ady referred to, protested against allowing "the
Great Lake of the Erocoise" (Champlain) to the Dutch, saying that it is
excellent for the fur trade, and that the Dutch have gained by beaver
20,000 pounds a year. Exaggerated though the statement is, it is true
that the energies of the Dutch were devoted to this trade, rather than
to agricultural settlement. As in the case of New France the settlers
dispersed themselves in the Indian trade; so general did this become
that laws had to be passed to compel the raising of crops.[32] New York
City (New Amsterdam) was founded and for a time sustained by the fur
trade. In their search for peltries the Dutch were drawn up the Hudson,
up the Connecticut, and down the Delaware, where they had Swedes for
their rivals. By way of the Hudson the Dutch traders had access to Lake
Champlain, and to the Mohawk, the headwaters of which connected through
the lakes of western New York with Lake Ontario. This region, which was
supplied by the trading post of Orange (Albany), was the seat of the
Iroquois confederacy. The results of the trade upon Indian society
became apparent in a short time in the most decisive way. Furnished with
arms by the Dutch, the Iroquois turned upon the neighboring Indians,
whom the French had at first refrained from supplying with guns.[33] In
1649 they completely ruined the Hurons,[34] a part of whom fled to the
woods of northern Wisconsin. In the years immediately following, the
Neutral Nation and the Eries fell under their power; they overawed the
New England Indians and the Southern tribes, and their hunting and war
parties visited Illinois and drove Indians of those plains into
Wisconsin. Thus by priority in securing firearms, as well as by their
remarkable civil organization,[35] the Iroquois secured possession of
the St. Lawrence and Lakes Ontario and Erie. The French had accepted the
alliance of the Algonquins and the Hurons, as the Dutch, and afterward
the English, had that of the Iroquois; so these victories of the
Iroquois cut the French off from the entrance to the Great Lakes by way
of the upper St. Lawrence. As early as 1629 the Dutch trade was
estimated at 50,000 guilders per annum, and the Delaware trade alone
produced 10,000 skins yearly in 1663.[36] The English succeeded to this
trade, and under Governor Dongan they made particular efforts to extend
their operations to the Northwest, using the Iroquois as middlemen.
Although the French were in posses