This major event was forgotten over the centuries, absent from our history books and in our collective memory.
As de Callière had hoped, the agreement holds despite a conflict or two over the following years and consolidates the broad network of alliances between the French and the Amerindians, a network that is maintained right up until the conquest of New France by the British in 1760. Governor de Callière, for his part, promises the provide merchandise at lower cost to the Native People.įinally, the Great Peace slows the continental expansion of the British colonies and facilitates New France’s. In return, the Iroquois, weakened by the extremely long conflict, obtain the right to trade freely.
PORT ROYALE 2 NEUTRAL AFTER WAR FREE
The Iroquois agree to free their captives, to stay neutral in conflicts between France and England and to no longer oppose the founding of Detroit, at the heart of the Great Lakes. With the Great Peace of Montréal, the Native People renounce war and they also defer to the French to settle disagreements as well as accepting to share their hunting territories. On August 4, 1701, the deliberations come to an end, and the delegates of the First Nations place their totemic marks beside Louis-Hector de Callière's name, who signs on behalf of the King of France.
Exhausted and weakened by illness, Kondiaronk dies the next day and his funeral is organized in Montréal. As a result of his convincing speech, the most resistant factions are convinced to conclude an agreement. Over the course of a week, delicate negotiations and long discussions take place, but it is the intervention of the Huron-Wendat Grand Chief, Kondiaronk, that provides the turning point. After several years of negotiations marked by numerous setbacks and reversals, more than 1300 delegates from 39 different First Nations in the north-east of America finally came together at Montréal, in August 1701, to agree to a general peace treaty between themselves and the French. These negotiations undertaken by Frontenac, Governor of New France, culminated under the governorship of his successor, Louis-Hector de Callière. In 1690 negotiations betweeen the French and the Indigenous People were initiated, in order to put an end to a hundred years of conflict centered around the fur trade.