This volume chronicles the phenomenal rise of the Iroquois Confederacy during the "Beaver Wars" of the 17th century. In what were perhaps the greatest series of military conquests in Native American history, the Five Nations of the Iroquois subjugated and destroyed enemy tribes stretching over a vast area from eastern Canada to Virginia to Illinois, forever changing the cultural map of Eastern North America. The accounts included in this volume cover the underpinnings of the wars and the initial conflicts which led to a century of hostilities as the Iroquois emerged as the dominant force that was both respected and dreaded by neighboring tribes and the European colonial powers alike. Additional extracts will touch upon the evolution of Native American fighting techniques, strategy and tactics, treatment of prisoners, and the influence of the various European colonies.

Continues the chronicle of the phenomenal rise of the Iroquois Confederacy during the "Beaver Wars" of the 17th century, using primary source extracts from the Jesuit Relations.

From World War II onward, the Iroquois, one of the largest groups of Native Americans in North America, have confronted a series of crises threatening their continued existence. From the New York-Pennsylvania border, where the Army Corps of Engineers engulfed a vast tract of Seneca homeland with the Kinzua Dam, from the ambition of Robert Moses and the New York State Power Authority to develop the hydroelectric power of the Niagara Frontier (which eroded the land base of the Tuscaroras), from the construction of the Saint Lawrence Seaway (which took land from the Mohawks and still affects their fishing industry), to the present-day battles over the Oneida land claims in New York State and the Onondaga efforts to repatriate their wampum—Laurence Hauptman documents the bitter struggles of proud people to maintain their independence and strength in the modern world. Out of these battles came a renewed sense of Iroquois nationalism and nationwide Iroquois leadership in American Indian politics. Hauptman examines events leading to the emergence of the contemporary Iroquois, concluding with the takeover at Wounded Knee in the winter-spring of 1973 and the Supreme Court's Oneida decision in 1974. His research is based on historical documents, published materials, and interviews and fieldwork in every Iroquois community in the United States and several in Canada.

Describes how the Six Nations got involved in the War of 1812, the role they played in the defense of Canada, and the war's effects on their society

Back in print. George T. Hunt’s classic 1940 study of the Iroquois during the middle and late seventeenth century presents warfare as a result of depletion of natural resources in the Iroquois homeland and tribal efforts to assume the role of middlemen in the fur trade between the Indians to the west and the Europeans.