ABSTRACT
The success of the French Empire in North America depended upon skillful diplomacy with native peoples carried out by colonial officials, traders, missionaries, and go-betweens. The Five Nations Iroquois, who received weapons and other trade goods from the Dutch and, after 1664, the English, disrupted French trade in the northeast for most of the seventeenth century, resulting in a constant state of enmity and conflict between the two peoples through 1701, when the Iroquois began to pursue a policy of neutrality toward both the French and English colonies.
