What role did the Iroquois play in Canadian history.?

Question

Please help me out guys I have no idea what the Iroquois did.

Answer 1

The confederated Iroquois immediately began to make their united power felt. After the coming of the Dutch, from whom they procured firearms, they were able to extend their conquests over all the neighboring tribes until their dominion was acknowledged from Ottawa river to the Tennessee and from the Kennebec to Illinois rivers and Lake Michigan. Their westward advance was checked by the Chippewa; the Cherokee and the Catawba proved an effectual barrier in the south, while in the north they were hampered by the operations of the French in Canada. Champlain on one of his early expeditions joined a party of Canadian Indians against the Iroquois. This made them bitter enemies of the French, whom they afterward opposed at every step to the close of the French regime in Canada in 1763, while they were firm allies of the English. The French made several attempts through their missionaries to win over the Iroquois, and were so far successful that a considerable number of individuals from the different tribes, most of them Mohawk and Onondaga, withdrew from the several tribes and formed Catholic settlements at Caughnawaga, St Regis, and Oka, on the. St Lawrence. The tribes of the league repeatedly tried, but, without success, to induce them to return, and finally, in 1684, declared them to be traitors. In later wars the Catholic Iroquois took part with the French against their former brethren. On the breaking out of the American Revolution the League of the Iroquois decided not to take part in the conflict, but to allow each tribe to decide for itself what action to take. All the tribes, with the exception of the Oneida and about half of the Tuscarora, joined the English. After the revolution the Mohawk and Cayuga, with other Iroquoian tribes that were in the English interest, after several temporary assignments, were finally settled by the Canadian government on a reservation on Grand river, Ontario, where they still reside, although a few individuals emigrated to Gibson, Bay of Quinté, Caughnawaga, and St Thomas, Ontario. All the Iroquois in the United States are on reservations in New York with the exception of the Oneida, who are settled near Green Bay, Wis. The so-called Seneca of Oklahoma are composed of the remnants of many tribes, among which may be mentioned the Conestoga and Hurons, and of emigrants from all the tribes of the Iroquoian confederation. It is very probable that the nucleus of these Seneca was the remnant of the ancient Erie. The Catholic Iroquois of Caughnawaga, St Regis, and Oka, although having no connection with the confederation, supplied many recruits to the fur trade, and a large number of them have become permanently resident among the northwestern tribes of the United States and Canada.

Answer 2

-The Iroquois were the dominant aboriginal power among the colonies of New England and New France/Quebec well into the American Revolution. In many respects it was their politics and wartime practices that dictated the outcome of many the events surrounding the conquest and the early battles of the revolution
-Most of the Iroquois Confederacy became part of the large scale loyalist movement into the British colonies that now make up eastern Canada during and after the revolution. For years afterwards they were cultivated as militia force by Imperial British authorities against American involvement and aggression towards the Loyalist Colonies.
-The Iroquois militia was decisive in several battles of the Niagara campaign of War of 1812 sometimes even single handedly repelling larger American forces while white militias and even British regulars were defeated or ran.
-The Confederacy to this day has remained one of the largest and most prolific aboriginal communities in Canada to this day in all sorts of capacities whether it be in their fielding a highly competative lacrosse team or forming their own units to fight overseas in the First World War.

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