Great Peace of Montreal
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The Great Peace of Montreal was a peace treaty between New France and 39 First Nations of North America.
It was signed on August 4, 1701, by Louis-Hector de Callière, governor of New France, and 1200 representatives of 39 aboriginal nations of the North East of North America. The treaty ended 100 years of war between the Iroquois, allied to the English, and the French, allied to the Hurons and the Algonquians. It provided 16 years of peaceful relations and trade before war started again.
Present for the diplomatic event were the various peoples part the Iroquois confederacy, the Huron peoples, and the Algonquian peoples.
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[edit] High-Stakes War
The foundation of Quebec City in 1608 by Samuel de Champlain, one of the first governors of New France, marked the beginning of the systematic exploitation of the great northern forests by traders from Metropolitan France.
Control over the fur trade became a high-stakes game among the First Nations, as all of them wanted to be the Europeans' chosen intermediary. The "Fur War" soon sees the Hurons and Algonquins pitted against the Iroquois of the powerful League of Five Nations, who were supported by the Dutch, and later the English colonists.
Military expeditions sent to counter the Iroquois incursions did not allow for a lasting peace agreement advantageous to the French Crown. In an attempt to re-establish peace and royal authority, in 1665 the Carignan-Sallières Regiment was sent to New France to tame the Iroquois nations. The campaign was devastating to the Iroquois, who were forced to look for ways to make peace. A period of prosperity followed for France's colony.
This climate of stability did not last, however. The hostilities soon flared up again, egged on as they were by the colonists of New England, who encouraged their Iroquois allies to attack the Saint Lawrence Valley. The year 1690 sees Governor Frontenac push back an English attack on Quebec City. In retaliation, the Iroquois are forcibly pacified.
Despite the great efforts undertaken and the talks held in Montreal and Quebec City, the realisation of a great peace with the five Iroquois Nations failed.
[edit] Prelude to Peace
Starting in 1697, however, the Iroquois gradually moved away from their previously uncompromising attitude. Their demographic decline, aided by conflicts and epidemics, put their very existence into doubt. At the same time, commerce became almost nonexistent at the end of the century because only the merchants of New England would trade with the Five Nations.
The problem of the hostile Iroquois being solved, nothing was in the way of making a mutually profitable peace. Up until then, many peace treaties had been signed, some between the French and the Native Americans, and some between the tribes themselves, but none lasted. Due to past failures, the negotiation for the treaty had several preliminary stages.
The first conference was held on Iroquois territory at Onontagué in March 1700. In September of the same year, a preparatory peace treaty was signed in Montreal with the five Iroquois Nations. Thirteen Native American symbols are on the treaty. After this first entente, it was decided that a bigger one would be held in Montreal in the summer of 1701 and all Nations of the Great Lakes invited. Selected French emissaries, clergy and soldiers, all well-perceived by the Native Americans, were given this diplomatic task. The negotiations continued during the wait for the big conference; the neutrality of the Five Nations was discussed in Montreal in May 1701.
[edit] The Entente
The first delegations arrived in Montreal at the beginning of the summer of 1701, often after long, hard journeys. The ratification of the treaty was not agreed to immediately, due to the discussions between the Native American representatives and Governor Caillères dragging on, both sides being eager to negotiate as much as possible.
The actual signing of the document took place on a big field prepared for the special occasion, just outside the city. The representatives of each Nation placed their tribe's symbol, most often an animal, at the bottom of the document.
A great banquet followed the solemn occasion, with a peace pipe being shared by the chiefs, each of them praising peace in turn.
This treaty, achieved through negotiations according to Native American diplomatic custom, was meant to end ethnic conflicts. From then on, negotiation would trump direct conflict and the French would agree to act as arbiters during conflicts between signatory tribes. The Iroquois promised to be neutral in case of conflict between the French and English colonies.
[edit] After the Treaty
Commerce and exploratory expeditions quietly resumed in peace after the signing of the treaty. The French explorer Cadillac left Montreal to explore the Great Lakes region, eventually founding the city of Detroit, which had a promising future. Jesuit priests resumed their spiritual mission-based work in the north.
The Great Peace of Montreal is a unique diplomatic event in the history of the Americas. Astonishingly, the treaty is still valid and recognised as such by the Native American tribes involved.
Contrary to the Spanish policy (denounced by authors such as De Las Casas) of enslaving and exploiting the natives, the French chose to follow the path of reason in New France. While conflicts with the Native Americans were various and bloody and did not entirely cease after 1701, they never adopted the brutal tone of the Spanish.
On the contrary, Native American culture impressed many settlers, proved by the tradition of the coureurs des bois, intermediaries in the fur trade. Only the French, of all the colonising forces in the Americas, did not try to exterminate the natives, enslave them or herd them into reservations; they evangelised instead, perhaps a tacit admission of the natives being equal to the Whites and therefore "worthy" of being evangelised.
