<P> The war ensued, and the Iroquois broke their confederation . Hundreds of years of precedent and collective government was trumped by the immensity of the American Revolutionary War . The Oneida and Tuscarora decided to support the colonists, while the rest of the Iroquois League (the Cayuga, Mohawk, Onondaga, and Seneca) sided with the British and Loyalists . At the conclusion of the war the fear that the colonists would not respect the Iroquois' pleas came true, especially after the majority of the Six Nations decided to side with the British and were no longer considered trustworthy by the newly independent Americans . In 1783 the Treaty of Paris was signed . While the treaty included peace agreements between all of the European nations involved in the war as well as the newborn United States, it made no provisions for the Iroquois, who were left to be treated with by the new United States government as it saw fit . </P> <P> After the Revolutionary War, the ancient central fireplace of the League was re-established at Buffalo Creek . By 1811, Methodist and Episcopalian missionaries established missions to assist the Oneida and Onondaga in western New York . However, white settlers continued to move into the area . By 1821, a group of Oneida led by Eleazar Williams, son of a Mohawk woman, went to Wisconsin to buy land from the Menominee and Ho - Chunk and thus move their people further westward . </P> <P> Captain Joseph Brant and a group of Iroquois left New York to settle in the Province of Quebec (present - day Ontario). To partially replace the lands they had lost in the Mohawk Valley and elsewhere because of their fateful alliance with the British Crown, they were given a large land grant on the Grand River, at Six Nations of the Grand River First Nation . Brant's crossing of the river gave the original name to the area: Brant's Ford . By 1847, European settlers began to settle nearby and named the village Brantford . The original Mohawk settlement was on the south edge of the present - day Canadian city at a location still favorable for launching and landing canoes . In the 1830s many additional Onondaga, Oneida, Seneca, Cayuga, and Tuscarora relocated into the Indian Territory, the Province of Upper Canada, and Wisconsin . </P> <P> Many Iroquois (mostly Mohawk) and Iroquois - descended Métis people living in Lower Canada (primarily at Kahnawake) took employment with the Montreal - based North West Company during its existence from 1779 to 1821 and became voyageurs or free traders working in the North American fur trade as far west as the Rocky Mountains . They are known to have settled in the area around Jasper's House and possibly as far west as the Finlay River and north as far as the Pouce Coupe and Dunvegan areas, where they founded new Aboriginal communities which have persisted to the present day claiming either First Nations or Métis identity and indigenous rights . The Michel Band, Mountain Métis, and Aseniwuche Winewak Nation of Canada in Alberta and the Kelly Lake community in British Columbia all claim Iroquois ancestry . </P>

Who were the iroquois and why were they important