French America April 2, 2025
Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Uncategorized.Tags: american-revolution, canada, france, History, travel
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For the French being weak in some ways made them strong in others. They had a colder climate, and their rivers were ice bound for a good part of the year. This made it harder to attack them. They had less people. This made their presence less onerous to the Indians and caused them to seek better relations with the tribes, building alliances which helped them have the manpower necessary to stand against the more numerous British. They had less economic activity and fewer settlements than the British. This helped them persuade the Indians that they were less of a threat than the constantly expanding British and facilitated them drawing Indians, even ones in British claimed areas into their alliances. This situation applied to both New France (Canada) and Louisiana. In this way the French were able to effectively control a larger portion of North America than any other colonial power with very few people and a low expenditure of funds by the Homeland.
Contrary to their own cultural bias the French, who believed in a strict social hierarchy were forced by their relative weakness to treat the Indians as equals. They boasted of their power and the vastness of their possessions but in most places their ownership was in name only and merely a boastful fiction on European maps. The Indians remained sovereign in their possessions and the French were more of the officially accepted European presence in their respective areas. They would fight with and for the French when it suited their purposes. They would fight against the British because the British were seen as a power who sought to dispossess them from their lands and the French were only too glad to arm them in their fights with the British if not always join them in the battles.
After the British were able to take, hold and destroy the principle French settlement of Quebec in 1629 the French when they received their colony back in the resulting peace settlement set about expanding the number of inhabitants. They did this by pressuring the Company of New France, which was the monopolistic fur trading entity which had initiated the colony to begin with, to recruit more colonists. The French government had no direct control until 1663 when they took over the colony from the Company. The French, always sensitive to rank and privilege used a system whereby rich men were given titles of nobility (Seigneur) and huge grants of land for equipping ships and sending over colonists.
The colonists that France did send were mostly young single men who were without a means of support in France and thus susceptible to the offer of passage to America if it meant a regular supply of food. Few families immigrated and few single women. In addition, many of the young men who came as indentured servants or soldiers tended to return to France as soon as their term of service was completed. While the new recruits did swell the population when they arrived and while they remained the constant flow of people back to France and the lack of women precluded the French from keeping pace with the rapidly multiplying British.
Much thought has gone into the question of why France, the most powerful, populous and expansive power in Europe during the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries were not able to overwhelm the rapid growth of the British colonies with numbers and materiel? This cannot be explained when we compare the available labor pools of the two countries. The peasants in France were even poorer than the peasants in the British Isles. Instead, the difference might be found in the ties which still bound the peasants in France to the land. In England the enclosure movement had severed this tie for many and forced them into the cities where they eked out a wretched existence making them eager for any opportunity that might present itself. The French on the other hand while still poor, still hungry and still with little hope for an improvement were tied to the belief that owning their little farms was the only thing between them and utter destitution. In the end it may have been the lack of an urban poor in great enough numbers that proved the undoing of the French colonial effort.
Another problem which hampered the development of New France was its location and its climate. Being so far north New France had a climate which was much harsher than that of France itself making it unappealing and also unsuited for the crops which had proven to be the economic lifeblood of American colonies, sugar, tobacco and rice. The few things that did flourish, such as wheat and livestock were too bulky and hard to ship to make them profitable as exports. Even the fur trade, which had been the original economic impetus for the founding of the colony, was sporadic at best and since Britain was constantly shipping furs too this was a trade with high competition and fluctuating returns.
And then there was the eternal war with the Five Nations. The French had stumbled into a perpetual war with the largest and best organized confederation of Indian nations in North America. As allies of the Huron they had participated in several early attacks upon the unsuspecting Iroquois who were not yet used to European weapons or tactics. They had inflicted serious causalities on people armed with only Stone Age weapons and in the bargain they had gained an implacable foe. The people of France had heard of the savage Iroquois and this knowledge did not do anything to help inspire people to volunteer to leave everything they had ever known to brave the cold for a new life in a New World.
Life in New France
When compared to the lives they left behind in Europe those French who did make the journey and stayed in New France to become free Habitants found themselves in a much better situation then could have been expected looking at all the negatives previously mentioned. They typically lived on 100 acres of land they rented from one of the Seigneurs. This was much larger than any piece of land they could hope to control in France. They could hunt and fish as much as they wanted. In France this was reserved only for Nobles. They had diet built upon meat and bread both of which were always in short supply for the poor in France. Even their housing which was usually tight and warm thanks to the ready supply of building materials and firewood was superior to what the typical poor person would expect in France.
Government
In the development of New France and the British North American colonies we see a laboratory in the differences and the different result of a paternalistic, authoritarian, highly centralized command society competing against one based upon individual initiative, free enterprise and decentralized control.
The French had a highly centralized monarchy that believed in divine right. The King ruled with no interference from a parliament or council as King Louis XIV, who was king from 1661 to 1715 once said, “I am the State.” The French were accustomed to following orders and suffering the consequences if they didn’t. The French government was used to absolute control over the economy and the population, and they expected their North American colonies to fit the mold and fulfill the vision of the king.
To begin with the French instituted an awkward three headed system of government meant to keep any one person from becoming too strong and which resulted in such internecine competition there was more deadlock than there was administration. There was a Governor-general charged with overall command, an Intendant in charge of civil matters, and a catholic Bishop. Each had their own constituency at the royal court. Each had their own agenda. And each fought the other two for control.
There was no elected assembly as in the British colonies. Instead, there was a Sovereign Council appointed by the king and composed of 5 to seven Seigneurs in addition to the Governor-general, the Intendant and the Bishop. This council held all executive, legislative and judicial power. And this was a unitary power. There were no local governments in town, county or township as in the British colonies.
The military obligation was universal, all males between the ages of 16 and 60 were members of the militia and liable to call-up at any times. Everyone was enrolled in a company and every company had a captain. The captains served as local law and civil enforcement officers. Once again, as in all authoritarian states, fearing anyone gaining too much power, these captains were always habitants instead of Seigneurs.
The strict stratification of France was translated to New France. There were more noblemen in New France than in the more densely inhabited colonies of Britain and Spain combined. The great land grants given to the Seigneurs could not be sold or subdivided, ensuring that great estates would remain a part of the landscape and keep the inhabitants from becoming landowners. The Seigneurs were expected to live in the royal towns of Quebec and Montreal maintaining a colonial version of a courtly society. And it was the Seigneurs who were given nearly every commission in the army, posts in the civil service and licensees to conduct the fur trade. This reinforced the class system and at the same time restricted most of the people and their talents from building a better and more prosperous society.
The Second New France
In name there was one unified colony, New France, there were two distinct areas each with their own situation. In the valley of the St. Lawrence River the French followed the pattern of most colonies; they built settlements and the slowly spread out into the interior as their population grew. This is where the largest portion of the population settled, and this is the area that is usually considered when discussions turn to New France in relation to the British colonies.
But this was only one section. Beyond the Great Lakes stretching west to the Mississippi and beyond was what the French called the Upper Country. This was a vast area that was the home of the fur trader. A few scattered settlements, small and completely dependent on the larger and more powerful Indian tribes with which they interact.
There were a few forts, and a couple of towns however, by 1750 this vast area had only a population of approximately 2,000 while at the same time the population in the St. Lawrence valley had reached 52,000. The few towns and forts often acted as almost semi-independent districts. The distance from the royal authority weakened the hand of the king’s representatives and the near proximity and power of the Indians often forced the local commanders to act in contravention to royal orders and in conformity to local realities.
The Iroquois had driven most of the French allied tribes out of the east and many had fled their homelands finding refuge in great inter-tribal refugee camps west of Lake Michigan. They moved away from the shores of the Great Lakes to avoid the relentless pillaging and kidnappings of the Five Nations, but they found that the further they retreated the further the Iroquois pursued. The only hope they and the French had was their unity against their mutual enemy.
Besides their monopoly on European manufactured goods the French used another stratagem in their quest to penetrate the vast Upper Country and to tap its resources. More than their British contemporaries the French married into the tribes. They would take an Indian wife thus making themselves a member of a family and clan system. The new wife became an interpreter and teacher, a guide and a helpmate. These familial alliances were indispensable to the French colonial effort in the Upper Country and became a lasting feature in the area. Eventually the offspring of these numerous marriages formed their own villages and a distinct culture blending the native and the European ways.
In the rough country beyond the Great lakes in many ways the French were the smallest and the weakest of the tribes. The refugees from the east and the indigenous peoples were all better suited to life in the woods than were the French. All had traditions and skills that stretched back thousands of years, all adapted to living in the woods and sustaining themselves off the land. The French by comparison were babes in the woods. They needed guides just to get around and instructions to do the simplest of tasks. How could they hope to claim suzerainty over the tribes or ownership over the land?
In native culture there was a long tradition, as in all chiefdom type societies of giving gifts to fulfill ceremonies and to seal bargains. The refugees had barely enough to survive and precious little to use as gifts and therefore, they could not fulfill the traditions. This is where the French wisely inserted themselves. They took it upon themselves to supply the grave goods needed for any who died. They supplied the trade goods necessary to facilitate peace treaties between tribes thus bringing order out of the chaos caused by the mass migration of the Iroquois’ victims, gaining for themselves a place among the tribes and the ability to claim the lands at least among other Europeans.
Louisiana
This area was first reached by French explorers led by La Salle following the Mississippi to its mouth. Upon realizing the vast extent of the Mississippi watershed and the strategic value of controlling a waterway that traversed the continent La sale convinced the crown to establish a royal colony at the mouth of the great river. However, when he returned with a fleet of ships and colonists, he was unable to find the mouth of the river and established a colony some miles away in what is now Texas. This proved to be a disaster that cost La Salle his life and the colony dissolved and returned to France. A later effort was more successful, and a colony was established which fortified the mouth of the river and pushed inland attempting to link up with traders coming down the river from the Upper Country (Canada).
The French Louisiana colony never gained many inhabitants and of those that did come many were convicted criminals and slaves. As in the West Indies, the slaves came to outnumber the free inhabitants. The French stood between the expanding British colonies of Carolina and Georgia and the Spanish to the west. They welcomed many colonists from the West Indies seeking a better opportunity than they could find in the overcrowded little islands.
Louisiana never developed a profitable export trade and was always a drain upon the royal treasury. The weakness of the colony, its situation between two other larger colonial powers pressed home the vulnerability of their situation upon the French. Consequently, unlike the British colonies Louisiana had a permanent military garrison which further reinforced the French authoritarian and centralized characteristics to the further detriment to the economic and social development of the colony.
As in New France Louisiana was made up of two distinctly different areas. There was the plantation core which was analogues to the valley of the St. Lawrence River. Here the European settlers were occupying the land and reshaping it into a plantation system with slaves and expanding civilization. Then there was the vast interior, which was only nominally controlled by France, but which was in reality still Indian country.
The French treated any Indians they could as mere nuisances to be cleared from the land as they would trees. Further upriver as the relative strengths of the two parties changed the French showed great deference for the culture and feelings of the Indians. In the ground in between there was trouble.
The Natchez Indians maintained substantial portions of the ancient Mississippian culture from which they had evolved. They had the ceremonial mounds, the intricately carved temples and the chiefdom style of government. The French felt secure enough to begin brow beating the Natchez acting as if they were a subject people even though they were still greatly outnumbered. In 1729 the Natchez staged a well-coordinated attack upon the French, and they easily overwhelmed them. The French were only able to maintain their position by enlisting the traditional enemies of the Natchez the Choctaw and together the destroyed the Natchez.
After this rebellion it was abundantly clear to French colonial authorities that the only way to maintain their security was through alliance with powerful Indian allies. From this point on the policy of the French was to use the Indians as their militia one tribe against another and as auxiliaries against both the Spanish and the British.
Conclusion
All in all, the French North American colonies were a disappointment to the crown. They never became self-sufficient. They were a constant drain upon the royal treasury. They became a cause of war and vulnerability during war. The French were never able to gain real possession of the land due to their small numbers and they were thus always held in the embrace of often unequal alliances with powerful tribes. Where the colonies of Britain and Spain enhanced the power of the home countries the French colonies were always detrimental and more of a source of pride than of strength.
From The Book America: Chapter One: Colonial History by Dr. Robert Owens Available at Amazon in paper back and Kindle.
The Middle Colonies March 5, 2025
Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Uncategorized.Tags: canada, europe, History, Religion, travel
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Between the Chesapeake Colonies and New England there existed an expanse of coast and its associated hinterlands that would soon join the English holdings and become known collectively as the Middle Colonies. They had a better climate than New England and healthier than the Chesapeake region. They proved extremely well suited for growing grains and raising cattle. They soon boasted a large and growing population.
Initially however this population wasn’t made up of the English. They ignored the area for the first part of the Seventeenth Century finding the New England venture and the Chesapeake area enough to keep them busy. In the interim the Dutch established a flourishing New Netherland along the Hudson River and the Swedes built their New Sweden along the Delaware. The English weren’t happy about this incursion in an area they considered their own, but they did not directly confront either rival immediately for two reasons. One, they were not strong enough and two; both of their new world rivals were their Old-World friends. Both Sweden and the Netherlands were Protestant powers, and both were valuable allies in the religious wars and power diplomacy of the times.
In the latter half of the Seventeenth Century things changed. For one thing the Dutch had swallowed New Sweden and then the Dutch, who were now England’s main commercial rival in Europe and world-wide were swallowed in turn by the expanding English New Netherlands being renamed, New York in 1664.
Unlike the Spanish, French and Dutch the English crown exerted little direct power over their colonies. Following the tenants of Mercantilism to their logical conclusions, they instead sought commercial benefit through taxation and the belief that every raw material such as wood or tar that they could produce at home or in a colony made them stronger. Also, they did not fund the colonies out of the royal treasury as the other European colonizing powers did. Instead, the cash-strapped English relied upon private enterprise and entrepreneurship leading to what many think is the greatest contribution of the British Empire to economics, the limited liability corporation. This left much latitude and personal individuality to the separate colonies and also had a great influence on the future development of the United States.
Besides the commercial tradition of free enterprise this situation also had a profound impact on the political developments in the English colonies. All except New England were controlled by absentee proprietors who were thousands of miles away and often extremely short of cash. The colonists as they became firmly established and self-sufficient, following in a long line of English tradition, began to flex their economic muscle and the power of the purse to increase their political leverage. They wrested concession from the proprietors in the form of autonomous assemblies with real power to shape local events. They also sought control of courts and customs. In some cases, they even staged coups such as in Carolina declaring pseudo independence or as in Georgia where they appealed to the crown for protection from the leadership guidelines or strictures of the absentee proprietors.
A special case was New England. As stated earlier, the proprietors were wealthy Puritans who formed the Massachusetts Bay Company which actually relocated to the colonies. Having a royal charter themselves and having the principles of the company as actual participating members of the colony made them in everything but name independent and they acted as if they were in fact independent, asking no leave and taking every privilege. They developed republican forms such as their famous town meetings and looked to no one besides themselves and God for all they wanted, needed, or desired.
Gradually as the proprietors found themselves in financial problems they turned to the crown for a bail-out. The price of this help always came with strings and eventually the crown gained not only control but the title of colony after colony. The Puritans even began to fear that the royal fist was next going to aim at them. But instead, the crown was diverted by the rich prize which lay just to the south of the semi-independent New England. In 1664 a mighty fleet of English warships descended upon the future port and near perfect harbor of New Amsterdam ascending the Hudson and conquering New Netherland.
The Dutch had built an American empire that was thriving by the time it was appropriated by the English. It was anchored by the growing community of New Amsterdam located at the mouth of the Hudson River. This city was founded initially to provide a secure transport hub for the furs coming down river from Fort Orange and the extensive and valuable trade with the Five Nations of the Iroquois Confederation. As time moved, on the Dutch expanded their presence building farms along the river to supply their colonists with food. These farms soon had a surplus that became a valuable export being used mainly to feed other Dutch colonists in the West Indies. The Dutch colony was prosperous and growing when it was suddenly plucked like ripe fruit by the English. It was however a small colony on the fringe of a vast worldwide empire and the overextended Dutch had to pick their battles carefully, so they did not attempt to retake the colony.
A small nation of only 1.5 million the Dutch had risen in a relatively short time from being a province of Spain to the greatest commercial empire in the world boasting the greatest navy. While the religious wars wracked Europe and while the other European powers were all united to counterbalance the overwhelming preponderance of Spain little Netherlands was safe behind its dykes and secure in the enjoyment of their wealth. However, as the religious wars subsided and as they themselves impoverished the Spaniards by stealing their treasure and conquering their outposts others began to look at the growing power of this tiny nation as a slight against them. Soon England on the high seas and France on land began to seek ways to challenge the Dutch. In the Americas this translated into the English conquest of New Netherlands.
This conquest had an ulterior motive. As a matter of fact, when the English fleet sailed there was speculation that it was headed for Boston to assert royal control over the semi-independent New England. Although the blow fell on the Dutch instead of the Puritans the lesson was not lost. The crown intended to take a more active role and the establishment of a royal colony on their southern border let the Puritans know that from then on, the representatives of the king would not be far away.
The Covenant Chain
Once the English supplanted the Dutch as the dominant European power and the traders at Fort Orange (renamed Albany) they took the place of the Dutch in their alliance with the Five Nation Iroquois Confederation. The two allies stood together against the French and swore to help each other against all other enemies. The Five Nations claimed to have conquered the western regions as far south as Ohio and as far west as the furthest reaches of the Great Lakes. These claims were more hyperbole than reality, but the English acknowledged them as true and by extension claimed that since they asserted their suzerainty over the Five Nation by extension, they said they held title to all these far-flung territories. This was a claim the French bitterly refused to acknowledge basing their competing claims on their far-ranging exploration and the many relationships they had established with the tribes who controlled the territories.
The English not only traded with the Five Nations and used their boasts to expand their claims they also used them as enforcers regarding the other smaller Indian nations in the area. This alliance came to be the lynch pin of English American diplomacy regarding the relations with the Native Americans North of the Chesapeake Colonies. It was the source and the summit of power. The guns given to the Iroquois became the tip of the English lance towards any tribe that dared try to stand against them.
New Jersey
The House of Stuart had ambitions of becoming absolute monarchs on the model of the French. But they were held back by English tradition and a lack of money. They did not have the vast estates and the power to tax by decree that the French monarch had. Instead, they had to wheel and deal with an often intractable and always jealous parliament. One place they looked to increase their riches which would increase their power was the colonies. They wanted more royal control so they could tax the continually growing commerce. After the royal conquest of New York, it appeared that they were finally on their way to establishing direct royal control but then they took a divergent course which added to the diversity of the American colonies instead of to the size of the royal treasury.
Unable to keep a strategy headed in the right direction and almost immediately after seizing New York the King’s brother the Duke of York granted a charter to two wealthy patrons for political consideration. This grant was for all the land between the Hudson and the Delaware rivers as a separate colony called New Jersey. The reduction of royal control was further diluted when these two absentee proprietors sold off their rights to two separate groups. One was headed by a Scotsman and the other group was headed by Quakers. These two groups promptly divided the colony into East and West New Jersey. The Scotts took East Jersey, and the Quakers took West Jersey.
This situation lasted until 1702 when the crown reunited the two Jerseys into the royal colony of New Jersey. The fact that the proprietors retained legal title to the land led to many disputes in East Jersey due to the exorbitant rents and demands made upon the rent holders. This led to riots and to a depressed rate of economic growth which contributed to the fact that New Jersey lagged behind its neighbors both to the North and the South for generations in development and wealth.
Pennsylvania
William Penn was a rich gentleman descended from a famous and well-connected admiral. He was also a creditor of the king. The always cashed strapped Stuart King James I settled a debt with Penn by granting him 45,000 square miles of land beyond the Delaware River. This was augmented by grants from the Duke of York. Penn, a rich and grand living Quaker founded a colony where religious tolerance and economic opportunity soon established a thriving colony filled with industrious people. The Quakers had withstood persecution in England because they refused to take part in or support the established church. Penn himself was jailed on several occasions as an unlicensed preacher. Therefore, there was a ready impetus for them to immigrate to Pennsylvania. Like the Puritans of New England many of the settlers in Pennsylvania were families with their own resources. They were tradesmen and merchants, farmers and artisans. This type of population adapted well, worked hard and soon established growing communities ever deeper into the woods, always moving west.
William Penn was a shrewd and good administrator of his colony. He treated the Indians with respect and acknowledged them as the rightful owners of the land. He did not trick them or appropriate their land he purchased it and he didn’t allow anyone to settle on any land unless he first purchased it from the Indians. This led to a more peaceful occupation of the land than in any other colony.
The harmony of the colony was disrupted by sectional rivalries which plague the commonwealth to this day. The counties to the east are pitted against the counties to the west each always striving for their own advantage. In colonial times this could deal with the perceived need for fortifications or roads, Indian relations or economic developments. The profitable colony could not keep pace with the lavish lifestyle of its proprietor and in 1707 William Penn found himself sentenced to an English debtor prison even though he personally owned a colony bigger than some European countries.
Canada and Iriquoia January 16, 2025
Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Uncategorized.Tags: canada, History, native-americans, Religion, travel
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While the Spanish claimed all North America their practical power did not extend far north of what is today the border between Florida and Georgia. In Europe the power of Spain forced the English and the French to diplomatically deny for some time that they were in fact seeking to found colonies in the Americas. The first colonies of both powers were strategically placed in the interior close to but off the coast to avoid detection and destruction. As the Sixteenth Century progressed the power of Spain waned as the power of England, France, and the Netherlands expanded. By 1541the King of Spain decided not to attempt to stop the French from founding a colony along the St. Lawrence. This opened the flood gates and soon all these secondary powers began working to establish their own empires in North America.
The Spanish gave the coldness of the climate and the poverty of the land as their reasons for allowing others to build colonies in lands they claimed as their own. And the lack of ready plunder from defenseless natives and of easy to exploit precious metals did make the first expeditions of the newcomers unprofitable since those two things were what they were seeking. However, as time went on the French took the lead in the fur trade quickly followed by the English and the Dutch. Then the English discovered that they could make fortunes growing tobacco for export to a rapidly growing European market.
The French, English and Dutch did not conquer the Native Americans as the Spanish did, they instead began by entering into alliances and trading agreements. The many tribes of the eastern portion of North America’s vast woodland were divided into two distinct groups roughly founded on language, the Algonquians and the Iroquoian. Both groups were often rivals within their respective divisions and often between each other. The alignment of these groups came to play a very important part in the shape of the growing colonies.
The fur trade quickly rose to become the greatest source of financial gain for the Europeans and the greatest source of trade goods for the Indians. And both sides soon came to depend upon the other in more ways than either could have ever imagined. As the Indians spread out further and further seeking the furs and skins the European desired, they began to neglect their traditional sources of strength as they depleted their own lands and lusted for the lands of others. In addition, as they became more dependent on manufactured goods, they began to lose the skills they had developed over centuries to live off the land. It even reached the point that if trade goods were cut-off the Indians faced starvation. This became so pronounced that the Indians came to consider a cut-off of trade as a declaration of war.
Tribes who lived closest to a source of trade goods began to conquer and plunder tribes that lived further away using their monopoly on firearms to their advantage. These disruptions spread the influence and impact of the European settlements to Native Americans who never saw a colonist. The destruction of the beaver also had a dramatic impact on the environment as the previously ubiquitous lakes and ponds formed by beaver dams disappeared. These ponds and lakes had been an important source of water and habitat for other animals and as they dried up the patterns of wildlife changed forever.
In addition, the diseases of the Europeans decimated the native population in some places creating the wilderness the Europeans have always said was there. It weakened many tribes so much they merged with others and their independent history ended often after many generations of existence. And there was also alcohol. Indians had always brewed a type of beer, but they had never distilled hard liquor. The impact of this import had a debilitating effect on individuals and cultures that was often purposefully exploited by the Europeans.
The French were the early leaders. They followed the St. Lawrence River more than 1,000 miles into the interior of the continent opening trade with hitherto untouched regions. They made fortunes exporting a huge volume of furs and pelts. At first it was so lucrative a trade that they did not even want to establish permanent colonies for fear of disrupting the natives and the gathering of furs. However, in 1608 Quebec was founded and soon some permanent settlers began to fan out through the vast area France claimed as their own. France soon became embroiled in the many wars of their Indian allies. They were allied with the Algonquians and Huron making enemies of the Five Nation Iroquois. The introduction of firearms into the traditional Indian warfare led to radical changes in tactics. They went from massed formations to hit and run styles. It also convinced the tribes that they needed above all to attain firearms or face defeat.
The Five Nation Iroquois
Unfortunately for the French they had aligned themselves with the first people they met which can easily be understood as a means of gaming furs fast and easy but when looked at from a strategic standpoint it made little sense. The Northern Algonquians and the Montagnais were hunter gatherers with no permanent settlements and little surplus of any kind. The Huron, an Iroquoian speaking people were possessors of advanced horticulture and lived in large well-fortified villages. But all of them together were no match for the unified might of the Five Nation Iroquois. This confederation of tribes possessed the strongest military and the most advanced social system in North America since the demise of the ancient races of the Southwest and the Mound Builders of the Mississippi basin.
The tribes of the Northeast had long histories of warfare and the introduction of the Europeans into the mix merely changed the weapons and the tactics. The strategy remained the same gain land and captives which could be adopted into the tribe thereby making it bigger and its enemies smaller. The Five Nations were the best organized and the largest. They had been the most powerful and stable of all the Indian alliances in the area before the Europeans came and they remained so for centuries after.
Shortly after the first French intervention in the wars between the Huron and the Iroquois the Dutch arrived. They soon established themselves along the Hudson River and began supplying the Five Nations with arms. This leveled the playing field and soon the French and their Indian allies were in full retreat as the Five Nations flexed their muscles to the north. The long-lasting enmity between the French and the Five Nations would not be extinguished until the final fall of New France.
The Jesuits followed the French as the religious order that made the strongest inroads amongst the Indians, especially the Huron. Many Huron villages became Christian as did large numbers of the people. This made for many disagreements and disputes among the tribe. Many wanted to retain their traditional beliefs and lifestyles while others seeing the power of the Europeans wanted to adapt to the changing circumstances. This dissension led to aggressive actions on the part of the Five Nations. Seeing the opportunity to crush their ancient enemies and to obtain many captives they mounted sustained attacks eventually leading to the complete destruction of the Huron nation.
Dr. Robert Owens Chronicles the History of the Future 