achieved a level of government more advanced than those of the surrounding tribes ' decentralized forms of operating . Although Indian raids were not constant , they terrified the inhabitants of New France . Initially , the colonists felt helpless to prevent them . Some of the heroes of French - Canadian folk memory are of individuals who stood up to such attacks . An example was Dollard des Ormeaux , who died in May 1660 while resisting an Iroquois raiding force at the Long Sault , the confluence of the St . Lawrence and the Ottawa Rivers . According to legend , he succeeded in saving Montreal by his actions . Another hero was Madeleine de Verchères , who in 1692 at age 14 , led the defense of her family farm against Iroquois attack . Viewing the Iroquois as pawns of the Dutch and English , their traditional Protestant enemies , the French refused to make peace with the Natives . Defeat of the Huron . In 1648 , the Dutch authorized selling guns directly to the Mohawk 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 , the Iroquois warriors 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 the Jesuit missionaries Jean Brebeuf , Charles Garnier , and Gabriel Lallemant . Each is considered a martyr of the Roman Catholic Church . The surviving Huron fled their territory to seek assistance from the " Anishinaabeg " Confederacy in the northern Great Lakes region . The " Odaawaa " Nation ( Ottawa ) temporarily halted Iroquois expansion further northwest . With the Hurons ' withdrawal , the Iroquois controlled a fur - rich region and had no more native tribes blocking them from the French settlements in Canada . European 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 , the Iroquois worked to integrate many of their captured enemy by adoption into their own tribes . They invited Jesuits into their territory to teach those who had converted to Christianity . One priest recorded , " As far as I can divine , It is the design of the Iroquois to capture all the Huron . . . put the Chiefs to death . . . and with the rest to form one nation and country " . The Jesuits also reached out to the Iroquois , many of whom converted to or added Catholicism to indigenous belief . The converted Iroquois would play an important part in the years to come . In the early 1650s , the Iroquois began to attack the French . Some of the Iroquois Nations , notably the Oneida and Onondaga , had peaceful relations with the French but were under control of the Mohawk . The latter were the strongest nation in the Confederacy and were hostile to the French presence . After a failed peace treaty negotiated by Chief Canaqueese , Iroquois war parties moved north into New France along Lake Champlain and the Richelieu River . They attacked and blockaded Montreal . Typically a raid on an isolated farm or settlement consisted of a war party moving swiftly and silently through the woods , swooping down suddenly and without warning . In many cases , prisoners , especially women and children , were brought back to the Iroquois homelands and were adopted into the nations . Defeat of the Erie and Neutral . The Iroquois attacked the Neutral Nation in 1650 . By the end of 1651 , they had completely driven the tribe from traditional territory , killing or assimilating thousands . At the time , the Neutrals inhabited a territory ranging from the present - day Niagara Peninsula , westward to the Grand River valley . In 1654 the Iroquois attacked the Erie , but with less success . The war between the Erie and the Iroquois lasted for two years . By 1656 the Iroquois had almost completely destroyed the Erie confederacy , 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 . Greatly outnumbered by the tribes they had subdued , the Iroquois had been able to achieve their victories through the use of firearms purchased from the Dutch . Defeat of the Susquehannock . With the tribes to the north and west destroyed , the Iroquois turned their attention southward to the Iroquoian - speaking Susquehannock . 1660 marked the zenith of Iroquois military power , and they were able to use that to their advantage in the decades to follow . The Susquehannock had become allied with the English in the Maryland colony in 1661 . The English had grown fearful of the Iroquois and hoped an alliance with Susquehannock would help block the northern tribes ' advance on the English colonies . In 1663 the Iroquois sent an army of 800 warriors into the Susquehannock territory . They repulsed the army , but the invasion prompted the colony of Maryland to declare war on the Iroquois . By supplying Susquehannock forts with artillery , the English in Maryland changed the balance of power away from the Iroquois . The Susquehannock 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 English in Maryland changed their Indian Policy and negotiated peace with the Iroquois . They terminated their alliance with the Susquehannock . In 1675 the militias of Virginia and Maryland captured and executed the chiefs of the Susquehannock , whose growing power they feared . The Iroquois made quick work of the rest of the nation . They drove the warriors from traditional territory and absorbed the survivors in 1677 . During the course of this conflict , in 1670 the Iroquois also drove the Siouan - speaking Mannahoac tribe out of the northern Virginia Piedmont region . The Iroquois claimed the land by right of conquest as a hunting ground . The English acknowledged this claim in 1674 and again in 1684 . They acquired the land from the Iroquois by a 1722 treaty . 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 colonists . The following year , an attack by 250 warriors yielded 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 , Huron , and Algonquin to counter the Iroquois raids . When the militia ventured into the countryside , they were attacked by the Iroquois . Only 29 of the French survived and escaped . Five were captured and tortured to death by the Iroquois in retaliation . Despite their victory , the Iroquois also suffered a significant number of casualties . Their leaders began to consider negotiating for peace with the French . The tide of war in New France began to turn in the mid - 1660s with the arrival of a small contingent of regular troops from France , the brown - uniformed Carignan - Salières Regiment — the first group of uniformed professional soldiers to enter present - day Canada . A change in administration led the New France government to authorize direct sale of arms and other military support to their Native allies . In 1664 , the Dutch allies of the Iroquois lost control of the New Netherland colony to the English . In the immediate years after the Dutch defeat , European support waned for the Iroquois . In January 1666 , the French invaded the Iroquois homeland in present - day New York . The first invasion force , of 400 or 500 men , was led by Daniel de Rémy de Courcelle . His men were greatly outnumbered by the Iroquois and were forced to withdraw before any significant action could take place . Although the invasion was abortive , they took Chief Canaqueese prisoner . The second invasion force was led by the aristocrat Alexandre de Prouville , the " Marquis de Tracy " and viceroy of New France . From his base in Quebec City , as Lieutenant General of the Carignan - Salières Regiment , he initiated a campaign against the Mohawks . The invasion force of about 1300 men moved out in the fall of 1666 . Upon arriving at the Mohawk villages and finding them deserted , 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 the Jesuit missionaries . With their immediate European support cut off , the Iroquois sued for peace , to which France agreed . Ohio and Illinois Country . 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 . As a result of Iroquois expansion and war with the " Anishinaabeg " Confederacy ( see also , Council of Three Fires ) , eastern Nations such as the Lakota were pushed across the Mississippi onto the Great Plains . There in the early 18th century , they adopted the horse culture and nomadic lifestyle for which they later became well known . Other refugees flooded the Great Lakes area , resulting in a conflict with existing nations in the region . In the Ohio Country the Shawnee and Miami tribe s were the dominant tribes . The Iroquois quickly overran Shawnee holdings in central Ohio forcing them to flee into Miami territory . The Miami were a powerful tribe and brought together a confederacy of their neighboring allies , including the Pottawatomie and the Illini confederation who inhabited modern Michigan and Illinois . The majority of the fighting was between the Anishininaabeg Confederacy and the Iroquois Confederacy . The Iroquois improved on their warfare as they continued to attack even farther from their home . War parties often traveled by canoes at night . They would sink their canoes and fill them with rocks to hold them on the river bottom . After going through the woods to a target , at the appointed time , they would quickly burst from the wood to cause the greatest panic among their enemy . After the attack , the Iroquois could return quickly to their boats and leave 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 , leaving much of the Ohio Valley , southern Michigan , and southern Ontario depopulated . Several large Anishinaabe military forces , numbering in the thousands , remained to the north of Lakes Huron and Superior . They later were decisive in rolling back the Iroquois advance . From west of the Mississippi , displaced groups continued to arm war parties and attempt to retake their homelands . Beginning in the 1670s , the French began to explore and settle the Ohio and Illinois Country from the Mississippi and Ohio rivers . There they discovered the Algonquin tribes of that region were locked in warfare with the Iroquois . The French 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 . 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 modern South Bend , Indiana . They attacked and destroyed most of the Iroquois army . Although a large part of the region was left depopulated , the Iroquois were unable to establish a permanent presence . Their own tribe lacked the manpower to colonize the large area . After their setbacks and the local tribes ' gaining firearms , the Iroquois ' brief control over the region was lost . Many of the former inhabitants of the territory began to return . Resumption of war with France . As the English began to move into the former Dutch territory of upper New York State , they began to form close ties with the Iroquois . They sought to use them as a buffer and force to hinder French colonial expansion . They soon began to supply the Iroquois with firearms much as the Dutch had and encouraged them to disrupt French interests . At the same time , Governor of New France Louis de Buade , Comte de Frontenac , 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 and was as bloody as the first . In 1681 René - Robert Cavelier , Sieur de La Salle negotiated a treaty with the Miami and Illinois tribes . The same year France lifted the ban on the sale of firearms to the native tribes . Colonists quickly armed the Algonquin tribes , evening the odds between the Iroquois and their enemies . With the renewal of hostilities , the local militia of New France was stiffened after 1683 by a small force of regular French navy troops , the " Compagnies Franches de la Marine " . The latter were to constitute the longest - serving unit of French regular troops in New France . Over the years , the men identified with the colony . The officer corps became completely Canadian . Essentially , these forces can be considered as Canada ' s first standing professional armed force . Officers ' commissions , both in the militia and in the " Compagnie Franches " , became coveted amongst the upper class of the colony . The militia together with members of the Compagnie Franches , dressed for woodland travel similarly to their Algonquin Indian allies , and grew to specialize in the swift and mobile brand of warfare termed " la petite guerre " . It was characterized by long expeditions through the forests and quick raids on enemy encampments — the same kind of warfare practiced by the Iroquois and other Natives . In June 1687 , Pierre de Troyes commanded a company under Governor Denonville for his attack against the Seneca . This attack resulted in the destruction of Ganondagan , the Seneca ' s largest village . In September 1687 , the French used 3 , 000 militia and regulars to attack the Iroquois in a punitive raid on their territory . They proceeded down the Richelieu River and marched through Iroquois territory , but did not find many warriors . They burned their villages and stored crops , destroying an estimated 1 . 2 million bushels of corn . Many Iroquois died from starvation during the following winter . In 1687 , Denonville set out with a well - organized force to Fort Frontenac , where they met with the 50 hereditary sachem s of the Iroquois Confederacy from their Onondaga council fire . These 50 chiefs constituted the entire decision - making strata of the Iroquois . They had been lulled into meeting under a flag of truce . Denonville seized , chained , and shipped the 50 Iroquois chiefs to Marseilles , France , to be used as galley slaves . He then ravaged the land of the Seneca . Before he returned to New France , he travelled down the shore of Lake Ontario and created Fort Denonville at the site where the Niagara River meets Lake Ontario . This site was previously used by La Salle for a fort named Fort Conti from 1678 to 1679 , and was later used for Fort Niagara , which still exists to this day . The destruction of the Seneca land infuriated the Iroquois Confederacy . This , coupled with the dishonourable loss of their sachem s , demanded they set out to terrorize New France as never before . Denonville ' s regulars were dissolved and dispersed to towns across the land , attempting to protect New France ' s homes and families . Forts were abandoned . The Iroquois destroyed farmsteads and whole families were slaughtered or captured . On August 4 , 1689 , Lachine , a small town adjacent to Montreal , was burned to the ground . Fifteen hundred Iroquois warriors had been harassing Montreal defences for many months prior . Denonville was finally exhausted and defeated . His tenure was followed by the return of Frontenac , who replaced Denonville as governor for the next nine years ( 1689 – 1698 ) . Frontenac had been arranging a new plan of attack to mollify the effects of the Iroquois in North America and realized the true danger the imprisonment of the sachems created . He located the 13 surviving leaders , and they returned with him to New France in October 1698 . During King William ' s War ( 1689 – 1697 ) , the French created raiding parties with native allies to attack English colonial settlements , as the English had used the Iroquois against the French . Some of the most notable of the French - sponsored raids in 1690 were the Schenectady massacre in the Province of New York ; Salmon Falls , New Hampshire ; and Falmouth Neck ( present - day Portland , Maine ) . The French and their allies killed settlers in the raids and carried some back to Canada . Settlers in New England raised money to redeem their captives , but some were adopted into the Native tribes . The French government generally did not intervene when the Natives kept the captives . Throughout the 1690s the French and their allies also continued to raid deep into Iroquois , destroying Mohawk villages in 1692 , and later raiding Seneca , Oneida , and Onondaga villages . The English and Iroquois banded together for operations aimed at New France , but these were largely ineffectual . The most successful incursion resulted in the 1691 Battle of La Prairie . Because France claimed dominion over the Iroquois , the French offensive was not halted by the 1697 Treaty of Ryswick that brought peace between France and England , and ended overt English participation in the conflict . Great Peace of Montreal . Finally in 1698 , the Iroquois began to see the English as becoming a greater threat than the French . The English had begun colonizing Pennsylvania in 1681 . The continued colonial growth there began to encroach on the southern border of the Iroquois territory . The French policy began to change towards the Iroquois . After nearly 50 years of warfare , they began to believe that it would be impossible to ever destroy them . They decided that befriending the Iroquois would be the easiest way to ensure their monopoly on the northern fur trade and help stop English expansion . As soon as the English heard of the treaty they immediately set about to prevent it from being agreed to . It would result in the loss of Albany ' s monopoly on the fur trade with the Iroquois and , without their protection , the northern flank of the English colonies would be open to French attack . Despite English interference the treaty was agreed to . The peace treaty , " Great Peace of Montreal " was signed in 1701 in Montreal by 39 Indian chiefs and the French . In the treaty , 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 modern Indiana and north - west Ohio . The Pottawatomie went to Michigan , and the Illinois tribe to Illinois . With the Dutch long removed from North America , the English had become just as powerful as the French . The Iroquois came to see that they held the balance of power between the two European powers and they used that position to their benefit for the decades to come . Their society began to quickly change as the tribes began to focus on building up a strong nation , improving their farming technology , and educating their population . The peace was lasting and it would not be until the 1720s that their territory would again be threatened by the Europeans . Also in 1701 , the Iroquois nominally gave the English much of the disputed territory north of the Ohio in the Nanfan Treaty , although this transfer was not recognised by the French , who were the strongest actual presence there at the time . In that treaty , the Iroquois leadership claimed to have conquered this " Beaver Hunting Ground " 80 years previously , or in ca . 1621 . Aftermath . The Illinois Country ' s former inhabitants returned shortly after the war ended ; the Miami , Potowatomie , Sauk , and Fox tribes became dominant in the region . The Ohio Country , which was nearer to the core of Iroquois territory , remained depopulated for longer , as the Iroquois controlled it by right of conquest as a hunting ground . The Lenape settled along the Allegheny River beginning in the 1720s . It was not until the 1740s and 1750s that the Shawnee began to return to the southern and central areas of the region , and the Miami began to resettle the western portions . Through various European treaties , the English control over the Iroquois and their territory had been recognized before the war had ended . The English exaggerated the extent of Iroquois control in the west as a means to dispute French control of the Illinois and Ohio country . In 1768 several colonies officially purchased the " Iroquois claim " to the Ohio and Illinois Country . The colonies 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 by the United States Supreme Court in 1798 . Because a large part of the conflict between the native tribes took place far beyond the frontier and in locations that had yet to have European contact , the full extent and impact of the war is unknown . Most knowledge of the western parts of the conflict comes through accounts of French explorers and the tribes they encountered during the early years of exploration . Even the effects in the eastern regions are not fully known , as large parts of the region remained unexplored . The resident tribes did not have direct contact with Europeans , so no accounts were passed on about the wars . The Beaver Wars joined the Powhatan wars of 1610 – 14 , 1622 – 32 and 1644 – 46 in Virginia , the Pequot War of 1637 in Connecticut , the Dutch - Indian War of 1643 along the Hudson River and King Philip ' s War in a list of ongoing uprisings and conflicts between various Native American tribes and the French , Dutch , and English colonial settlements of Canada , New York , and New England . Native American tribes would continue to be embroiled in conflicts involving England , France , and their colonists during the ensuing French and Indian Wars .