[Chad Fairbanks]

That's not correct. The Iroquois--the Mohawks or Agnierrhonons in particular--attempted to make a separate peace with the French on several occasions, to the exclusion of the Indian allies of the French. The point was to make the French into allies of the Mohawks (like they had done with the Dutch in the Hudson valley) and then take advantage of this situation to annihilate their ancient Indian enemies in the St. Lawrence Valley. The Iroquois did not hate the French--indeed they coveted the trade which the Hurons and Algonquins had developed with the French.

We never forgave the French for our first encounter with them, when they helped the Huron and it killed a few war chiefs. Sure, we wanted to trade with the french - why not? There was an advantage to it. Didn't mean we liked them. I think we spent far more time trying to keep the french neutral, while we set about forcing other tribes to deal through us... Yes, every single time we tried to negotiate with the French to avoid open war, we always excluded those tribes that were not part of our covenent chain - including french allies...

Yup. It would have been bad if the Dutch hadn't been there - we would have been at a distinct disadvantage were it not for the Dutch Firearms early on...

Actually, the Iroquois took many of the surviving refugee Hurons into their villages too.

Of course - part of our "Great Pursuit" policy. We would adopt all we captured into the various Iroquoian nations, and those who were NOT part of that were hunted down and destroyed - it kept the ones we adopted from revolting...

It was not a mistake for the Neutrals to do so.

Well, our policy said it was, so for what that's worth ;) Those Hurons not under our control were considered a threat, so they had to be dealt with. The Neutrals got in the way...

And this was not the cause of the wars between the Iroquois and the Neutrals in any case. The Seneca and the Neutrals had been at dagger's points several times prior to the wholescale Iroquois attacks that eventually destroyed the Neutrals in 1652-4.

I was referring to teh reason behind the wholesale attack, not the earlier stuff - Had the Neutrals just handed over who we wanted at the time, they might have bought themselves a few more years ;0)

From an online history I helped contribute to:

the Tahonaenrat (Huron) had continued to make war on the Iroquois from their refuge in the Neutrals' homeland. The Iroquois blamed the Neutrals for permitting this, and after diplomatic efforts failed to force the Neutrals to surrender the Tahontaenrat, the western Iroquois attacked the Neutrals in 1650. At first the Susquehannock attempted to help the Neutrals, but their assistance ended when the Mohawk, in a separate war, attacked the Susquehannock in the fall. For the most part, the war was over by the following year, and the Neutrals had ceased to exist. Many were captured by this time and later incorporated into the Iroquois, but several groups of the Neutrals were able to elude the Iroquois for some time after their defeat.

One small group is believed to have fled west across the Great Lakes and joined the Huron and Tionontati refugees living near Green Bay (Wisconsin). Another seems to have reached the Susquehannock (Pennsylvania) where a combined group of Neutrals and Susquehannock was reported to have defeated a large Seneca war party in 1652, and there were about 800 Neutrals living in at least two villages near Detroit during the winter of 1653. These Detroit villages may have continued until 1660. Other Neutrals were reported as living south of Lake Erie in 1656. However, both had disappeared by 1660, and their fate is unknown. By far the largest group (including many Huron) fled south into northern Ohio and found refuge with the Erie. The Erie accepted them but kept them in a status of complete submission which some have described as virtual slavery. Demands by the Iroquois that the Erie surrender these former enemies were refused, and the situation deteriorated into war by 1653. After three years the Erie were also destroyed and absorbed.

[Antoninus]

We never forgave the French for our first encounter with them, when they helped the Huron and it killed a few war chiefs.

"Never forgiving" was actually the reason wars never ended in the eastern woodlands. The wampum ceremony was supposed to allow forgiveness to take place and indeed, many hatchets were buried between the French and Iroquois. But it never stayed buried, unfortunately.

Yes, every single time we tried to negotiate with the French to avoid open war, we always excluded those tribes that were not part of our covenent chain - including french allies...

Not entirely true. The short-lived peace of 1645 was supposed to be a universal peace--at least the French thought so. In fact, as they later discovered, it was only a peace between the Mohawks and the French and their allies. The Oneida and Senecas continued to make war on the Hurons during this time--ironically with support from several Mohawks who went to help them because there was no fighting at the Eastern Door. The Iroquois tended to make peace in order to free up resources to wage war on other fronts.

Yup. It would have been bad if the Dutch hadn't been there - we would have been at a distinct disadvantage were it not for the Dutch Firearms early on...

Actually, it gave the Iroquois a distinct advantage. The French had a strict policy of not trading muskets to the Indians--even their allies. The only exception was for the occasional convert to Christianity. Thus, the Iroquois were able to field 50-100 skilled arquebusiers in the 1640s, while their enemies (again, except the Susquehannocks to the south) were still fighting with bows, knives, clubs, and steel axes. If not for this advantage, there's little indication that the political unity of the Iroquois would have been enough, in and of itself, to overcome the equally unified and populous Hurons, Neutrals, Eries, and Mahicans.

To prove this, the nation that caused the Iroquois the most difficulty and dread were the Susquehannocks who were similarly armed by the Dutch and Swedes. This was in spite of the fact that the Susquehannocks were considerably less numerous than the Iroquois and were consistently pressed on their southern and eastern borders by the English colonists.