<P> In Reflections in Bullough's Pond, historian Diana Muir argues that the pre-contact Iroquois were an imperialist, expansionist culture whose cultivation of the corn / beans / squash agricultural complex enabled them to support a large population . They made war primarily against neighboring Algonquian peoples . Muir uses archaeological data to argue that the Iroquois expansion onto Algonquian lands was checked by the Algonquian adoption of agriculture . This enabled them to support their own populations large enough to have sufficient warriors to defend against the threat of Iroquois conquest . The People of the Confederacy dispute whether any of this historical interpretation relates to the League of the Great Peace which they contend is the foundation of their heritage . </P> <P> The Iroquois may be the Kwedech described in the oral legends of the Mi'kmaq nation of Eastern Canada . These legends relate that the Mi'kmaq in the late pre-contact period had gradually driven their enemies--the Kwedech--westward across New Brunswick, and finally out of the Lower St. Lawrence River region . The Mi'kmaq named the last - conquered land Gespedeg or "last land," from which the French derived Gaspé . The "Kwedech" are generally considered to have been Iroquois, specifically the Mohawk; their expulsion from Gaspé by the Mi'kmaq has been estimated as occurring c. 1535--1600 . </P> <P> Around 1535, Jacques Cartier reported Iroquoian - speaking groups on the Gaspé peninsula and along the St. Lawrence River . Archeologists and anthropologists have defined the St. Lawrence Iroquoians as a distinct and separate group (and possibly several discrete groups), living in the villages of Hochelaga and others nearby (near present - day Montreal), which had been visited by Cartier . By 1608, when Samuel de Champlain visited the area, that part of the St. Lawrence River valley had no settlements, but was controlled by the Mohawk as a hunting ground . On the Gaspé peninsula, Champlain encountered Algonquian - speaking groups . The precise identity of any of these groups is still debated . </P> <P> The Iroquois became well known in the southern colonies in the 17th century by this time . After the first English settlement in Jamestown, Virginia (1607), numerous 17th - century accounts describe a powerful people known to the Powhatan Confederacy as the Massawomeck, and to the French as the Antouhonoron . They were said to come from the north, beyond the Susquehannock territory . Historians have often identified the Massawomeck / Antouhonoron as the Haudenosaunee . Other Iroquoian - language tribes included the Erie, who were destroyed by the Iroquois in 1654 over competition for the fur trade . </P>

Who in iroquois society decided over the fate of captives