Beaver Wars

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The Beaver Wars (Mohawk: Tsianì kayonkwere, pronounced [d͡ʒanî gajũgwere]), also known as the Iroquois Wars or the French and Iroquois Wars (French: Guerres franco-iroquoises), were a series of intermittent conflicts fought in the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River regions of North America from 1609 to 1701. The wars pitted the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois), supported by the Dutch and later the English, against neighboring Indigenous nations such as the Wendat (Huron), who were allied with the French. In the 17th century, the Haudenosaunee (a confederacy of the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca) inhabited territory in what is now Upstate New York south of Lake Ontario and extending east to Lake Champlain and the Hudson River. While the traditional view is that the Haudenosaunee wanted to expand their territory in order to monopolize the North American fur trade, two other theories have gained acceptance: a need for the Haudenosaunee to replenish their population after catastrophic...

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