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Updated: June 7, 2025
To the south and southeast lay other tribes of kindred race and tongue, all stationary, all tillers of the soil, and all in a state of social advancement when compared with the roving bands of Eastern Canada: the Neutral Nation west of the Niagara, and the Eries and Andastes in Western New York and Pennsylvania; while from the Genesee eastward to the Hudson lay the banded tribes of the Iroquois, leading members of this potent family, deadly foes of their kindred, and at last their destroyers.
The western Iroquois the Oneidas, Onondagas, and Senecas were at war with the Eries. While thus engaged it seemed to them good policy to make peace with the French, and they dispatched an embassy to Ville Marie to open negotiations. The Mohawks, too, fearing that their western kinsmen might gain some advantage over them, sent messengers to New France. A grand council was held at Quebec.
At length one of their sachems, distinguished for his wisdom and address, proposed that they should cease from a strife, which was only destroying themselves, and unite their energies against the Alleghans, the Adirondacks, the Eries, and other ancient and warlike tribes, who were their superiors in their isolated and divided condition.
The dancing girls huddled together in a frightened and half-naked group; the Andastes cowered apart; the servile Eries were staggering out of the corn fields laden with ripe ears; and the famished soldiers were shouting and cursing at them and tearing the corn from their arms to gnaw the raw and milky grains.
But should the nation harbor the trespasser, then the nation must suffer the devastations of war at the hands of the Iroquois. I would here say a few words in relation to the question often asked, "Who were the Squawkihows, Kah-Kwahs, and the Eries?" There has been much controversy on the question.
The Iroquois then found occasion for quarrels with the Neutrals, the Eries, and the Andastes; and soon practically all the Indian tribes from the shores of Maine to the Mississippi and as far south as the Carolinas were under tribute to the Five Nations. Only the Algonquin tribes of Michigan and Wisconsin and the tribes of the far north had not suffered from these bloodthirsty conquerors.
In the following May, an Onondaga orator, on a peace visit to Montreal, said, in a speech to the Governor, "Our young men will no more fight the French; but they are too warlike to stay at home, and this summer we shall invade the country of the Eries. The occasion of this new war is said to have been as follows.
The Eries, who it will be remembered dwelt on the south of the lake named after them, had made a treaty of peace with the Senecas, and in the preceding year had sent a deputation of thirty of their principal men to confirm it.
The true Iroquois, or Five Nations, extended through Central New York, from the Hudson to the Genesee. Southward lay the Andastes, on and near the Susquehanna; westward, the Eries, along the southern shore of Lake Erie, and the Neutral Nation, along its northern shore from Niagara towards the Detroit; while the towns of the Hurons lay near the lake to which they have left their name.
Catrine Montour closed her horrible little eyes, threw back her head, and, marking time with her flat foot, began to chant. She chanted the glory of the Long House; of the nations that drove the Eries, the Hurons, the Algonquins; of the nation that purged the earth of the Stonish Giants; of the nation that fought the dreadful battle of the Flying Heads.
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