By the 1630s the Iroquois had become fully armed with European weaponry through their fur trade with the Dutch, and they used these firearms in their battles with the Algonquin, Mahican, Montagnais, and Huron. The French, on the other hand, had outlawed the trading of firearms to their Indigenous allies which put them at a distinct disadvantage. The Iroquois relied on the fur trade for firearms and other highly valued European goods for their livelihood and survival but, by 1640, the beaver had been wiped out in the Hudson Valley and this ignited the Beaver Wars.
In the early 1640s the Beaver Wars began in earnest, with the Iroquois Confederacy, dominated by the Mohawk, attacking Huron villages along the St. Lawrence to disrupt their trade with the French. In 1648 an army of 1,000 armed warriors launched a devastating attack into the heart of Huron territory, destroying several key villages, killing many warriors, and taking thousands of people captive for later adoption into the tribe.
These series of raids on the Huron were intended to destroy them as a people with thousands of Huron taken to be adopted by Iroquois families and the rest being killed. Because the Huron were Iroquoian speaking and had a similar lifestyle, the war against the Huron was as much a "mourning war" as a "beaver war" as the Iroquois obsessively raided the Huron villages to rebuild their own dwindling population that had been ravaged by war and disease.
They eventually moved even further north attacking and blockading Montreal. By 1650 they controlled the area from Virginia Colony up to the St. Lawrence and west to the Mississippi. In 1666 a French force of 1,300 invaded the Iroquois territory and took the Mohawk chief captive. Seizing all the Mohawk lands for France the army burned their crops and homes leaving many to starve. The Mohawks sued for peace and France agreed. However, once peace was achieved with the French, the Iroquois turned westward and continued with their conquest of the Huron and Algonquin living in the Great Lakes region.
As English settlers moved into the former Dutch colony, they began to form close ties with the Iroquois as an alliance against French colonial expansion. They began to supply the Iroquois with firearms as the Dutch had but, in 1681, the French finally lifted the ban on the sale of firearms to Indians, and started arming the Huron, Algonquin, and Anishinaabeg Confederacy to even the odds between the Iroquois and their enemies. The Anishinaabeg Confederacy or Council of Three Fires was made up of Ojibwe, Odawa, and Potawatomi and, along with the Shawnee, Wabash and Miami people, they were eventually able to push back against the Iroquois Confederacy.
The disruption of the Beaver Wars was considerable but, by 1698, the Iroquois were beginning to see the emerging 13 Colonies as more of a threat than the French, especially with the Colony of Pennsylvania now encroaching on their territory. In 1701 the French and 39 Indian chiefs signed the Great Peace of Montreal Treaty whereby the Iroquois agreed to stop marauding and to allow refugees from the Great Lakes to return east.
For the
first half of the 17th century France operated a de facto monopoly
of the fur trade with all of the business going through Montreal and Quebec and
down the St. Lawrence River. But there were two French traders, Pierre-Esprit Radisson and his
brother-in-law Medard des Groseilliers, who had learned, from their various First Nations contacts, there were even
better furs to be had by exploring north and west of Lake Superior and there
was a frozen sea even further north (Hudson Bay) that could be used
to transport the furs and reduce costs.
In spite of verifying
the potential by exploring the Great Lakes area in 1660 and bringing back the
furs, the authorities refused to cooperate in setting up a trade in the Hudson
Bay area. The French Governor was afraid it would take away the focus of the
fur trade from the St. Lawrence River. However, the two traders were determined
to succeed so they turned to the English for financing.
They were introduced
to Prince Rupert, a cousin of King Charles II, who in 1668 provided them with
two ships, one of which, the Nonesuch, made it to James Bay. There they
founded Rupert House on the mouth of the Rupert River, the first fort on Hudson
Bay.
After a successful
winter of trading, they returned in 1669 with a load of furs and King Charles
II unilaterally granted them a royal charter in 1670 as the Hudson Bay Company
(HBC). The charter granted the company a monopoly
over the region drained by all rivers and streams flowing into Hudson Bay and
was named Rupert’s Land. This amounted to 1.5 million square miles, or more than
1/3 of Canadian territory, and gave no consideration to the First Nations
already living there. Interestingly, HBC never granted any shares in the company to either Radisson or Groseilliers.
On paper, HBC had a monopoly over a vast territory but, in reality, it only controlled a small area adjacent to the shores of James and Hudson bays where it established what it called “factories” at the mouths of major rivers flowing into Hudson Bay. This strategy allowed for the factories to be serviced annually by ship while providing a convenient route for native traders to deliver their furs. Between 1668-1717 the HBC established six posts on James Bay and the western shore of Hudson Bay; Rupert House, Moose Factory, Fort Albany, Fort Severn, York Factory and then Fort Churchill, with York Factory being the main headquarters. Now there was direct competition with the French for the furs and two principal routes for the furs to make their way to England.
The arrival of the First Nations trappers to the HBC factories was one of the high points of the year, met with all sorts of pomp and circumstance, and the highlight was a very formal, "Trading Ceremony" where gifts were exchanged between the Chief Trader and the Captains of the Indigenous contingent who traded on their behalf and were given nautical style red or blue “Captain’s Coats”. The First Nations people were shrewd traders and knew the value of their furs and what a "made beaver" was worth. A "made beaver" was a single beaver skin and a standard of exchange that substituted for money. For example one made beaver could purchase 8 knives or one kettle and a gun could be purchased for 10 made beavers.
