From this height of their ambition the French were kept aloof by the deadly enmity of the most fierce and powerful savages in the New World. The Indians of those days who came into contact with the white settlers were divided into many tribes with different names, but they all belonged to one or another of three great stocks or families. First, there were the _Mobilians_, far down south; to this stock belonged the Creeks, Cherokees, and others. Secondly, there were the _Algonquins_, comprising the Delawares to the south of the Susquehanna; the Miamis, Shawnees, and others in the western wilderness; the Ottawas in Canada; and all the tribes still left to the northeast of New England. Thirdly, there were the _Iroquois_, of whom the most famous were the Five Nations of what is now central New York. These five great tribes--the Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas, and Senecas--had for several generations been united in a confederacy which they likened to a long wigwam with its eastern door looking out upon the valley of the Hudson and its western toward the falls of Niagara. It was known far and wide over the continent as the Long House, and wherever it was known it was dreaded. When Frenchmen and Englishmen first settled in America, this Iroquois league was engaged in a long career of conquest. Algonquin tribes all the way from the Connecticut to the Mississippi were treated as its vassals and forced to pay tribute in weapons and wampum. This conquering career extended through the seventeenth century, until it was brought to an end by the French. When the latter began making settlements in Canada, they courted the friendship of their Algonquin neighbours, and thus, without dreaming what deadly seed they were sowing, they were led to attack the terrible Long House. It was easy enough for Champlain in 1609 to win a victory over savages who had never before seen a white man or heard the report of a musket; but the victory was a fatal one for the French, for it made the Iroquois their eternal enemies. The Long House allied itself first with the Dutch and afterwards with the English, and thus checked the progress of the French toward the lower Hudson. We too seldom think how much we owe to those formidable savages. [Sidenote: The French and the Iroquois.]