Why were the Iroquois hostile towards the French?

ben0628

Banned
Tried finding this answer in other places, but couldn't find a decent answer. Why did the Iroquois constantly favor the British over the French?

I am aware that the the French helped Native American tribes that were hostile towards the Iroquois, but how couldn't the Iroquois see that British colonization was more of a threat to their way of life than French colonization?

I just find it odd that the Iroquois would rather fight off a few French traders than the swarms of English colonists that were settling the frontier, especially during the French and Indian War. I feel like if they had allied with the French, it would have ended better for them.
 
The French were effectively allied with the Hurons, who were mortal enemies of the Iroquois for numerous reasons.

The Iroquois saw the Hurons and their other rivals as more of a threat than European colonialism because that's the way that things always worked amongst American Indians, and there was no real reason why that way of viewing the world should change. Some contemporary sources strongly suggest that the Indians viewed especially the French as just another tribe, albeit one that had very nice trade goods.
 

ben0628

Banned
The French were effectively allied with the Hurons, who were mortal enemies of the Iroquois for numerous reasons.

The Iroquois saw the Hurons and their other rivals as more of a threat than European colonialism because that's the way that things always worked amongst American Indians, and there was no real reason why that way of viewing the world should change. Some contemporary sources strongly suggest that the Indians viewed especially the French as just another tribe, albeit one that had very nice trade goods.

I have read some sources that said there were a small amount of Iroquois (mostly Senecas and Mohawks) who actually sided with the French during the French and Indian War and that there were many others that stayed neutral during the conflict. If this is the case, then the idea that the Iroquois hatred towards the French is a bit overblown.

If some Iroquois were willing to work with the French, than why wouldn't the others? I'm sure there are reasons why and I have no doubt that hatred towards the French is one of them, but when the Iroquois Confederacy is sitting between two colonial powers, one only caring about trade and the spread of Catholicism while the other caring about expansion, I just find it really hard to believe that they would ally with the expanding power, which was more of a threat to them just because they hated the other power.
 
I have read some sources that said there were a small amount of Iroquois (mostly Senecas and Mohawks) who actually sided with the French during the French and Indian War and that there were many others that stayed neutral during the conflict. If this is the case, then the idea that the Iroquois hatred towards the French is a bit overblown.

If some Iroquois were willing to work with the French, than why wouldn't the others? I'm sure there are reasons why and I have no doubt that hatred towards the French is one of them, but when the Iroquois Confederacy is sitting between two colonial powers, one only caring about trade and the spread of Catholicism while the other caring about expansion, I just find it really hard to believe that they would ally with the expanding power, which was more of a threat to them just because they hated the other power.
The Iroquois may have had the false assumption that the British would have been able to force the French out and would have left them alone after the fact. Despite what may have been written or passed off as common knowledge to some people, the Europeans were quite adept at deceiving the Native Americans and this, in part, led to their demise.

The French were mostly expelled but, as we all know, the Native American tribes weren't left alone and suffered quite a bit.
 

Tyr Anazasi

Banned
The Iroquois were the main alliance in their area. They were enemies of the Indian tribes allied with the French. As Dutch trading partners (and allies) they got arquebuses, which led to the over hunting of the beaver. Because of this the Iroquois started a series of wars, the beaver wars, against their neighbours, who were mostly allied with France. In the War of the Palatinian Succession, aka Nine Years' war or King William's war for the combat in North America, the Iroquois sided with Britain making peace only in 1701, which also meant that they were neutral (mostly) for the next 40 years. In the Seven Years War though they were partly allied with France or Britain.
 
Didn't the situation get more complicated after the Great Peace of Montréal (1701)?
Negociators from the Iroquois Confederacy made peace with French allied Natives and the Iroquois promised to be neutral (in effect some joining the French, some the British) in subsequent conflits between New France and the British Colonies.
 
I think one factor that's been overlooked in the previous posts was the fact that the Iroquois saw war differently than European powers did. I'm not an expert on Irqouois culture, and the research I've done for my TL has been on 16th and 17th century Iroquois culture rather than 18th cenutry Iroquois culuture, but I do think there were a number of cultural factors which led to the Iroquois (more accurately: some of the Iroquois) siding with the English rather than the French.

- to the Iroquois warfare was more an economic act than a political act. The goal of war was not to utterly defeat your opponent in order to impose your political agenda on them, but to raid your enemy for spoils. In the pre-colonial (and early colonial) period, spoils were usually in the form of captives used to increase the Iroquois population, but by 1700 access to beaver pelts had become more important than captives. Thus, the Iroquois were interested in fighting whichever power controlled beaver hunting grounds that they coveted. This was the French.

- the Irqouois-English alliance (and the Iroquois-Dutch alliance before that) had everything to do with the position of the various trade routes from the coast to the interior. The Iroqouis were very well positioned to bring furs from the interior to trade posts on the Hudson, Delaware, and Susquahenna Rivers, which is why they made natural allies with the English. The English needed the Iroquois as a middleman to obtain furs from the interior, as the Iroquois were positioned on top off all the important trade routes between the English colonies and the interior. The French, on the other hand, could and did easily bypass the Iroquois by using the Ottawa River-Lake Nipissing trade route. A French victory would mean that the Iroquois would be left without a trading partner, as, to the French, they were simply an unnecessary middleman.

- the French had offended the Iroquois a number of times with their missionary activity in the 17th century. I'm not sure how relevant this still was by the 18th century, but, to a large extent, the Iroquois didn't get along with the French BECAUSE they were less willing to convert to Catholicism, then, say, the Hurons were.

- the English continually made promises to reserve land for the Iroquois by limiting expansion of their settler colonies. See the Royal Proclamation of 1763. The Iroquois were more or less convinced by this promise, and didn't forsee the American Revolution being fought over this and other issues. Thus, while encroachment of settlers was a problem, it was seen as a necessary sacrifice to make in order to benefit from the enormous prosperity the Iroquois were able to gain from the fur trade with the English.
 
If some Iroquois were willing to work with the French, than why wouldn't the others? I'm sure there are reasons why and I have no doubt that hatred towards the French is one of them, but when the Iroquois Confederacy is sitting between two colonial powers, one only caring about trade and the spread of Catholicism while the other caring about expansion, I just find it really hard to believe that they would ally with the expanding power, which was more of a threat to them just because they hated the other power.

did the Iroquois really grasp this whole idea? Did anyone make it clear to them that the English were going to keep expanding their settlements? Hell, did even the English know how far they were going? It's a bit unfair to fault them for not seeing the future...
 
Iroquois is an offensive term, the proper name is Haudenosaunee. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iroquois#/media/File:5NationsExpansion.jpg if you have that much territory are you really scared of English settlers at the beginning? Not until the American Revolution are you scared of English settlers, because the British King can't use his Proclamation line to keep the settlers away from you. Which is why the Haudenosaunee were, mostly, allied with the British. And then George Washington had them pretty much decimated by Sullivan's Expedition.
 
Iroquois is an offensive term, the proper name is Haudenosaunee.

Nobody uses the term Iroquois in a derogatory way. It might potentially be derived from a French pick up of an insulting term used by the Algonquin, but that is by no means certain and is an esoteric debate for linguists. I think it is ridiculous to assert it is offensive as a slur. But there is always someone who wants to be outraged.

Lots of people have proper names for themselves that is not used by other peoples. We call the Deutsch Germans, the Hellenes Greeks, the Nihonjin Japanese, and the Magyars Hungarians. Other languages have the exact same thing. It's not a big thing.
 
Nobody uses the term Iroquois in a derogatory way. It might potentially be derived from a French pick up of an insulting term used by the Algonquin, but that is by no means certain and is an esoteric debate for linguists. I think it is ridiculous to assert it is offensive as a slur. But there is always someone who wants to be outraged.

Lots of people have proper names for themselves that is not used by other peoples. We call the Deutsch Germans, the Hellenes Greeks, the Nihonjin Japanese, and the Magyars Hungarians. Other languages have the exact same thing. It's not a big thing.

Plus I recall when a historian, Dr. Alan Taylor, who worked in that field spoke at my college, he used both terms interchangeably.
 
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