The Canadian historian John Alexander Dickinson argues that the federation was created during the Seven Years' War, as the British closed in on the territories along the St Lawrence River.
The relation between the Mohawk who stayed in New York and those who migrated was, in Bonaparte's words, "as ambiguous as when they were together", in part because they became differentiated by religious practices.
In 1755, Seven Nations fighters and their French allies had prepared an ambush for the British army on the portage between Lake George and the Hudson River.
[3] During the French colonial period and due to influence of Jesuit missionaries, many of these peoples converted to Catholicism, while often keeping elements on their traditional religion and ceremonies.
[5] The majority of the residents in the four western towns were closely related to the Iroquois of the Six Nations — mostly Mohawk (Kanesetake, Kahnawake, and Akwesasne) or Oneida,Onondaga and Cayuga (Oswegatchie).
By this, the Seven Nations negotiated free access between Canada and New York, to maintain their important fur trade between Montreal and Albany.
[7] In the 1783 Treaty of Paris following the American Revolutionary War, the British Crown ceded all its territories south of the Great Lakes to the United States (US).
As the treaty made no mention of England's Native American allies, the US had to negotiate separate peace agreements with each of the nations.
The important issues to be settled included not only peace, but also the ownership of vast tracts of land which the United States considered to be under its control by the British cession.
By 1789, US officials realized that, in the words of Secretary of War Henry Knox, "the Indians are especially tenacious of their lands, and generally do not relinquish their right, excepting on the principle of a specific consideration, expressly given for the purchase of the same.
"[8] After the United States and the Seven Nations signed a treaty in 1797, its legitimacy was challenged by other Native Americans on the grounds that the signatories were unauthorized to cede land.