"The project of a League [among the 'Five Nations' of the Iroquois] originated with the Onondagas, among whom it was first suggested, as a means to enable them more effectually to resist the pressure of contiguous nations. The epoch of its establishment cannot now be decisively ascertained; although the circumstances attending its formation are still preserved by tradition with great minuteness. These traditions all refer to the northern shore of the Onondaga lake, as the place where the Iroquois chiefs assembled in general congress, to agree upon the terms and principles of the compact. ... After the formation of the League, the Iroquois rose rapidly in power and influence. ... With the first consciousness of rising power, they turned their long-cherished resentment upon the Adirondacks, who had oppressed them in their infancy as a nation, and had expelled them from their country, in the first struggle for the ascendancy. {91} ... At the era of French discovery (1535), the latter nation [the Adirondacks] appear to have been dispossessed of their original country, and driven down the St. Lawrence as far as Quebec. ... A new era commenced with the Iroquois upon the establishment of the Dutch trading-post at Orange, now Albany, in 1615. ... Friendly relations were established between the Iroquois and the Dutch, which continued without interruption until the latter surrendered their possessions upon the Hudson to the English in 1664. During this period a trade sprang up between them in furs, which the Iroquois exchanged for European fabrics, but more especially for fire-arms, in the use of which they were afterwards destined to become so expert. The English, in turn, cultivated the same relations of friendship. ... With the possession of fire-arms commenced not only the rapid elevation, but absolute supremacy of the Iroquois over other Indian nations. In 1643, they expelled the Neuter Nation from the Niagara peninsula and established a permanent settlement at the mouth of that river. They nearly exterminated, in 1653, the Eries, who occupied the south side of Lake Erie, and from thence east to the Genesee, and thus possessed themselves of the whole area of western New York, and the northern part of Ohio. About the year 1670, after they had finally completed the dispersion and subjugation of the Adirondacks and Hurons, they acquired possession of the whole country between lakes Huron, Erie and Ontario, and of the north bank of the St. Lawrence, to the mouth of the Ottawa river, near Montreal. ... They also made constant inroads upon the New England Indians. ... In 1680, the Senecas with 600 warriors invaded the country of the Illinois, upon the borders of the Mississippi, while La Salle was among the latter. ... At various times, both before and after this period, the