At the end of the fifteenth century, European traders began regularly arriving at the shores of North America to trade for beaver pelts. Thanks to a ridiculously high demand, they were eager to buy, and luckily the locals were just as eager to sell. In return for killing an animal that was literally everywhere, they could get metal tools and weapons, wool blankets and clothing, and glass beads and other such exotic goods. Relatively cheap in Europe, for the tribes of North America, they were immeasurable luxuries, so much so that the coastal tribes quickly killed every beaver in the territories they controlled. However, they just as quickly figured out that controlling the trade for beaver was just as lucrative as actually having beaver. By acting as middlemen, they could not only make a bundle playing both sides of the trade, they could also ensure their rivals remained weaker and non-threatening. Of course, once these coastal tribes started jacking up the prices, partly because they had to in order to bring in pelts from the interior and partly just because they could, it didn’t take long for some enterprising Europeans to figure out ways to trade with the more interior tribes, effectively cutting out the coastal middlemen. If any of the coastal tribes had a problem with it they really didn’t have a chance to complain, given 90 percent of them died during an epidemic between 1616 and 1619.
By the 1620s, each of the European powers had formed close trading ties with one of the major Iroquois alliances. In the north along the Great Lakes, the Huron Confederacy traded with the French, in the middle the Iroquois Confederacy traded with the Dutch, and in the south the English and Swedes traded with the Susquehannock Confederacy. The rivalry between these European powers exacerbated rivalries two centuries old between the alliances, creating a new excuse for violence. In order to give their allies an advantage, both the French and Dutch armed their respective allies. The French sold metal axes to the Huron, allowing them to completely dominate the northern beaver trade and their stone axe carrying brethren. The Dutch kicked it up a notch, selling the Iroquois guns. As far as strategies go, it was super effective, the Iroquois quickly wiping out all of their rivals in the immediate vicinity.
Unfortunately, by the 1630s, the Iroquois were facing a bit of a problem in that the number of beavers in their immediate vicinity was rapidly declining. The Huron, while facing a similar issue, solved it by becoming the primary middlemen of the Great Lakes trade, buying pelts from the powerful Ojibwe and Cree tribes further west. The Iroquois couldn’t do the same, what with the Huron to the north and the Susquehannock to the south, threatening their access to European goods. However, this became somewhat of a secondary concern for a time, since an epidemic of measles swept westward from the Atlantic Coast between 1634 and 1640, killing around half the native population in its path, which pretty obviously really fucked things up. By the end of the epidemic, the Iroquois found themselves not only in need of pelts, but also numbers. The best solution to both problems they decided was to start attacking their neighbors, not only giving them access to pelts, but also creating opportunities to capture and assimilate new members for the allied tribe.
The first victims of the Iroquois in what became known as the Beaver Wars were the various unaffiliated Iroquoian tribes along the shores of the Great Lakes. Once they were violently subdued, the Iroquois next focused in on the Huron, who were at a bit of a disadvantage given the French refused to sell them guns. The attacks by both sides were brutal, and things looked pretty bad for the Huron, at least until they allied themselves with the Susquehannock, who were buying guns from the Swedes. Originally the Susquehannock had been forced to trade through the Lenape, but during the epidemic they forcefully subdued the more coastal Algonquian tribe, giving them direct access to the Swedes who were more than happy to do anything to knock the Dutch down a peg or two, including selling guns to the eager Susquehannock. However, this new alliance had an unintended consequence, in that it made the Iroquois desperate enough that they launched an all out attack in 1649, scattering the Huron along the Great Lakes and east to the French colony of Quebec City.
Following the defeat of the Huron, the Iroquois began a trade embargo against the French, blocking their trade with the Ojibwe and Cree and attacking their trading posts and colonies. Without the Huron, French traders themselves were forced to make the dangerous journey westwards, but these traders were unreliable, often selling furs to the Iroquois for elevated prices instead of bringing them back to New France. Things were only beginning to get fucked up.
