There appear to have been two or three nations, who supplied very early visitors or residents to ancient Onondaga, namely, the Dutch, French and Spanish, the latter as merely temporary visitors or explorers. Both the Dutch and the French carried on an early trade here with the Iroquois. It is most probable, that there are no remains of European art, or have ever been any disclosed, in this part of the country, one only excepted,[62] which are not due to the early attempts of the Dutch and French, to establish the fur trade among these populous and powerful tribes. To some extent, missionary operations were connected with the efforts of both nations. But whatever was the stress laid on this subject, by Protestants or Catholics, neither object could be secured without the exhibition of firearms and certain military defences, such as stockades and picketed works, with gates, afforded. No trader could, in the 16th and 17th centuries, securely trust his stock of goods, domestic animals, (if he had any,) or his own life, in the midst of fierce and powerful tribes, who acknowledged no superior, and who were, besides, subject to the temporary excitement created by the limited use of alcohol. For we can assign absolutely no date to the early European intercourse with these tribes, in which there was no article of this kind, more or less, employed. Probably we should not have been left, as we are, to mere conjectures, on this subject, at least between the important dates of 1609 and 1664, had not the directors of the State paper office in Holland decided, in 1820, to sell the books and records of the Dutch West India company, as waste paper.[63] [62] Antique stone with an inscription, Albany Academy. [63] Vide Mr. Brodhead’s report.