Great Peace of Montreal - Prelude To Peace

Prelude To Peace

The success of these attacks, which again reached deep into Iroquois territory, and the inability of the English to protect them from attacks originating to their north and west, forced the Iroquois to more seriously pursue peace. Their demographic decline, aided by conflicts and epidemics, put their very existence into doubt. At the same time, commerce became almost nonexistent because of a fall in price of furs. The Indians preferred to trade with the merchants of New York because these merchants offered better prices than the French.

Preliminary negotiations took place in 1698 and 1699, but these were to some degree frustrated by the intervention of the English, who sought to keep the Iroquois from negotiating directly with the French. After another successful attack into Iroquoia in early 1700, these attempts at intervention failed. The first conference between the French and Iroquois was held on Iroquois territory at Onondaga in March 1700. In September of the same year, a preliminary peace treaty was signed in Montreal with the five Iroquois Nations. Thirteen Native American symbols are on the treaty. After this first entente, it was decided that a bigger one would be held in Montreal in the summer of 1701 and all Nations of the Great Lakes invited. Selected French emissaries, clergy and soldiers, all well-perceived by the Native Americans, were given this diplomatic task. The negotiations continued during the wait for the big conference; the neutrality of the Five Nations was discussed in Montreal in May 1701.