In connection with its ownership of the crown lands, the Dominion government assumed at Confederation the guardianship of the Indians, descendants of the ancient lords of the soil. In the drama of Canadian history, especially in its earlier scenes, the Indians play a part that is tragically interesting, whether regarded from the point of view of the settlers, or from that of the wild people themselves, as they were driven deeper into the wilderness, and sank gradually from the position of being reckoned with and feared into that of a comparatively feeble folk, bewildered by the necessity of adaptation to new conditions. The Canadian Indians, though of many different tribes, have been placed by ethnologists in three or four chief groups. The largest group numerically, and the most widespread, was the Algonquin, to which belong the Micmacs of Nova Scotia, the Ottawas and Ojibways of Central Canada, the Crees of the Middle West, and many other tribes. A second group—the Huron-Iroquois—was, in many respects, remarkable. The Iroquois tribes are notable for having entered into a confederation from which they were often called “The Five Nation Indians.” This alliance gave them a vast advantage over isolated tribes in their savage warfare; and made them for the best part of a century a menace and a terror to the French. They occupied a very advantageous position in what is now New York State, upon a “Height of Land” from which flowed streams in every direction, serving as waterways for their canoes and enabling them to descend with ease and rapidity into the enemy’s country. They were usually friendly to the English colonists; but again and again during the early days did their utmost to destroy the infant settlements of the French and to annihilate the latter’s Indian allies. Many years later the famous Mohawk, Brant, and others of the Iroquois sided with the English in the Revolutionary War, and at its close were granted lands like other loyalists in Canada. The city of Brantford, on the Grand River, was named after the chief, and near to it is the “Mohawk Reserve,” comprising over forty-three thousand six hundred acres, where some four thousand Indians still dwell. [Illustration: THE PRAIRIE AT ELSTOW, SASKATCHEWAN] Akin in race and language to the Iroquois, but in a constant state of hostility to them, were the Hurons, living near the Georgian bay. Amongst them, in the seventeenth century, the Jesuit fathers from France established, at great sacrifice of ease and comfort, a flourishing mission, but in 1648-49 the mission villages were swept out of existence by hordes of Iroquois; many of the missionaries were martyred, and the Hurons, utterly broken, were driven to seek refuge near the French towns.