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The enormous profits of the fur trade naturally excited the keenest rivalry between the French of the St Lawrence and the Dutch of the Hudson. The former were favoured by their alliance with the Hurons and Algonquins; the Dutch enlisted the co-operation of the Iroquois, cementing the partnership by the distribution of brandy and fire-arms. The chief hunting-ground for beaver lay north and west of the Great Lakes.

The Nipissing and Ottawa route, the main thoroughfare of native commerce, was controlled by the Algonquins. Other tribes making use of the trade route paid toll to the Algonquin chief at Allumette. The Hurons carried their furs to the French alone. The Neutrals traded with Huron and Iroquois alike, and by Huron and Iroquois alike the attempts of French traders and missionaries to divert the furs of the Neutral country directly to Montreal or Three Rivers were regarded with undisguised hostility. The Iroquois barred the gateway of the St Lawrence, but in any case the Neutrals, not like their northern neighbours expert canoe-men, and perhaps apprehensive of the fate which was soon to overtake them, were unwilling to risk the proposed transference of trade. Determined to secure control of so profitable a traffic, the Iroquois terrorised their rivals by repeated raids, with horrible accompaniments of torture and massacre. The policy developed later into one of ‘thorough.’ The tribes which stood in the way of the desired monopoly were to be annihilated. The Ottawa trade route was to be closed. The French were to be harassed by constant attacks. Scalping parties were to lie in ambush at portages and landing-places.

The programme was carried out with ruthless persistence to its tragic conclusion. Hurons, Petuns, Neutrals and Algonquins shared an equal fate. Those who resisted were slain. Thousands escaped to distant regions, or died of starvation and exposure in their flight. Large numbers were incorporated with the Senecas, making this tribe by far the most numerous of the Five Nations. The torture and massacre of missionaries, which form so stirring a chapter in Canadian history, were mere incidents in the execution of a trade policy which, bloody and cruel as it was, proved effective for a time. The rich beaver grounds of Ontario became the possession of the Iroquois, who resorted thither in large numbers every winter. The territory between the lakes and to the west was depopulated. The trade of the upper country could pass readily to Albany but not to Montreal or Three Rivers. The Iroquois, like the Romans of old in Caledonia, had made a desolation and called it peace.

In 1650 the exiled Petun or Tobacco Indians, and a tribe of Ottawas from Manitoulin Island, reached Green Bay in Wisconsin. Five years later they were on the Mississippi. Then in 1657, still urged by fear of the Iroquois, they moved towards Lake Superior. The Ottawas established themselves at Chequamegon Point, not far from the present town of Ashland; the Petuns sought a home at the head-waters of the Black River south of the Great Lake. Shortly after the expulsion we hear of eight hundred Neutrals at Sault Ste Marie. They joined the Hurons who had taken refuge in that region. The dispersion of the Hurons, Petuns, Neutrals and Algonquins in the territory lying between Lake Michigan, Lake Superior and the Mississippi River was to be an important factor in extending French influence in the Far West.

In 1653 three canoes of Hurons and Ottawas arrived at Three Rivers. To avoid the dreaded Iroquois they had followed the canoe and portage route from the upper waters of the Ottawa to the sources of the St Maurice. Their embassy was for the purpose of renewing trade relations. The French were only too willing, for Montreal had not bought a beaver-skin for a year. In the following year, accordingly, a flotilla of Petun and Ottawa canoes, loaded with furs, descended the Ottawa. Quebec was all excitement over the news they brought of a great river beyond Green Bay, flowing directly into the sea. Two young Frenchmen accompanied them on the return trip to their western home.

A fleet of fifty canoes, loaded with furs, descended the Ottawa in 1656. Each was manned by five canoe-men, most of whom made the trip for the first time. The two Frenchmen were with them, and had brought from Green Bay or picked up on the voyage eastward a body of savages representing many tribes, including Sacs, Pottawatamies, Menomonees of Green Bay, Saulteurs (Ojibways of the Sault), besides Mississagas, Beaver Indians and others from Georgian Bay. Ottawas from Sault Ste Marie were probably leaders of the party. Among the three hundred dusky canoe-men there must have been representatives also of the exiled Hurons and Nipissings. The cargo consisted of furs worth a hundred thousand crowns, not including those belonging to the two Frenchmen, valued at about thirty thousand francs. The names of the Frenchmen are not stated. They may have been, and probably were, Groseilliers and Radisson. Whoever they were, they had accomplished an important work. The canoe route by French River, Lake Nipissing and the Ottawa had been reopened. Most important of all, information of a definite character was now available as to the ‘great river’ of the West, the Mississippi. The Hurons and Ottawas had seen it, the Frenchmen who had spent two years among the savages of Green Bay had perhaps in their wanderings also gazed upon the mighty stream. But seventeen years passed by before the administration of New France chose to follow up this information by sending out official explorers.

The peace effected by the Iroquois with the French did not extend to the native tribes. The trails were still infested by the treacherous foe, and the safety of those descending to trade depended upon their number. The Ottawas controlled the traffic at Sault Ste Marie and the fleets which visited the marts of Montreal and Three Rivers. The great tributary of the St Lawrence, because it was their highway to the trading-posts, was henceforth to be known as the River of the Ottawas, although the alternative and still older name of Grand River was never wholly abandoned.

For missionary zeal fresh fields were opening. The first attempt to send priests was doomed to failure. Two set out in 1656; one was obliged to abandon the enterprise, the other was murdered above Montreal by a Frenchman. The Hurons, with whom the priests travelled, were attacked on the Ottawa by a band of Iroquois under the command of a war chief known as the Flemish Bastard. Meanwhile a small French military colony was established among the Onondagas south of Lake Ontario. In the following year, 1657, it was necessary to reinforce this detachment. The expedition included eighty Iroquois, more than a hundred men and women of the Huron nation, twenty Frenchmen and two Jesuit missionaries. Among the party was Pierre Esprit Radisson, commonly known to history as Radisson. This expedition proceeded by way of the St Lawrence, and made the first recorded ascent of the river from Montreal to Lake Ontario.

The colony was in constant danger of destruction from the Onondagas. However, Major Zacharie Dupuys, the commandant, succeeded in saving his followers by flight, after their treacherous hosts were incapacitated through Radisson’s clever device of an ‘Eat-all feast’ and copious supplies of liquor. The refugees reached Montreal in April 1658.