<P> For nearly 200 years the Iroquois were a powerful factor in North American colonial policy - making decisions . Alignment with Iroquois offered political and strategic advantages to the colonies but the Iroquois preserved considerable independence . Some of their people settled in mission villages along the St. Lawrence River, becoming more closely tied to the French . While they participated in French raids on Dutch and later English settlements, where some Mohawk and other Iroquois settled, in general the Iroquois resisted attacking their own peoples . </P> <P> The Iroquois remained a politically unique, undivided, large Native American polity up until the American Revolution . The League kept its treaty promises to the British Crown . But when the British were defeated, they ceded the Iroquois territory without consultation; many Iroquois had to abandon their lands in the Mohawk Valley and elsewhere and relocate in the northern lands retained by the British . </P> <P> The Iroquois League has also been known as the "Iroquois Confederacy". Modern scholars distinguish between the League and the Confederacy . According to this interpretation of the scholars, the Iroquois League refers to the ceremonial and cultural institution embodied in the Grand Council, while the Iroquois Confederacy is the decentralized political and diplomatic entity that emerged in response to European colonization . According to that theory, "The League" still exists . The Confederacy dissolved after the defeat of the British and allied Iroquois nations in the American Revolutionary War . Today's Iroquois / Six Nations people do not make any distinction between "The League" and "the Confederacy" and use the terms interchangeably . </P> <P> After the defeat of the British and their Iroquois allies in the American Revolutionary War, Britain ceded most of the Iroquois territory, without bringing their allies to the negotiating table . Many of the Iroquois migrated to Canada, forced out of New York because of hostility to the British allies . Those remaining in New York were required to live mostly on reservations . In 1784, a total of 6,000 Iroquois had to confront 240,000 New Yorkers, with land - hungry New Englanders poised to migrate west . "Oneidas alone, who were only 600 strong, owned six million acres, or about 2.4 million hectares . Iroquoia was a land rush waiting to happen ." </P>

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