Beaver Wars

English: An Iroquois longhouse. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

 

The Iroquois lived in the area that had the St. Lawrence as its northern

border.

From there they spread south throughout what we would

identify today as New England.

 

Although not exactly happy with the arrival of smelly, hairy white people

they took advantage of the opportunity to obtain the interesting new

goods that the fur trade brought them.

Unfortunately the smelly, hairy people also brought guns which the

Iroquois quickly learned  to use and soon beavers were in short supply.

 

So the Iroquois started to look north at land along the

St. Lawrence River where their traditional enemy the

Huron tribe lived.

 

The Hurons were, if you remember, allied with the French.

They were also vulnerable because in 1639 a small pox epidemic

had killed at least half of them.

 

And pretty much the rest of them were gone after the Mohawk and other

Iroquois tribes got through with them.

 

Leery of the Iroquois, the French then started doing business with the

Algonquian speaking tribes - the Cree, the Mi'kmaq, etc. 

Fearful for their own survival and angry at the loss of this potential market

the Iroquois started to attack the French settlers.

This is the time of the horrific Indian raids which included scalping and killing

the men and carrying off the women and children.

Things got so bad that eventually the King of France sent in the troops

and the Iroquois decided to negotiate a peace.

 

And that is where we are as the 17th century ends.

 

The English* are in New England, the French are in New France

and the Iroquois are in the land between them.

 

Like this is going to last.

 

 

New England was settled mostly by Puritans and Pilgrims who left England after the English civil war in order to find a safe place to practise their faith.

 

French Kissed

French map of Acadia (now Nova Scotia) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 While the French were chasing our beavers, the English,

the Scots and even the Dutch were starting to cast lustful eyes at our fish.

And because it teemed with beavers and fish, everybody was

suddenly hot for the area we would now loosely identify as Nova Scotia.

Settled by the French in the early 1600s it was called Acadia. 

It actually became a Scottish settlement for awhile after 1621. 

And that excited the British no end and got them so puffed up

with testosterone that they sailed down the St. Lawrence in 1629

and captured Quebec City.

 

Stiff upper lips must have twitched three years later at the end

of the 30 years war when Quebec and Acadia were returned to France.

Fish, meanwhile, had become the Prince William/Kate Middleton

of the late 17th century.

Nobody could get enough of them.

And nobody wanted to share. 

With noses severely out of joint over fishing rights taken by the Acadians,

a military contingent from New England, marched north and took Acadia once

 

more for the English king in 1690.

But the British couldn't seem to win.

Acadia was returned to France again seven years later at the end of another

one of Europe's endless wars.

 

But by then it was the beginning of the 18th century.

(insert rousing chorus of Rule Britannia)

And the tide was about to turn.