Seven Nations of Canada

The Seven Nations of The Iroquois Confederacy were a historic confederation of First Nations living in and around the Saint Lawrence River valley beginning in the eighteenth century. They were allied to New France and often included substantial numbers of Roman Catholic converts. During the Seven Years' War (1756–1763), they supported the French against the English. Later, they formed the northern nucleus of the British-led Aboriginal alliance that fought the United States in the American Revolutionary War and the War of 1812.

The Canadian historian Jean-Pierre Sawaya has argued that the federation has existed since the seventeenth century. He does specialized research in the history of Canada's First Nations and the background to their land claims. The Canadian historian John Alexander Dickinson argues that the federation was created during the Seven Years' War, as the British closed in on the territories along the St Lawrence River. Dickinson is a specialist in the history of New France and its relations with the First Nations of the Northeast. There is little first hand evidence to support either view. Dickinson argues that the lack of evidence supports the case for a later date.

The Mohawk historian Darren Bonaparte has summarized what is known. After a disastrous war in 1667 when the French attacked Mohawk villages in present-day New York, some Mohawk converted to Christianity and began to relocate to Kahnawake ("near the rapids") on the Saint Lawrence River opposite the small village of Montreal. By its name and location by a rapids, Kahnawake recalled the village Caughnawaga (in a variant spelling) in the Mohawk homeland. The first village faded as most of its people moved north. The relation between the Mohawk who stayed in New York and those who migrated was, in Bonaparte's words, "as ambiguous as when they were together", in part because they became differentiated by religious practices.

A federation of First Nations bands formed in settlements in the St. Lawrence River valley. It included those Abenaki, Algonquin, and Huron who were more accepting of Catholicism. The Abenaki and Algonquin spoke in languages of the major families of Algonquian. The Mohawk and Onondaga were Iroquois, and the Huron spoke another Iroquoian language. The Mohawk of the federation continued to identify as Mohawk, and as relatives of the Mohawk in traditional Iroquois territory.

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