Arendt Van Curler, whom the red men call “Corlaer,” a well-educated Hollander, who lived in America from 1630 to 1667, was superintendent of the Dutch settlement where Albany now stands and later became the founder of the city of Schenectady. He saw at once the value of a league of peace with the Iroquois. He traveled among them, learned their language, won their friendship and held them ever faithful, first to the Dutch, and then after 1664 to the English. “The covenant of Corlaer” became with the Iroquois a holy sacrament, and the policy of all English governors was to “brighten the silver chain” of mutual friendship. Van Curler was drowned near Rock Regio in Lake Champlain in 1667. Sir William Johnson from 1738 to 1774 continued, expanded and strengthened the work of Van Curler. On the other hand the Five Nations became the Six Nations, when in 1722 the Tuscaroras, driven from the Carolinas in 1713, were formally admitted into the confederacy. For a century and a half the Indian was a political factor in determining the question whether the Anglo-Saxon or the Latin civilization should dominate North America. This question was settled on the heights of Quebec, in 1763, when England became mistress of the Continent. During all this time the French were never able, in war or in peace, by their money or other gifts, by threats or smiles, by political envoys or religious emissaries, to break the “silver chain” or to shake the loyalty of the Iroquois to English-speaking men. To this day the Indians call the governor of New York “Corlaer,” and Queen Victoria, their ruler, “Kora Kowa,” or the Great Corlaer. When, under King George, the colonists in America and the corrupt British parliament and court quarreled and began war, Congress hoped to keep the friendship or neutrality of the red men. In August, 1775, the first conference and treaty was made at Albany. Later General Schuyler was sent into the Mohawk Valley to treat with the Iroquois and met a council of chiefs at German Flats. “This is a family quarrel,” he said, “and we want you to keep out of it,” and the red men promised to do so. General Herkimer also met a great gathering of warriors from the Six Nations at Unadilla.