Page "Beaver Wars" Paragraph 11

In 1628 the Mohawk defeated the Mahican and established a monopoly of trade with the Dutch at Fort Orange, New Netherland.

The Iroquois, particularly the Mohawk, had come to rely on the trade for the purchase of firearms and other European goods for their livelihood and survival.

By the 1630s, the Iroquois had become fully armed with European weaponry through their trade with the Dutch.

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, Mahicans, 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.